Call Center Outsourcing Vs Call Center Insourcing: Which one is Better?

An organization's business operations can be mainly classified into two categories - core business operations and regular business operations. The core business operations involve activities that are privy and prudent to the business owners. Every business owner has a unique way of running a business and they all start with an idea that can stand out.

That is what makes your business different than your competitors, though you belong to the same industry. Regular business operations are carried out in a similar old-fashioned way. They do not require constant innovation and hyper-brainstorming. Customer handling is one such department of a business that requires a lot of care and attention.

However, customer support operations should be done properly. That is why industries related to transport, energy, retail, healthcare, e-commerce, clothing, and various other product-based, they are entitled to provide an extensive customer support department that works on daily concerns and even entertains the most trivial issues of customers.

Aspects of Call Center Outsourcing

The process of hiring an outside workforce for managing customer operations is call center outsourcing. Call center outsourcing can be fruitful and contribute significantly to client companies. An outside call answering service eradicates all the possible discrepancies associated with customer handling.

There are two main reasons behind that - First, call center outsourcing agencies are more experienced and skillful in handling customer operations. Second, the expenses and risks associated with call center outsourcing agencies are relatively lower than insourcing call center operations. Plus, they carry more robust resources for delivering the services.

Aspects of Call Center Insourcing

Well, it is just the opposite of call center outsourcing. Rather than seeking an outside workforce, the management decides to hand over the responsibility of customer-handling operations to a single person or a department.

Now there could be a couple of scenarios in establishing an in-house call center service - the management will need to invest in creating an entirely new division of customer support and it will require resources - human and technological.

There are going to be challenges associated with the skills requirement and level of expertise to handle such an elaborate and crucial department. If handled poorly, the customer support division can deliver catastrophic results.

Read More: Tips to Consider While Hiring Call Center Outsourcing Company in India

Comparison Between Call Center Outsourcing and Insourcing

Management, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness are a few parameters that we need to consider before concluding things. There have been many instances where call center insourcing methodology has been greatly consequential and at the same time cost-efficient. To obtain success from insourcing customer operations, you will have to have a great deal of expertise in this area. You must ascertain every little aspect.

Customer handling is not just a division, but it is an entire ecosystem. If you dig deeper into the concepts of establishing a call center service, you are dealing with tons of data, metrics, KPIs, employee management and training, and a lot more. Only if you possess an in-house team or department capable enough to adroitly accomplish all these objectives, should you venture into the call center business.

• Unfortunately, the success rates of in-house call center service are figuratively low and seldom have the companies ever witnessed remarkable results in recent years.
• It has also been observed that the call center insourcing division has only worked profitably when the whole process ran on a smaller scale.
• As soon as the customer base is expanded, the discrepancies become more intricate and difficult to manage. Eventually, the companies often find themselves searching for a call center outsourcing agency.
• The customer handling division is not that difficult to understand but it requires a lot of manpower and diligence.
• Every company can’t devote its employees to customer handling as a full-time drill because there are other core business activities that require more attention.
• Core business activities such as product development and making stronger business-to-business (B2B) relations with multiple stakeholders.
• Essentially, these core business activities can’t be outsourced as it requires handling many confidential business operations. The business development division always remains closer to the chest.

Therefore, outsourcing the customer operation would be the best bet rather than making it an in-house drill. The only difficult part of hiring a call center service is finding the right one. Ever since the call center industry has evolved, the number of call center outsourcing agencies has grown in huge numbers. They are dime a dozen.

Wrapping up all the major aspects

When it comes to the call center service, there is no ready, aim, and fire protocol. You have to act very conscientiously at every step but never feel reluctant to try new strategies. In many cases, the in-house call center outsourcing model has worked pretty well but in other cases, it has even failed miserably. The point is, every company should understand that customer handling is not a simple procedure.

• We need to understand some of the ground rules of call center operations. It primarily involves a lot of manpower and manhours for administrating call center management.
• The work can get quite tedious and challenging at any given point. For example, some businesses drastically run out of proper resources for handling peak season when customers are rushing in for assistance at a significant rate.
• Some companies might feel overwhelmed during these times as they are outnumbered in terms of staff members and tools at the same time. Therefore, they should be well prepared during those crucial times.
• As you venture into the business of call centers, you will need to analyze many factors before making the final decision. Do you often encounter a large number of inbound calls on a daily basis? Do you incur incoming calls day and night?
• Also, you must know how long it takes for an agent to finish a call on an average basis. Are the existing number of agents enough to handle an increased call flow? How many calls are missed daily? Also, there are other things such as customer satisfaction (CSAT), and customer ratings that need to be analyzed.
• Having said all that, you must then confirm whether you only your company is short of analytics tools, CRM, or the number of agents. All these are resources required for running a call center service smoothly.
• Knowing whether you need a specific resource or set of resources is also crucial for determining whether we need in-source or outsourced call center service for the company. If it is just about tools, you can lease software or application for tracking the call center performance of your in-house call center.
• By installing robust analytics software, you can get a lot of insights into improvement areas of your call center. You can also think about hiring a subject matter expert that can share practical viewpoints about having an in-house or outsourced call center service in the company.

It is understandable that many companies feel more comfortable in deploying insourcing the call center service because they have a better conviction of the performance and results. They do not need to take consent from an expert for implementing a new strategy. Plus, it helps them to have better control, more privacy, and higher levels of coordination. Since the staff members come directly under their jurisdiction, they are more coherent.

Conversely, having a third-party company to handle the call center service could be highly beneficial too. You will need to brainstorm a lot of ideas. Most importantly, you should only hire a third party when you have well aware of their costs and return on investments. If you are having a customer base that can’t be contained by having an in-house team, you should hire a third party. Also, know what values you are getting from them.

Interesting Blog: Frequently Asked Questions On Call Center Outsourcing

Key Take Aways Previous Arguments

Having an in-house call center service can be quite easy and manageable as long as the customer base is limited and your team is able to handle it. In-house agents have better knowledge about the company’s product and the work model. They are able to make a good impression on customers as they are well aware of things. In case there is a need for change in policies, it can quickly rectified and amended at the best possible ways.

However, the moment you start expanding your business, you will need to recruit more staff and train them, and monitoring the overall process performance becomes intricate. The work becomes more tedious and slowly loses focus from the core business areas, which is bad for business. In such situations, you will definitely need an outsourcing partner who can quickly integrate with your business operations and handle your customer for you. Someone who can ensure absolute quality and maintain customer satisfaction rate despite the numbers.

Also check: Security Tips for Call Centre Outsourcing Companies

Conclusion:

After keeping all the arguments into consideration, hiring a call center outsourcing agency would be the best option for running a product-based or customer-oriented business.

It has been more than 20 years since the call center industry came into action and since then we have enough evidence that outsourcing is always a better alternative to the in-house customer handling division. It will not only highly consequential but also cost-effective.