Businesses today often look out to outsource the work of handling incoming calls to an external call center. This is because they do not want to invest in having an in-house call center. These businesses also understand that a call center is essential for their existence because customers need a place where they can reach out and have their queries and issues resolved.
Thus, having a call center is another way of making your customers feel valued. Setting up a virtual call center is one of the trends that are fast catching up with the commercial business sector.
Advantages of Virtual Call Centers
- The start-up costs are substantially less than having a conventional call center setup. It is a computer system that you need along with a telephony software system.
- Virtual call centers can be deployed easily since there is no involvement of physical hardware on the business’s end. If you are deciding to utilize any of the existing virtual call center service providers, all it takes to get started is a few computers equipped with fast internet connectivity.
- With a virtual call center, you are not restricted to a particular geographical location or region. You can work with local, as well as national and international clients seamlessly.
- Virtual call centers are easily scalable. Adding additional team members and getting them started with the call center operation is easy as creating another user account in the cloud-based call center software.
- When you appoint and hire staff members, they can also now work in the remote ecosystem. You can also appoint agents who are spread across the globe where they can work as per their time zones.
How To Start A Virtual Call Center?
Keen to start a home-based virtual call center? Here are a few tips to start your virtual call center.
Deciding the Call center software.
The choice of the right call center software is critical for the success of your business. The call center software has to be cost-effective, scalable, and easy to use. Features such as advanced reports, the ability to monitor calls, and review performances of support agents will improve the overall quality of the service provided.
Look for a trained workforce
Even if it is a home-based virtual call center, you will need staff members as your business catches up and you find new clients. Ensure that you choose people who have excellent communication skills, confidence, and also have domain expertise. Also, do make sure that the hardware and the software requirements are met accurately for the work to happen seamlessly.
Technology choice
Virtual call centers leverage the power of cloud-based software systems. Voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP enables remote working for home-based agents a seamless experience! Some of the advanced technology expected for running a virtual call center is IVR or Interactive Voice Response, customized voicemail greeting, automatic call distributor, opening and closing hours that can be programmed, and so on.
When you choose and decide the right technology, you need to consider the following parameters:
- The software used for call center operation should be scalable and flexible. Since there will be a need to scale up the number of employees depending upon the growth of the company, adding or removing users should be an easy process.
- How fast can the setup be done? Setting up the virtual call center is a much faster process because there is no need for a local configuration of hardware, or setting up workstations or miles of wiring to be done. The technology should be easy to set up – as easy as installing an app on your device.
- How easy or complex is it to operate the technology? Make sure it has a seamless user interface, one that is intuitive and helps users spontaneously do their work in an efficient manner.
- The virtual call center software you are choosing should be able to easily integrate with your existing suite of software such as a CRM for better improving the overall service provided to your customer.