Is a Call Center Right for Your Small Business?

Outsourcing has turned so many services into commodities that the personal touch that used to distinguish one business among its competitors is rarer today than it has ever been. Consequently, that personal touch is also perhaps more crucial than ever for a business that wants to pull ahead in a competitive marketplace.

But delivering that “personal touch” may not necessarily mean that your own employees are responsible for all the contact your company makes with customers. If you choose wisely, you can get a fully outsourced call center service that can uphold your standards for good customer interaction.

You may also decide to develop your call center services in-house, in which case you can support your customer service or sales staff with technology that helps to route calls, offers multiple ways to interact with customers, and manages the information your customers provide. As a third approach to setting up your company’s call center, you may choose a hybrid option, relying partly on outsourced services and partly on your own call center system and personnel to take care of all your customer contacts.

The good news for small businesses is that there are affordable tools and services in all these call center options. Call centers are no longer formal, complex, and expensive solutions only for those with dedicated agents. Managing communications, and integrating the management of that information along with other aspects of customer relations, including customer history, is now available to businesses of any size at a fraction of the cost from five to 10 years ago.

Call centers come with different functions; there are special functions that make a contact center different from the phone-only interaction of the traditional call center. There are different levels of call center service and technology, from fully outsourced solutions to the software and hardware that will allow you to set up your own in-house contact center.