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Entrepreneurs are looking to ditch their traditional Call Center partners.
The Covid-19 pandemic has affected each and every business in the world. Imagine, big firms, like Berkshire Hathaway, despite being profitable, laid off 13,000 plus workers during the first six months of the pandemic. Companies such as Walmart, Oracle, Citigroup, Salesforce, Cisco Systems, and PayPal are also affected by the virus. What more for small and medium enterprises?
Consequently, BPO companies, especially in the Philippines, remain strong and continue to drive results despite the risk presented by COVID-19. In April 2020 Deloitte conducted a study on various global companies and they found out that 22% of companies are planning on outsourcing BPO more.
So what does this mean? It means that during a virus outbreak, customer service will suffer because of a reduced workforce. Productivity, efficiency, and revenue will take a huge hit. Moving ahead post-pandemic, there will be a large number of companies that will employ a contact center company to keep up with production.
However, despite the positive outlook and the perks of having a BPO, those who already have a traditional call center partner are getting tired and not being satisfied. Why?
Why are companies not impressed with Traditional Contact Center Companies anymore?
The best way to understand why businesses prefer not to stick with old-school or traditional call centers anymore is to define it.
A traditional call center is an office where a large number of call center agents provide customer service over the telephone. They receive and make calls, round-the-clock, non-stop. They are simply a “reactive” business solution with simple functions: communicate with customers upon interaction.
They call these contact centers “traditional” because these are what past BPOs were made to do. Their task is to randomly draw customers in; whether they are passing by, truly interested, or not, call centers shoot their shots to make a sale.
The problem with this strategy is that it is counterproductive. Contact centers are meeting their call quota, but the conversion rate is very low. The investment is not that worth it.
Companies are losing interest in traditional call centers because it does not drive the desired result anymore. During the early 2000s, traditional call centers might work. But with the boom of technology and information, people do not really need random calls to inform them about your products or services. They can just Google it.
What are They Replacing With?
Contact centers in the Philippines have been moving in a different direction since the start of the information age. And they are slowly changing the way they provide service by introducing new technology, innovation, and strategy.
Modern or Next Generation Call Centers are replacing Traditional Call Centers. Sometimes they call themselves virtual or remote call centers, but these are all semantics. What is important is the different approaches the modern contact centers use to resolve customer issues and improve engagement and loyalty.
Basically, modern BPOs are a lot more “proactive” with their approach. Their objective is to build a strong relationship with customers to nurture leads rather than seek them. Agents make calls with the intention to recognize customer needs to make a sale, instead of aggressively trying to convince a potential buyer.
Data collection and analysis play a huge role for next-generation call centers as they unlock actionable insights about the customers. With more access to data, modern contact centers can provide better solutions to customers. Not only that, Artificial Intelligence helps to make transactions with customers easy.
Here are current innovations that we, as a modern Philippine BPO company, have adapted through the years:
- Interactive Voice Response (IVR) – It lets customers navigate the phone system to help them find the exact information they need instead of making a call. It saves customers the effort to reach a live agent or a BPO company.
- Omnichannel Services – “Omni” means all or in all ways or places. Omnichannel service means meeting customers at their desired communication medium to provide customer care or make a sale. The goal of this service is to provide customers with the best experience possible by consistently engaging with them through various platforms.
- Predictive Dialing – This technology enables agents to speak with live customers and prospects almost continuously, significantly increasing productivity. Predictive dialing monitors busy signals and answering machines to “predict” when a live contact is available.
- Skills-Based Routing – This technology is almost self-explanatory. With this technology, you can easily route calls to agents who have the particular skills needed to resolve customer concerns. It helps increase customer satisfaction and loyalty to your brand.
- Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) – Does your company have queue problems? ACD can help maintain call queues in an orderly fashion. With the help of Skills-Based Routing, ACD can help to distribute calls to the most appropriate agent for the customer needs. It helps lessen the misappropriation and volume of calls.
- Dynamic Call Blending – A hybrid between inbound and outbound. Dynamic Call Blending allows the BPO company to pass calls to the next available agents. It basically increases productivity and decreases agent inactivity.
- Integrated Customer Relations Management (CRM)– When a customer calls in, CRM can help agents identify their needs. CRM is a system that contains all customer transactions and activity ever since he or she subscribed to your business product or services. By analyzing the behavior of consumers, agents can make intelligent decisions. It allows them to provide more competent service to callers and to handle more calls.
- Flexible Agent Scripting – This technology uses data collection to help agents have a more personalized script to follow in answering customer’s concerns. It helps promote accurate data dissemination and maintain the quality of service.
Traditional Call Centers are ineffective not only because the process they’re following is outdated. But also because they lack the technology to allow a seamless experience. That is why companies are ditching them for a new and better one.
What do customers think of Traditional Contact Center Solutions?
Call centers in the country are changing and it is because customer’s perception of the industry is also sporadic.
But unlike businesses where cost and productivity are at the center of their attention. Customers only care about service and not so much about anything else.
If we look at the current BPO statistics for 2020, companies are missing the point of starting a business in the first place.
Only 26% of consumers responded positively when asked if they believe customer service centers provide great support, compared to 49% who did not. This means that companies are failing to meet customer demands.
This is attributed to the lack of technology by other traditional call centers.
As we have said, technology is the main reason why companies are getting tired of old-school BPOs. If we look at the numbers, 72% of consumers say that when contacting customer service they expect the agent to ‘know who they are, what they have purchased and have insights into their previous engagements.
This percentage represents why there is fatigue in the industry by the companies. And the main reason why consumers consider jumping ship to competitors.
That is not all, in a 2018 Call Center Industry Report by Liveops, they found out that two-thirds of respondents overall were ‘behind the curve’ in terms of evolving their traditional call center into a modern customer service operation.
Not only are traditional call centers failing to adapt to technology, but they are also lagging behind the practices needed. These practices include adapting quickly to handle peaks and lulls, shifting costs to a flexible model, and delivering better quality talent. Also since data privacy and protection are becoming the main concern of entrepreneurs and consumers, better security becomes a must.
Greg Hanover, CEO of Liveops shares a piece of his mind about the problems traditional call centers are facing: “The traditional call center’s way of operating has taken a big toll on customer experience because it doesn’t include sufficient demand planning, doesn’t maximize agent capacity, and doesn’t flex to attract the best agent experience.”
“We’re seeing large enterprises that are known for great service increasingly question how well their call centers perform. Customer experience leaders see their performance metrics eroded by high attrition, poor call handling, and lack of business agility.” He added.
The Best Modern Call Center Services in the Philippines
Many companies are starting to switch to modern BPOs. Call center companies that have both the technology and the talent to handle customer demand and drive retention and loyalty.
If you want to partner with the best next-generation call center company, we got you!
We are Magellan Solutions.
We provide premier BPO services to SMEs. You can guarantee the best results with our wide range of services from lead generation to order-taking services, unwavering focus on quality over quantity, industry discipline, state-of-the-art technology, pool of talents, and business transparency.
We have 18 years of industry experience. We are also an ISO 27001-certified, GDPR-compliant, and HIPAA-compliant firm. At the heart of what we do is data protection and professionalism.
If you want to experience a difference in your business, shoot us a message! Our business development team will be with you ASAP!
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