5 Questions To Grill Your Next Call Center Vendor
Outsourcing all comes down to value.
Outsourcing anything is hard. It requires a lot of trust. But if you pick a bad partner, you can always cut your losses and move on.
When it’s your customer service, though, it’s harder. It means you’re trusting someone else to care for your customers. If you pick a bad partner, you don’t just have to explain the bad investment to your superiors; you have to win back the trust of your customers.
There are plenty of myths about call centers and outsourced customer support. We’ll lose control of our customers! How could a partner know as much (or more!) about our products as we do! We don’t have an “outsourcing culture!” We’ve shown in the past why these beliefs just aren’t true today.
There’s also a dirty little secret about outsourcing that call center outsourcing vendors don’t want you to know. Once you know the secret, it actually changes how you search for a call center partner.
At this point, you’re really well equipped to find the perfect outsourced customer service partner.
There’s only one thing left for you to look for when comparing call centers. And it’s the most important thing...
Which of these partners will create the most value for me, my company, and my customers?
How an outsourced customer service partner creates value for you is the key to finding the right partner. If they can’t ensure that your customer service operation will be a profit center, and not a cost center, then this long-term investment in your customer experience will be for nothing.
So without further ado, here are the five questions to grill your next potential contact center partner on.
The 5 Customer Service Metrics To Ask For
In your conversations with call centers and outsourced customer service partners, there are key data points that you should ask for. Forget fancy case studies, and ignore minor differences in hourly rates for a moment. These are metrics we use across the industry, and they will paint a clear picture for you.
I’m confident in how much value we create for our clients. So much so, that I’m happy to share our numbers so you can easily compare with other potential partners.
Conversion Rates
“What are your clients’ typical conversion rates?”
Across the industry, conversion rates of 10-15% are considered good.
Conversion rates for our clients are 15-20%.
Repeat Purchases
“How frequently does a customer come back to purchase again?”
This number varies more, depending on your industry, but Internet Retailer has indicated in the past that anywhere from a 30-50% repeat purchase rate is good.
Repeat purchase rates for our clients are 85%.
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT)
“What are your clients’ typical CSAT scores?”
According to many industry insiders, a SCAT score of 70% would leave most COOs satisfied.
Our CSAT scores are over 80%.
Project Management Costs
“What do you charge for Project Management?”
For an outsourced team of 30 customer service reps, a typical fee for Project Management may be $7,000.
We don’t charge our clients for Project Management. Zero.
Onboarding Costs
“What do you charge in the first month or so to get the team off the ground?”
Typically, call centers will charge around $15,000 when onboarding a new client.
We don’t charge for onboarding. Our team gets right to business.
A Bonus Metric
When it comes to driving repeat purchase, customer satisfaction, and reducing costs, we outperform the pack. The final metric that should be on your mind? Ah yes, the magical Hourly Rate. I’m more than happy to share what ours is (spoiler: it’s lower than the industry average).
Reach out to myself, or one of our Care Specialists today, and we’ll talk you through our numbers. At the end of the day, we create more value than any other outsourced customer service partner in the industry, and we’ve got the numbers to back it up.
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