With the rapid growth and adoption of outsourcing, global businesses irrespective of their size, expertise and dynamics are eyeing to outsource some of their business functions, partially or fully, to third-party organizations often referred to as outsourcing service providers. According to studies, the global market for Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is expected to reach US$262.2 billion by 2022, reinstating the lucrative feature of the outsourcing service industry. Call center outsourcing acquires a major share in the entire BPO service space, which eventually results in the surging popularity of the call center outsourcing companies. Rather than service providers, these call center service providers are now being
regarded as strategic partners to many renowned businesses.
Now, let’s try to understand the reason behind the wide-scale adoption and popularity of call center solutions. Businesses can use the call calculator to weigh their outsourcing decision as well as service provider options. Most businesses would consent to the fact that customer success is their ultimate objective and not to forget, one of their critical challenges. Wondering why? Well, today’s customers are becoming tech-savvy; they expect the highest levels and quality of services, prompt and 24*7 support services. With the breakthrough innovations in cyberspace as well as the enhanced accessibility to the internet, multi-device and multi-platform usage have been a trend.
Catering to this omnichannel customer base at all times requires a rather larger dedicated workforce and investment in terms of technological solutions. However, call center outsourcing enables businesses to offload their customer-care, customer service and communication portfolio, full or in part, to the call center service providers. This is indeed a cost-effective method and proves quite valuable in the long run.
Businesses maintaining on-premise call center services incur the below costs
- Employee remuneration and benefits
- Recruitment and staffing costs
- Workspace maintenance – fixed and overhead costs
- Software and hardware requirements
- Training and quality assurance
- Call center staffing model
While outsourcing call center services, businesses must consider the expected call volume, tentative call durations, degree and intensity of customer support required. If they are dealing with a multilingual customer base, their call center services need to be customized. By outsourcing, businesses can ensure that their brand is available 24*7 for their existing and potential customer base.
Some of the prime components of the call calculator are:
Project Type: Project type is a key metric to analyze the feasibility of outsourcing options. For instance, if the project involves inbound calling, chat support, email support, and a one-time or ongoing outbound calling requirement, with the call center calculator businesses can derive accurate estimates. Functions that warrant lesser strategic attention can always be outsourced while the crucial functions can be taken care of inhouse.
Types of services, target countries, demographics, and shift timings are some of the other components that can be considered while deciding to outsource or not.
Agent Hour Estimates
The significant contrast between the expenses in an in-house call center and an outsourced one lies in the idea of agent hour. On account of in-house, businesses incur the entire agent hour cost though, on account of outsourcing, businesses need to pay for the profitable specialist hour. This implies all the non-gainful time, for example, short breathers or preparing time is excluded from the expense. By and large, the gainful time for a specialist is viewed as 85% of 60 minutes. For instance, if an in-house call focus operator costs $10 every hour, a redistributed call base specialist will cost on $8.50 every hour, sparing your business 15% of worker costs.
Full-time Employee (FTE)
Outsourcing has several rewarding benefits such as efficient forecasting, staffing, and maximizing productivity and efficiency. Outsourcing service providers can assist businesses in
- Utilizing the latest call center infrastructure for efficient call distribution
- Managing flexible tasks for optimum efficiency
- Offering training for efficient staffing during peak and valley periods
- Operate a group of agents to reduce hours of operation
All these will help ensure a reduction in FTE while maintaining the same service quality. It’s generally found that outsourcing leads to a 5% reduction in FTE.
Use this call calculator to compute your outsourcing costs and get in touch with the experts for further information!
