Why Do eCommerce Businesses Outsource Their Call Centre?

eCommerce businesses are unique and operate in a different way from many others including traditional retailers. The challenges that they face in growing and scaling are unique and are often focused on the operational functions that are required to deliver great service to their customers. The challenge to deliver great service starts from the very point at which an order is placed through to when it is delivered to the customer’s door and beyond with post-sale product support and service. At any stage of the process, a customer may decide to get in touch with queries or questions. This creates a significant need for a professional call centre to be in place to handle these interactions, whether it is in-house or an outsourced call centre. The demands of serving customers for eCommerce businesses can be significant and that is without peaks in demand, which can follow after a new product launch, successful marketing campaign or press coverage. In all cases, the call centre plays a key role in the success of an eCommerce business.

In this article, we explore why eCommerce businesses decide to outsource their call centre in detail. The reasons outsourcing can be the answer for many eCommerce businesses vary and are worth exploring so you can decide on the best eCommerce call centre outsourcing route for your business.

Why eCommerce Businesses Outsource Their Call Centre

Whilst there are many reasons why eCommerce businesses opt to outsource their call centre/contact centre, a few are noteworthy enough to discuss in detail. These include managing peak demand, benefiting from cost savings, focusing on their core business and accessing specialist expertise. Whatever the reasons for outsourcing in your specific case, it remains a flexible and scalable way to grow eCommerce brands.

Find out more about why eCommerce call centre outsourcing could be a suitable option for your business by reviewing the key reasons below.

Manage Peaks In Demand

Peaks in demand are common in eCommerce and present a clear and significant challenge to every eCommerce brand that faces them. How do they continue to deliver exceptional service when they cannot always predict precisely when peaks in demand will occur or easily scale their internal team to respond to it? Managing peaks in demand is rarely easy, especially as it takes time to recruit skilled call centre agents with sufficient knowledge and training to handle customer interactions in the way that you would want. It is equally challenging to put the relevant systems/technology infrastructure in place to handle customer interactions at scale, whether they are calls, emails or web chats.

If your brand is consistently facing peaks in demand and lacks the internal resources or expertise to manage them with confidence, the quality and consistency of service delivered to customers can be put at risk. When so many sectors are becoming ever more competitive, a fall in the quality and consistency of customer service can drive your valued customers towards your competitors at great cost to your business. Many eCommerce businesses at this stage will turn to an outsourced call centre for help. By outsourcing your call centre to a professional UK call centre with experience of successfully serving eCommerce businesses and online retailers, you can manage peaks in demand more effectively. Outsourced call centres have a distinct advantage at managing demand peaks as they already have the call centre agents, proven processes and systems in place to deliver consistent levels of service to customers. They do not need to rush to recruit additional agents or establish new systems/infrastructure, as these elements will already be in place and operational for other clients.

At Impact, we are adept at handling peaks in demand for some of the UK’s leading brands. Our client base includes busy eCommerce businesses and online retailers, many of which engage in DRTV and press-based marketing, which creates significant peaks in demand. Managing peaks in demand is what we do for clients every day and we relish the challenge of delivering exceptional service in every interaction that we manage on behalf of clients. We operate at scale with trained call centre agents, proven processes and intelligent systems to deliver world-class service to eCommerce clients.

Benefit From Cost Savings

Many businesses look to make cost savings as they have the potential to improve the bottom line and boost financial stability. This becomes a particular focus during challenging economic times when cost savings can become key. Call centre operations can be a suitable area to make such savings. However, there is a risk that these cost savings can come at the expense of quality. This could turn out to be even more costly if it results in your eCommerce brand losing customers to its competitors. In a world where customer expectations are high, and most customers expect quality and consistency, cost savings must not be achieved to the detriment of quality. Striking a careful balance between making savings while maintaining service levels is critical. This requires experience and specialist expertise to deliver the cost savings without negatively impacting the customer experience.

Setting up or running an in-house call centre can often be more expensive than partnering with an outsourced service. You will have many of the same costs that an outsourced UK call centre will have, including call centre agent salaries, computers, phone systems, office space, security, heating and lighting and they will all need to be completely covered by your business. Your business will also need to pay many of these costs regardless of the extent to which you use them or not. Whether you handle 100 calls per day or 10 calls per day, the fixed costs remain the same. There is no option to only pay for what you have used when you are running an in-house call centre. Whereas, if you decide to outsource your eCommerce call centre, your business will not be solely responsible for covering all the costs as these will be shared between clients. Outsourced call centres also operate at greater scale, purchasing products/services at volume to secure discounts, which can be passed on to clients. Your business will also be able to benefit from the very latest call centre technology without the high initial investment or committing to fixed costs. Further to this, by outsourcing your call centre, you are able to benefit from the extensive expertise that your chosen call centre has gained from delivering cost savings for all their clients. They will have tried and tested processes and well-established ideas to draw upon to drive cost savings, while also being aware of the potential pitfalls involved in making cost savings that could negatively affect service quality.

Impact is experienced at delivering cost savings without compromising on quality. Our call centre specialists are able to create cost savings through efficiency gains, intelligent technology/systems, dedicated call centre agent training and process improvement. We deliver good levels of cost reductions based on our many years of experience of helping eCommerce brands and businesses operating across a diverse range of sectors to streamline their call centre operations.

Focus On Your Core Business

Setting up and maintaining exceptional levels of service to the customers of your eCommerce business is resource intensive and it can easily take the focus away from your core business. Customers can have service requirements at any stage of engaging with your business, whether that is prior to placing an order, while placing an order, after an order has been placed and even post-delivery. Even well-resourced businesses may find that maintaining focus on their core business is a challenge with so many service expectations to meet. If you are running an in-house call centre, all of these service requirements and are within your sphere of responsibility and may even take employees away from other business functions during peaks in demand. The potential cost of losing focus on your core business can be significant and it is easy to miss a key market trend, fall behind competitors or overlook changes in the business landscape. Whereas, if you can remain focused on your core business, there is a valuable opportunity to work on your business and be at your very best.

By outsourcing your call centre and the associated customer service and sales requirements to an outsourced call centre, you can gain a strong focus on your core business. It is a great opportunity to focus your business on what it does best and hand over day-to-day responsibility for customer service leaving you with time to enhance your products and focus on delighting your customers. The value of freeing up valuable resources that were dedicated to call centre operations for other areas of your business should not be underestimated. Your business will be free to focus on growing sales and enhancing profitability while retaining an oversight of the call centre. There is significant potential for a higher level of service to be delivered as your call centre will be managed by specialists with all the expertise and experience required to consistently deliver great service.

At Impact, we love helping eCommerce businesses to outsource their call centre to us with confidence and refocus on their core business. Our clients rest assured that our specialists will professionally manage their call centre operations and that they are in great company with some of the UK’s leading brands. We know how much value being focused on your core business can bring and enabling our clients to maintain this focus without having to worry about their call centre is what we do every day. Why not find out how we can help you by calling us on 01794 230 230 or completing our contact form?

Access Specialist Expertise

Running a successful call centre requires expertise and experience. Customer service and sales operations are often complex and involve many different interlinking elements. From call centre agents and call centre management through to call handling procedures and call centre systems, every day is a challenge and even a single issue has the potential to cause significant business disruption. eCommerce businesses may lack the specialist in-house expertise to resolve such issues. An unresolved issue that negatively impacts the customer experience can be costly to growing eCommerce businesses whilst taking away focus from their core business.

Even eCommerce businesses with their own in-house call centre may not have all the expertise that they require to operate their call centre successfully. You may be comfortable with customer service but struggling to secure repeat sales of a subscription product and therefore in need of expertise in win-back campaigns or vice versa. Whether you are looking to outsource one aspect of your call centre or the entire operation, the level of expertise that you can gain by doing so should not be underestimated. Outsourced call centres like Impact have teams of skilled and trained call centre agents ready to help your business grow. Their call centre agents are experienced at helping businesses manage their call centre and make improvements to the service that they provide at every stage of the customer journey. Improving service quality is far easier when you have access to the right expertise and the talented people that you need to drive the improvements forward. Why have the hassle of trying to recruit the right call centre agents and management team, when you can access all the specialist expertise that you need by opting for eCommerce call centre outsourcing?

Impact is a well-established and professional call centre with all the specialist expertise that you need. We run a successful call centre for a diverse range of businesses including those in eCommerce and online retail. Wherever you need expertise, when it comes to customer service and sales, we can help you succeed. We are focused on delivering world-class service for all our clients and work in close partnership with each one to deliver call centre improvements that will drive your business forward. If you decide to outsource to us, you will be in great company with some of the UK’s leading brands. Contact us to find out how our expertise can help your eCommerce business.

Deliver Multi-Channel Service

Delivering multi-channel service to customers is a challenge for every business, but particularly for eCommerce businesses and online retailers. While many eCommerce businesses can manage one or two communication channels, few can manage a higher number of channels at scale successfully. As eCommerce and online retail remain competitive sectors where competition is often intense, delivering world-class service is a great way to stand out from your competitors and delight existing and new customers. Delighting your customers is a proven way to secure an initial order and win their loyalty for the long-term, which leads to valuable repeat online orders. In order to deliver world-class service, you need to be accessible to your customers on their preferred communication channel. Whether that is by phone, email, web chat, social media, or review platform. By being present on each customer’s platform of choice, you are much more likely to at least meet and often exceed their expectations.

Outsourced call centres are well placed to deliver multi-channel service as they have all the systems and processes in place to manage customer service across a range of channels. Each communication channel often requires a tailored approach, and a one size fits all strategy rarely delivers the exceptional customer service that you will want to deliver to your customers. Partnering with a UK based call centre will allow your brand to deliver a truly multi-channel service without stretching in-house resources or having to worry about day-to-day customer service operations. Your chosen call centre will operate with efficiency in mind and can handle customer interactions at scale.

At Impact we recognise the value of being accessible to your customers on whichever communication channel they prefer. It can make all the difference between retaining a customer or losing one to a competitor. We deliver multi-channel customer service for some of the UK’s leading brands. If you need an outsourced customer service call centre that can manage your customer service operations at scale, look no further than Impact.