Singapore’s TODAY newspaper dated Nov 15, 2007 had an article written by Liang Dingzi that highlighted the fact that many singaporean companies’ call centers are not equipped to handle surges in traffic. A lot of callers are kept on hold, or wait a typically long period of from 10 to 15 minutes before an operator can attend to them.
Most callers would simply end up hanging the phone after waiting for a long time. In Liang Dingzi’s words “Think of it like a retail store, where customers wait in line to be served. If someone wa1ks away because he has waited too long, you ‘have lost the customer, perhaps for good.Unfortunately, this cost does not show up in the books”
The author suggests that organizations with this predicament increase their staff to handle the peak. However, this is easier said than done.
For most companies, cost is a major constraint. The associated costs of maintaining additional staff can not possibly be justified solely to handle the surge or spike periods alone.
One solution that we have helped our clients with is to match them to a reliable outsource call center operator.
This is where the outsourced call center solution would make a lot of sense for companies. Tapping an external call center in a spillover capacity, companies pay ONLY for services renderred during the peak.
In a spillover capacity, companies can avoid maintaining high staffing levels. Think about not having to get extra floor space, telephone lines, recruiting new agents, training and all those hassles.
As a force multiplier, outsourced call centers can be made to be the tier one , frontline support. They handle the majority (60-80% )of the calls that are classified as ‘easy’. The outsourced call center can then escalate the other 20% to the regular in-house company staff. This arrangement results in higher customer satisfaction, but at a lower overall cost of operation.
Futuregen can help design and package the right outsource call center solutions for your company’s needs. For more information please email marketing[at]futuregen.sg