Customer support and contact can be one of the most expensive aspects of a product's ongoing costs. This can be especially true for the software and technology sectors where revenues are often an upfront payment, but product support and customer contact costs can be a perpetual burden. NetMinds has worked with a number of clients to help reduce the costs and organizational impacts of supporting and contacting customers over extended time periods. Contacting and supporting customers as they learn and adopt your software package, can be a delicate balancing act, between providing enough support to get the job done and keeping costs to a level that is reasonable. This article will explore three aspects to consider when utilizing outsourced call centers to help lower your operating costs and reduce organizational burden.

The first thing to think about when considering outsourcing call center services is your internal need for these services. If the core organizational need can be identified then the implementation is more likely to be successful. The best way to examine this need is to consider your organization's product line and how many products result in customer traffic, either in-bound or out-bound. If there is a substantial amount of call traffic in either direction, then it may behoove your organization to consider outsourcing this service. Product support, technical support and customer service can be an attractive set of services to outsource. Another area to examine is out-bound telesales or telemarketing. Many organizations forget that the same economies of scale that can provide for a successful product support function can also provide the same benefits for out-bound telesales calls. If your organization is making a large number of prospecting or sales calls then perhaps this is your core need for a call center service. Additionally, high-touch in-bound calls like billing inquiries and sales fulfillment can also be managed effectively with an outside vendor. It is the case that these two might require some additional setup and systems integration work. However, this need can be typically addressed by extending the corporate IT infrastructure, such that the vendor's employees, appear as all other employees on the corporate WAN. Finally, when looking for the core need, don't forget to consider accounts receivable and collections. These types of needs can be just the low hanging fruit that makes sense to outsource for an organization that doesn't view these operations as a core competency (and sometimes even if it does).

The final area to consider when outsourcing call center services is the pilot. As with any endeavor, before you jump in with both feet, you should test the waters. This applies to replacing existing services, or bringing on board a whole new set of services. A pilot is a good way to test the waters. Any organization looking to work with you should view the pilot as both a logical preliminary step as well as a welcome opportunity to deliver a win-win solution. You should be leery of anyone looking to setup a large contract or commitment without this level of trial and testing, unless you have a substantial pre-existing relationship with the organization. Even if that is the case, a pilot can often help flesh out your needs exactly and the service providers ability to deliver. A typical pilot should take into account 2-5% of the volume of business anticipated, assuming reasonable business volumes, to ensure that it adequately reflects the needs required and the ability to perform. If the volume is substantially large, then a relevant representative sample should be used instead. Finally, a pilot is a good place to refine and clarify the success metrics for the effort on an ongoing basis. It may not be clear, until after the pilot, that a success metric of measuring post-call customer feedback is important. Statistics and other reporting variables may also be difficult to identify and quantify until a data set is in hand, which is what the pilot will provide. Once you've conducted a successful pilot then you're ready to embark on a full blown roll-out of call center services.

Net net, a successfully implemented call center service will lower your ongoing costs, reduce operational complexity, and can help make your product or service a success.