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The most valuable asset any company can have is customer trust. Having a robust customer base composed of long-term clients that openly endorses your business is the key ingredient for a successful company. The best way to gain loyal consumers is by crafting a great customer service experience. In the United States, when a person wants to contact a company for any reason, roughly 58% of them try to reach their customer service number

Building a strong customer base has always been a challenge. It takes years of establishing rapport, finding leads and brand-building. For larger companies, it’s a process worth spending billions of dollars on. However, small business owners simply can’t afford to balance both operating a business and providing a great customer experience.

The BPO industry has made great strides in seamlessly integrating with other companies as their primary customer support. Hiring call centers has now become an excellent option for those who are struggling with handling their customers. Here are 5 reasons why we think that partnering with a call center is an excellent business move for smaller companies.

Cost Reduction

Arguably the biggest benefit for hiring a call center is how much more affordable it is than developing your own. Running an in-house call center is a huge undertaking during which a company must, among other things:

  • Rent office space for support agents
  • Buy the necessary equipment and software tools
  • Manage turn-over and reduce their effect on projects
  • Purchase disaster recovery tools
  • Hire and train personnel constantly

For smaller companies, investing so much resources into a single business function is not applicable. That is why most call centers offer turn-key customer support solutions which allows anyone to have a customer support service up and running nearly overnight with minimum overhead.

IdeasUnlimited was established with the belief that call centers need to be extremely adaptable. It is natural for small businesses to scale up or down, or to have off seasons with little customer activity. To minimize financial strains, our call centers offer flexible packages where aspects like number of agents and monthly charges can be fine tuned on a per-need basis.

Overseas Expansion

Most smaller companies aspire to become larger and the only way to do that is to reach a wider audience. In our experience, we’ve had many business owners in the United States sharing their desire to expand in Asia but failing to do so simply because of the language barrier. Something as simple as a difference in culture can prevent smaller companies from tapping into overseas markets.

This is another reason for SMEs to seriously consider outsourcing to a call center. Knowing that Southeast Asia has now become a call center hub, this is perhaps the best time for companies in the West to work with a call center in order to target the East.

Many entrepreneurs in the startup culture have looked for ‘easy-wins’ to expand their business. Hiring a call center to gain access to markets overseas is perhaps just the right solution. Based on this notion, IdeasUnlimited offers multilingual support so business owners can gain customers from foreign countries without having to directly deal with them. Plus, it’s extremely cost effective to outsource. Infact, hiring translators from your local region can end up being even more expensive whereas an overseas agent will not only cost less, but will be better attuned to the local culture of the foreign country you wish to target. IdeasUnlimited is well accustomed with clients who wish to expand eastwards and our presence in Southeast Asia has helped many of them to reach that goal.

24/7 Availability

Roughly 64% of people who call customer service expect instantaneous responses throughout the day. Being responsive to your customers regardless of after-hours and holidays is vital for any business. Even when your staff is not in the office, someone always needs to be ready to answer calls, resolve queries and handle complaints. This is a tough ask for smaller companies who are already preoccupied with the rest of their daily operations.

For most call centers, 24/7 service has become an industry staple. However, many of these call centers will only work on large-scale projects in order to provide round-the-clock service. But there are call centers that offer always-on customer support for even small scale businesses thanks to customizable packages that can be scaled down. If a small business can find a cost-effective option, then a call center to represent their business 24/7 is definitely something that can help improve customer retention. IdeasUnlimited has spent over 10 years building and bolstering its call center infrastructure in order to have zero downtime so it can truly serve 24/7.

Brand Building

Regardless of size, customers always expect companies to have professional customer service. In order to build a strong brand, smaller companies need to have the same capabilities as large enterprises when it comes to dealing with customers. Not just in call volume, but in quality as well. 

Call center agents are essentially the front line of your business. By being the first point of contact for your customers, they can present a professional company persona thanks to their training, coaching and pre-planned scripts. This is exactly what can help small businesses compete with bigger brands that dominate their market.

Coaching a staff in-house for smaller businesses is usually not feasible. In call centers, a carefully crafted hierarchy of managers ensures that even newly inducted agents can communicate professionally and effectively. Smaller businesses that hope to elevate their brand should definitely consider partnering with such call centers. IdeasUnlimited has had a number of successful projects during which we enhanced the brand image of numerous clients including their app rating, online recognition, customer score and much more.

Focusing on your Niche

Most small companies need to be purely focused on delivering great products and services. Anything other than their core business is considered secondary, including customer service.

At IdeasUnlimited, we always encourage newer and smaller businesses to stick to their strengths while outsourcing everything else. A great benefit of hiring a call center is that it allows you to do just that.

One can think of working with a call center as an effort to streamline your business. By offloading customer service duties, it allows more time, money and effort to instead be invested in building better products and services. Plus, many call centers provide regular feedback and reports which can help you further improve your business strategies.

CONCLUSION

IdeasUnlimited specializes in supporting small businesses. We’ve had great success in turning companies into global powerhouses. We’re always looking for the business to guide towards success. If you’re looking to work with a call center, we’re always willing to help. Be sure to contact our team or leave us a comment below.

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