THE SUPERLATIVE GUIDE TO CALL CENTER FUNCTIONS AND DUTIES

Call center services are highly imperative for businesses, irrespective of their genre, and operational size. The right call center can be tremendously beneficial for your business. A call center takes charge of the most tedious and important business segment, your customers. They bridge the gap between a business and its customers, ensuring their comfort and satisfaction.

Customers expect expert customer services, and for that reason, call centers are upgrading their tools and services to achieve the goals. Every time we have an issue regarding product/service, you connect with a call center executive and get it sorted.

But, do you really know what call centers are about?

This article will highlight everything about call center services  and its primary functions.

WHAT IS THE CALL CENTER?

A call center is a business entity or a third-party solution, providing a personalized experience to the customers by facilitating inbound and outbound communication with them. The clientele includes both existing and new customers, handled by a team of advisors, otherwise called as agents. Small, medium and large-sized organizations outsource their customer dealing services to such call centers.

Call centers deal with:

Customer support

Handling the queries

Carrying out telemarketing

Conducting market research

WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A CALL CENTER AND A CONTACT CENTER?

Although both these terms are used interchangeably, contact centers and call centers differ in their dealing with voice calls. Contact centers handle queries from channels like email, live chat, messaging, etc., while call centers deal with only voice-related queries and complaints.

WHY ARE CALL CENTERS VALUABLE?

Fundamentally, call centers are valuable for companies because they provide an enriching, effective, and affordable communication channel between customers and brands. It allows businesses to learn about customer queries, complaints, and requests while providing necessary solutions for the same. Call centers provide personalized customer services, keeping a track of their journey, and offering proactive services in return.

TYPES OF CALL CENTERS

The following are different types of call centers for businesses:

Inbound Call centers: These are the most popular types of call centers. It is used for answering customer queries as well as transactions. These call centers take care of all the incoming calls instead of actively making calls. Their call center services include chat support, email responses, technology support, loyalty programs, etc. The number of calls handled by an agent is not fixed.

Outbound call centers: These call centers indulge in outbound calls or outgoing calls. The representatives connect with customers for sales, debt collection, surveys, new products/services or follow up of an inbound call. Outbound call center services are trickier than inbound ones since they pick random clients and timings, which can annoy the receiver.

KEY FUNCTIONS PERFORMED BY CALL CENTERS

The following are the key functions taken up by call centers. 

Boosts sales opportunities

Outbound call centers employ sales agents who call prospective customers to generate leads. Their primary motto is to generate new sales and revenue while expanding the customer base. Generally, call centers have a target to achieve for each employee or team. Every agent should accomplish the goal within the mentioned time frame.

Provide personalized customer service 

Customer service and support are some of the prominent functions of a call center. The idea is to provide the best experience for each customer. An agent should possess strong conversational skills, be an active listener, and harness positivity in their tone. Call center executives should be able to able to persuade customers, related the product with their pain points, and engage them in a lively conversation. They should be well trained to offer services via email, social media channels, live chat, etc. Customers are told to provide feedback on agent services, which are used are a metric to evaluate their performance.

Optimum utilization of resources 

Cost minimization in a call center is a process optimizing the efficiency of utilizing the resources. Mostly, companies outsource some tedious and repetitive tasks to the BPO services center to boost their revenue or minimize the costs across all aspects of their business. Cost-saving and optimization is a pondering thought for small and medium-sized businesses. This is where the average handling time measured by call centers come into play. It defines the time taken by a representative to execute an outbound sales or services call or handle customer issues in the case of the outbound call center.

Organizations can take charge of the most thought-provoking aspects of their business and can leave the customer dealing services to an apt and reputed call center. It leads to the optimum utilization of your resources without exhaustion.

Customer retention services 

Customer retention is the primary motto of any call center. Businesses are everything because of their customers and they can’t simply afford to lose them. So, in a way, call center services take care of the most important asset of any business, their customers. Call centers are focused to increase the customer base while investing in existing ones as well. They should provide a positive experience on their first contact while solving all the products/services related queries.

Maintain a positive reputation of the brand 

There is an infinite number of brands available in the market. Some of them are selling similar services and products. So, what differentiates a brand from the other. It’s their quality services, reputation in the market, and its loyal customer base. Call centers are the most valuable resource for brands.