Call centres are a dedicated office with agents trained to receive and field a high volume of calls from both customers and potential customers. During these calls, information about the company’s products and services are shared, which is why it is vital that call centre agents are equipped with material on the company and its products.
A UK call centre may provide lead generation services like telemarketing, focusing on both inbound lead generation and outbound lead generation. Besides these, call centre companies UK also offer various customer service outsourcing services like live chat support services. A company may also outsource CCTV monitoring services to a UK call centre.
Some of the key tasks of call centre companies UK are sales and marketing, lead generation services, IT support, and customer services. These have changed the way call centres operate, with technology and software being made use of to increase the efficiency and quality of calls.
At present, call centre outsourcing is not limited to a single channel and, besides over-the-phone inquiries, a UK call centre may also carry out lead generation services through email or chatbots.
Given how popular call centre outsourcing is, it comes as no surprise that several new call centre companies UK are being established. While their services may differ, with one limiting its services to customer service outsourcing and another catering to companies that wish to outsource CCTV monitoring services, this is a guide to running a call centre in 2020.
Starting a call centre
There are several factors to consider when starting any business and call centres are no exception. The process you follow when starting your UK call centre will have a significant impact on the future of your venture. For this reason, take your time and consult with industry experts so that you understand what it takes to run a call centre.
You need to first ask yourself why you are considering customer service outsourcing. This question will lead to other questions on the purpose of your call centre, your goals and objectives, measurements of your success, and how your mission aligns with your business as well as your team.
The next step leads to the hiring and training process. Developing a seamless hiring process will make it easy for you to add more people to your team as your business expands. Some of the roles you must find skilled professionals for are call centre manager, team leader, agents or representatives, trainers, and analysts. Skills to look for include excellent communication skills and the ability to retain information about products and services.
Depending on the services you provide, for instance live chat support services, telemarketing, inbound lead generation, and outbound lead generation, you will want to establish a process for how an issue will be solved. This increases efficiency and reduces wait times and an established question and answer process will guarantee customer satisfaction.
Since your staff has been trained on the process to be following during lead generation services or live chat support services, you can now move on technology and equipment. A UK call centre looking to offer clients an array of unique services will invest in equipping their teams with the best software and tools.
It is now time to consider call centre metrics. Whether they outsource CCTV monitoring services or offer live chat support services, it is vital that call centres evaluate their performance and goals on a regular basis.
It is also importance to track certain metrics and indicators like customer satisfaction, first-call satisfaction, contact quality, and abandon rate. These will act as a guide when you evaluate if your team’s performance is up to standard.
Now that your call centre has been established, it is important to put your team to work and manage the UK call centre. When creating and preparing a physical space for your representatives, always remember to give them space and not cram as many people as you can into the building.
Just as customer satisfaction is important, the satisfaction of your agents is also important in call centre outsourcing. This is where management skills can play a vital role. Managing your team is an important aspect of running a call centre in 2020 and a few things to remember when managing your team is to stick to the script but leave room for flexibility.
These are the basic steps to running a call centre in 2020.
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