Outsourcing Your Call Center To India

Over the last ten years many companies have decided to outsource their contact center operations to India in order to make cost savings through lower operational expenses.

However, in recent times we have noticed a reverse trend taking place. Customer complaints about poor service have led many businesses to bring back their call center service to their home country. It seems that the low quality of customer service has far outweighed the anticipated cost savings and is actually having a negative affect on the business. Is the climate of outsourcing to India changing?

Well it all comes down to choosing the right provider. Ensuring that staff are properly trained and well looked after is key to making outsourcing a viable alternative. You need to dig deep and investigate the various outsourced offerings.

As in most things you must look for credentials. That is to say a call center outsourcing business that has a great track record of providing similar businesses to yours with a high level of professional service. Whether it's insurance claims processing, banking or selling mobile telephones. There are some pretty fantastic outsourcing business models in India. Staff are generally graduates, speak very good English and receive a high standard of initial and ongoing training.

Where possible you should visit the facilities and experience the everyday working environment for yourself. A number of Indian outsourcing businesses will offer a trial period for you to assess the the service. This is a great way of dipping your toe in the water without making a huge commitment.

Outsourcing your operation to India can indeed be very cost effective if you choose wisely and spend time reviewing the offering yourself. At the end of the day it's all about people and the perception your customers have of your business. The staff, wherever they are based and if they are outsourced or not, are all representatives of your business and customers will believe they are your business.

How Often Should You Contact Your List?

One question that people have once they have a list whether that be past customers, newsletter subscribers, or leads is how often they should be contacting them.

There’s really no hard and fast answer to this question, but I can tell you that most people are so afraid of contacting their subscribers too often and annoying them that their err on the side of caution and don’t contact their people often enough.

You need to remember that if you’re not constantly reminding people that you’re still there, that someone else will, and that person will likely forget about you.

For example, if you’re not contacting your subscribers at least once a month, you’re just not contacting your customers often enough. A lot of people think that contacting subscribers everyday is way too often, but there are certainly areas where it works. I am on a list right now where every weekday I’m sent a short little email, and I read it everyday. However, these aren’t marketing and sales pitches, but rather little motivational blurbs – they’re short and take me less than a minute to read.

A good rule of thumb that works for a lot of people is to contact your subscribers once every 2-5 days. That’s often enough that they’ll remember who you are but not so often that they’re going to think they’re being bombarded with messages. Feel free to play around with this number and see what works best for you and your subscribers.

Also remember that not every contact that you make with your customers needs to be an advertisement for something. While sending free content to your subscribers or past customers may seem like a bad financial move, it can be a way to build up good will with your past customers or current subscribers, and when it comes time to buy, they’re going to remember you, and will be far more likely to do business with you.