Have you ever wondered how it feels to be working in an inbound call center services company or in any outsourcing BPO companies in general? Sure, it is not everyone’s cup of tea because it could become quite hectic sometimes but once you gain a bit of experience, you will slowly become agile over time. Outsourcing BPO companies generally hire candidates that are high in energy and strongly motivated because it requires them to be.
Before discussing the tips and techniques for working in a call center, first, you must contemplate whether outsourcing BPO companies are right for you. BPO job requires more agility than creativity. It is more important for the candidate to be flexible and hardworking than to be creative. It is an entry-level job indeed but it requires you to have the endurance to work under immense pressure. You would be dealing with a whole lot of things.
●Nowadays, inbound call center services have improved a lot but facing strong competition with the omnichannel facilitations provided by the companies. Customers are able to communicate their concerns over chat, messages, and emails pretty easily these days.
●The requirement for an inbound call center service is lowered due to omnichannel support systems but more than 65% of individuals including all age groups still prefer inbound call center services for resolving complex issues and concerns. It is because inbound call center services provide strong and reliable support.
●Regardless, of whether it is inbound call center service or outbound call center service, as an agent, you must handle both jobs with equal courteousness. You can easily become irate while doing the job because most of the time you will be interacting with customers that are irate already.
●Your job as an agent will be to provide them resolution for the problem but more importantly, you must be empathetic towards them. Acknowledging the customer’s problems is important but doing it gracefully is critical.
●If you have a knack of getting succumbed to the frustration of the opposite person easily then an inbound call center job is probably not your thing. Similarly, if you are not strongly motivated and positive from the inside, you probably couldn’t give enough reasons for the person to buy something in an outbound call center service. The outbound call center services generally involve sales and marketing campaigns.
Having said that, it is more important to learn the work culture of a call center before venturing into a BPO career. People that have firsthand experience working in an inbound call center service would give you different inputs about the BPO industry and people who have worked in an outbound call center service have a different experience altogether. So you probably will get entangled with a mix of inputs of people.
The common part of every call center service is that it involves a lot of calling. You will need to communicate with hundreds of people effectively, without losing diplomacy. No matter how the customer is making you feel, you will need to stay professional all the time. Generally, every call center service has a zero-tolerance policy for getting angry, sarcastic, or insulting to the customer during the call even if the customer was at fault.
Defining Call Center Service and Its Functions
A call center service is a functional team that acts as a front of an organization for handling customers. The group is a part of a service department that included agents, team leads, managers, SMEs, and other members. The agents are also known as representatives, that’s because they act as the face of the organization therefore, it is imperative they must act wisely. The behavior of the agents reflects the behavior of the organization.
●In layman’s terms, a call center service is divided into 2 models - inbound call center service and outbound call center service. Both teams cater to the various transactional and open cases of customers. These teams are responsible for creating a good rapport between the organization and customers.
●The job role of a call center executive involves sales, grievance support, collections, customer retention, conversion, etc. The agents are given proper training before letting them interact with customers.
●Team leaders and managers are equipped with software like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and various analytics software that helps them to distribute, manage, draw insight, gauge performance, and gather intelligence about the call center operation.
Also, there are quality analysts responsible for measuring the quality of conversations between agents and customers. They constantly monitor the call performance and etiquette of the agents and provide training for bettering communications further.
Depending upon the organization’s operational requirements, we contemplate the complexity of call center service operations. Some of the call center processes are intricate, so they require Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to keep them abreast of the technicalities.
Understanding the Types of Call Center Services
Conventionally, we only had two types of call center services and we have already discussed them in the previous sections a little bit. Over time call center services or outsourcing BPO companies in general, got evolved. Basically, the objective of every organization is to make everything convenient for customers.
Issues and problems will never cease to pertain in every customer-centric company. That is why every organization tries to introduce new models and platforms for helping customers in the best possible ways. The requirement for customer convenience has triggered the emergence of robust communicative methods.
Today, we have different types of channels and platforms for providing comprehensive support for customers. We are going to discuss those channels and platforms further. Understanding the types of call center service is important for knowing whether a BPO career would suit you.
Virtual Call Center Services
Unlike a usual call center service, virtual call center services work slightly differently. These call centers own software that enables them to distribute calls to IP addresses situated at different locations. The agents don’t necessarily have to sit in a particular location. They could be seated anywhere in any time zone. The necessary props required for handling call communications are provided to these agents by the third-party company.
Virtual call centers are becoming largely popular as many companies are starting to adopt them for their cost-effectiveness. One of the major benefits of working from a remote location is that it allows the agent to work during off hours, providing customers with a round-the-clock online support facility. At the beginning stage, the agents willing to work for the third-party company must first learn about the client company’s business process.
Inbound Call Center Services
Whenever a customer calls a business number for getting assistance related to their products or services, a representative is sitting on the other end of the line waiting to assist the customer. The call center representatives are responsible for handling all customer inquiries. They are equipped with skills related to technical support, grievance support, empathy, problem-solving and good communication.
Working in an inbound call center service also requires the agent to be well-spoken, and understanding, assume good intentions from every customer, have a helping tendency, polite and be analytical. The agent who possesses all these qualities are capable of handling the job quite effortlessly. It is paramount because the incoming calls are usually unfiltered - customers could be angry, emotional, devastated, toxic, and irate.
Outbound Call Center Services
Assisting the customer post-sales usually comes under outbound call center service, meaning, it is a call made on the company’s behalf after the customer has made the purchase. One might think why would this be necessary? It is like asking for trouble and in reality, it is sometimes. However, it is done to create better relations with the customers. These calls are made to make sure the customer is having no trouble with the purchase.
It doesn’t matter whether it was a product or a service. The key point is we do want the customer to make any returns or refunds after purchase. We try to avoid customers’ purchase remorse. It is possible that the customer would try inbound call service for getting assistance but couldn’t get it on time, have trouble using the product, might have a question they didn’t ask the first time, or is feeling unsatisfied with the purchase.
To make sure that the customers have a smooth journey all the way through until they have had enough experience with the product they have purchased, post-sales services are rendered. Outbound call center service is a part of after-sales service. Further, another big purpose of outbound call center service is leading sales. Outbound sales calls are an integral part of sales campaigns that involve sending purchase proposals to people directly.
Automated Call Center Services
Well, this one may be not your concern because automated call center services are run by computer-based systems that are designed to store and relay pre-recorded voice messages for general queries, a user interface that allows customers to make transactions, set appointments, receive updates, and raise tickets for running particular tasks. Earlier it was done using the software.
Now things have been made more interactive with artificial intelligence.
Everything can be done using an interface and the functionality of the automated systems can be extended depending on the complexity of the purpose. The overall cost for setting up an automated call center service is relatively lower than a live-agent-based call center set up but people still like to share their inconveniences with a readily available agent rather than an automated system powered with artificial intelligence.
Omnichannel Call Center Services
As we discussed previously, omnichannel customer support systems are gaining huge popularity among people because it provides a comprehensive round-the-clock customer support service on almost all the channels where the customer usually hangs out e.g social media channels.
Online chat support, email, and SMS were already a part of omnichannel customer support. Now with the advent of social media, things have been made easier for customers. Customers are now able to connect and communicate with businesses anytime and anywhere.
Conclusion:
Hence, these were some of the major types of call center services lively present at this moment. After catching up with the work models of different types of call center services, you will be able to know which one of these types suits better with your profile. Working in a BPO can be highly lucrative if you know how to align your skills with the job requirements to get the maximum results.
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