Insightful Business Plan for Outbound or Inbound Call Center Services

Before diving into any business, we always need to construct a perfect plan of action. Similarly, before getting started with a call center business, you must have a nice plan that contains all the maneuvers and a list of things that must be executed. Of course, it is always advised to have a plan B in place, just in case things don’t pan out so well with plan A.

Things Involving in a Call Center Business Plan

What does a call center business plan entail? Of course, the plan most likely describes the purpose first, then the subsequent objectives, outline, benefits, and costs. Now that we have answers to “What” and “Why,” it is now time to consider the question “How.” The plan must consist of a step-by-step procedure and countermeasures for anticipated contingencies.

• There are different areas of operation in the call center business. Your call center business may involve outbound or inbound call center services; in which case, it is probably going to be sales or marketing. For outbound call service services, you need to have access to stakeholders that can provide you with details of potential customers.
• In case you are bidding for inbound call center service then you will need to assess the performance of your products and services in the first place. Then you must find the possible shortcomings or drawbacks that are causing inadequacies to your end users/customers. In both, outbound and inbound call center services, data plays a critical role.

Well, whenever a company tries to open an in-house customer care center for themselves, they will be looking at the internal stakeholders to carry out the business operations. If a company is aiming to open a standalone business outsourcing agency, then its owner should probably be looking out for investors that can fund the business at the initial stage.

“Creating a call center business plan is a step-by-step procedure in which you will list out the available options for locations, recruiters, and technology suppliers - these resources form the basis of your business.”

There are 3 types of people you will need to consider in your call center business plan. The whole business will surround these 3 people - stakeholders and potential investors, people working within the infrastructure, and people who are tasked with their respective jobs. So, always keep them in the loop.

Begin Your Business Plan with a Purpose

The purpose/objective defines the way things will be executed in the future. It is the most important part of the business plan. The remainder of the activities will rely upon your objectives so be specific about yours. Use simple and straightforward language, so that investors could understand your viewpoints crystal clear.

Highlight your arguments with proper logic and make sure everything is written in a concise manner. Use bullet points and bold the important points wherever required. Once you are done expressing your arguments then proceed with explaining your arguments in detail and substantiate your reasons with proper evidence using real-case studies.

Your list of objectives may involve a few things such as increasing revenue, improving customer experience, constructing campaigns, business development, and enhancing technological assets and resources. If you are trying to establish an outbound or inbound call center service, you will need to keep all these points in mind for sustaining growth.

Enlist the Benefits

The second most important part of an outbound or inbound call center service business plan is enlisting the benefits. Obviously, we will talk about the monetary benefits and the amount of revenue the business is going to generate. Other than that you must also illustrate the long-term values you are going to get. Make sure, you had already mentioned it in the objective section of your business plan.

The business should not only benefit your company but it should also benefit all the stakeholders associated with your business. In case you need to reiterate the bottom line objectives, you should so that you are able to make a good impression on the investors and stakeholders. Make sure you take enough time to construct the benefits to make sure you do not overlook some of the possible benefits.

You must enlist the values that are unique, something out of the box that no other call center businesses are providing at the moment.

• Introducing a strategy for gathering actionable insights through call analytics, and also for understanding customer personas.
• Introducing the ways for a continuous improvement of customer service. For example: building a team of highly skilled and dedicated professionals providing guaranteed results.
• Extending the service hours. Providing extended support available to the customers for improving reliability.

• Devising an impactful strategy for improving the company’s image among customers and all the stakeholders.
• Improving productivity and generating more revenues in the future.

Governance:

Before executing the plan, you must announce the authoritative personnel who will be taking care of the administration and implementation of the plan. There will be different aspects associated with your outbound or inbound call center service business plan, such as resource recruitment, setting up the location, and technological integration.

If your hands are going to steer the wheel of your business, it will be best to mention how you are going to deliver or the methodologies you are going to try. Your business plan is just like any other business project - you will need to specify the feasibility, outcome, cost, budget, and deadline. It is not wrong to get flexible with these parameters.

Improving the Customer Experience:

Let’s just accept, that every single outbound or inbound call center service is trying to improve customer satisfaction and they all try to adhere to the basic parameters of quality services. Even then, the track record of some call center businesses is exceptionally better.

The main reason is that they are good at vigilance towards their customers. They are good at understanding the customers’ perspectives and plan each and every move based on customers’ mindsets.

In your business plan, you will include your understanding and visions about customer handling. It will also involve your experience with a diversified pool of customers you have ever dealt with. The more experienced you are, the better understanding you will have.

You will design a perfect strategy that will be impervious to all the existing customer handling challenges existing in the industry. Also, you should rule out the possible repercussions that you might face depending on the current scenarios of customer handling.

You might be focusing on curbing the excess expenditure and revving up the revenues. In that case, you will be focusing on expanding the service and sales maneuver. Therefore, you must contemplate the measures for improving the following sections: customer actions, customer persona, first contact resolution, net promoter score, and sales volume.

Setting up Location:

Choosing the right location for starting a business puts a major impact on the overall growth and expansion of the business. For people trying to open an old-fashioned brick-and-motor inbound call center service company, they should try to rule out 3 - 4 most suitable and conducive locations having huge potential for business.

With respective locations come respective price ranges. The property owners are well aware of the scope and value of their property so they will price their property accordingly. However, you must first brainstorm a few ideas to reap the maximum benefits of the location and find the best possible opportunities for establishing a prolific business in that area.

In case you want to establish a remote outbound/inbound call center service, there are a couple of things that you should consider before selecting the location: Insurance, Tax, Liability/Employees, IT and Internet, and Workstations. These are some of the infrastructure costs that you will need to arrange with a remote location.

Return on Investment (ROI):

Revving up the ROI will be the top priority for you during the entire time. When you are administering the business operation, you will be managing the resources like location, technology, and staff. These resources are going to cost you certain capital and your objective will be to generate twice the ROI so that you can compensate half of your ROI on resources and the remaining for research and development of the business.

Your outbound or inbound call center service will greatly rely on the summary of where the investment capital lies. After compensating for the resources expenditure, you will need to plan where you are going to invest the rest of the income. Investing in increasing service quality and technological advancements is going to be the next priority.

So, this section should include a summary of where the costs lie, in comparison to projections for how much money you are going to save and/or how providing better service will generate further income. On top of everything, some of the profit shares will be taken by the investors or sponsors, who usually lend money on the basis of shares from profit.

Conclusion:

Hence, these are the bottom-line aspects of creating an outbound or inbound call center service business plan. Last but certainly not least, you must have illustrated the best contingency plans for different worst-case scenarios.

for example, you may incur technological failure, fluctuating attrition rate, marketing discrepancies, natural or manmade disasters, and a lot more. You should rule out the possible risks and create countermeasures to mitigate or avert those risks at the start.