Nowadays, one of the signs of a solid business is the presence of a hotline and round-the-clock customer support. Sales companies, studies show, lose up to half of potential customers due to the lack of timely feedback and response to requests.
Therefore, the business idea of a call center, that is, the organization of fast, reliable and efficient communication with customers, is very relevant today.
Most customer service organizations are not in a position to set up their own call center as it is quite an expensive undertaking, both in terms of initial investment and ongoing maintenance.
Indeed, in order to be able to quickly and timely answer a customer’s call, it is necessary to have not only modern equipment and dedicated telephone lines, but also a sufficient staff, the cost of maintaining which significantly reduces the profitability of sales.
Creating a call center as an independent enterprise providing services to other organizations on the principles of outsourcing allows solving this problem and making the existence of a call center beneficial for all parties.
The business idea of a call center can be implemented in a variety of ways.
Of course, the most popular are the services of a 24-hour call center, whose specialists are able to answer most typical customer questions. This really unloads from the routine work of the customer’s employees. The creation of such a call center, especially one focused on concluding contracts with several customers, is an expensive project.
However, there are options for creating a call center that are within the power of small businesses and even aspiring entrepreneurs.
An example of such a call center is a center that does not receive incoming calls, but, on the contrary, generates outgoing calls.
It’s no secret that most sales companies search for potential customers using the so-called «cold calls» method.
Employees of the company call customers, inform customers about the service, study demand, determine the possibility of sales, and also enter information into the database for further work.
The implementation of «cold calls» requires the distraction of the seller’s employees from the main activity, so the company will gladly outsource this activity and the creation of the primary database.
The creation of such a call center does not require large premises, or dedicated telephone lines, or round-the-clock work of trained operators. Even a non-specialist is able to carry out «cold calls», just having a fairly good understanding of the subject of sales of the services or goods offered.
To determine the profitability of a call center business idea, in any form, it is necessary to carefully study the market for the services of this line of business, conduct a good marketing research, and also identify demand from potential customers.
The customers of the centers can be enterprises of almost all lines of business for which contacts with clients are important, such as banks, travel companies, trading companies, educational and government institutions, service companies, and so on.
An extremely important condition for the quality work of the call center is the presence of polite and professional staff.
Calls to a call center are often caused by problems that consumers have with the quality of purchased goods or services. At the same time, the tone of the client’s appeal can be quite irritated and even rude.
In no case should professional call center employees react negatively to the bad mood of customers, but should try to solve the problem as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Another important condition for the quality work of the call center is the availability of a sufficient number of communication channels and a quick response from the operator.
A very negative impression is created by call centers in which there is a repeated switching of clients to different employees without providing him with prompt and effective assistance.
Therefore, when organizing a call center, it is important to clearly define the areas of responsibility that the call center bears and which remain with the customer’s employees. At a minimum, the call center should register the customer’s call, identify the primary subject of the call, and relay the solution to the problem to employees.
However, by agreement with the customer, call center employees can undergo additional training and receive sufficient qualifications to answer most typical questions.
The success of implementing a call center business idea largely depends on the proper organization of business processes and technical equipment.
The cost of creating a call center, in the face of low competition for this type of service in the Russian market, will quickly pay off and bring a very significant profit to its creators.