Finding a new call center to service and handle your calls is not something to pursue with casual indifference. There is much at stake. You can’t afford a misstep, not for your company or for your career. While making the right selection could earn you praise, a bonus, or even a promotion, making the wrong selection could have negative consequences, including the unexpected need to quickly find a new job. The selection of an outsourcing call center vendor has made and broken many corporate careers.
With so much at stake, what’s a person to do? Well, you could block out the next six months, formulate a detailed RFP (request for proposal), send it to prospective vendors, scrutinize their responses, analyze the pros and cons of each one, narrow the list down to the top two contenders, visit each site in person, and make your best guess on who is better. Then you hope they won’t let you down.
That sounds risky, as well as time-consuming. Surely there must be a better way.
In fact there is. A call center broker has already done most of the heavy lifting for you. They have a pre-approved list of top providers who are already vetted and have proven themselves with past clients. In fact these vendors continue to prove themselves to the call center broker’s other client corporations on a daily basis.
Although you can still do an RFP when using a call center broker, a broker can streamline the process and accomplish the same thing in a fraction of the time. When you use a broker you get the benefit of thoroughness and speed, two things you could never simultaneously accomplish on your own.
Once you have made your selection, if you want, the call center broker can help orchestrate the transition from one call center to the other. They can also wade through any rough waters that made arise, verify billing accuracy, and work on the resolution of any problems that may come up. In short, they can continue to work on your behalf and free you up to do your other work.
Also the call center broker keeps a close watch on your call center and is the first to sense if service starts to slide. They can quickly step in to correct the situation or plan to migrate to another call center if need be. Of course this rarely happens, but it’s nice to know you won’t need to deal with this alone if it does occur.
Call center brokers can do all of these things for you and more, or just some of these things, whatever works best for you and matches your comfort level.
Finding a new call center vendor is a big deal, but with a call center broker it doesn’t have to be.
Janet Livingston is the president of Call Center Sales Pro, a premier sales and marketing service provider for the call center and telephone answering service industry—and who provides a call center matchmaking service. Contact Janet at contactus@callcenter-salespro.com, or call 800-901-7706.
Peter Lyle DeHaan is a freelance writer from Southwest Michigan.
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