6 Key Benefits of Retail Contact Center Outsourcing

Are you losing customers because of subpar service? If you’re not working to offer the best possible customer experience (CX) to the people who shop with you, that may indeed be the case.

Especially in retail, people demand fast, efficient and knowledgeable customer service—and if they don’t get it from you, there are plenty of competitors willing to step in to provide it.

Every year, more data supports the importance of offering a high-quality CX. For example, a study released by Wunderman found that 79% of consumers won’t consider making a purchase unless they feel that a business understands and cares about them.

“Wunderman Study Reveals 79% Of Consumers Only Buy From Brands That Prove They Care About Earning Their Business” Click To Tweet

But ensuring customer satisfaction isn’t as simple as it once was. With all the channels that customers use to communicate today—including voice, web, email, live chat, mobile apps, social media and more—it’s become a challenge to offer a superior CX to all your customers, all the time.

For that reason, many retailers are choosing to outsource their call center services, handing off this complicated (and costly) task to a dedicated expert. But beyond the assurance that you’re giving your customers the best possible CX, there are quite a few other benefits to retail contact center outsourcing, too.

6 Key Benefits of Retail Contact Center Outsourcing

#1: Ensuring Connectivity between Your Customers and Agents

When you’re working to grow sales, the last thing you need is errors in your ordering mechanism, or any kind of disconnect between what your customers experience and what they’re told by the agents who represent your business.

Indeed, research shows that inconsistency between the shopping and call center experience is a major driver of customer dissatisfaction. For instance, a customer experience report from Salesforce found that 55% of consumers say that their retail shopping experiences feel disconnected.

“55% of consumers say that their retail shopping experiences feel disconnected.” Click To Tweet

An on-demand retail contact center outsourcing partner can help to ensure that your CX is consistent across all media. What’s more, it can even help to drive additional sales by launching new promotional efforts that integrate channels like social media, e-commerce and even your in-store experience in new ways.

Pro Tip: How to Increase Close Rates by 30% & Extend Add-on Sales by 20% with Retail Contact Center Outsourcing.

#2: Instant Access to the Technology You Need…

Of course, the days are long over when the primary task of a call center was fielding customer phone calls. Today’s modern contact center is a multichannel communications hub, equipped with everything needed to interact with customers via every conceivable channel.

Modern contact centers is a multichannel communications hub, that are equipped with all the tools to interact with customers via all channels.
Source: www.shutterstock.com.

And means businesses that choose to run their own call centers must purchase or rent all the hardware, software and security features needed to maintain this multichannel presence—and to make sure it doesn’t fail during crucial periods of customer activity. There’s also the cost of continuously upgrading operations to make sure they’re user-friendly and secure as possible.

With an on-demand outsourcing partner, you’ll get access to all of the latest tech, even before it becomes an industry standard. And this includes not just the means to communicate with customers, but also to host your website, support your online shopping cart, backup your data via cloud-based security, leverage tools like artificial intelligence to offer live-chat functionality—and quite a bit more.

Deep Dive: How Traditional Call Centers Have Evolved (and What You Should Know about Them)

#3: …and the Expertise to Manage It

Besides the expense of maintaining the latest tech tools, there’s also a significant level of expertise required to manage them. Doing so requires a crack team of IT personnel with the experience and knowledge to manage this cutting-edge technology, as well as a staff of skilled contact center agents who are experts in using it to its utmost potential.

Having a team of IT personnel with the experience and knowledge to manage cutting edge-technology will make your contact center run smoother during high volume seasons.
Source: www.shutterstock.com.

When you consider all the skills needed to leverage today’s tech to communicate effectively—everything from building a customer base via social media, to managing website and in-app communications, and even performing diagnostic and dispatching activities—it’s clear that a diverse and highly developed skillset is required.

But it can be a real challenge to build a team with that skillset from the local labor pool—and expensive to maintain it. With retail contact center outsourcing, you’ll get a built-in team of experts who can not only manage all of your communications and technology needs, but who are also knowledgeable enough about your industry to help you build the sales you need for continuous growth.

Learn More about How Retail Contact Center Outsourcing Can Help You Reduce Overhead Costs

#4: The Flexibility to Meet Fluctuating Demand

One of the most challenging aspects of managing a call center is making sure you have agents available to continuously meet customer demand, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year—and that includes times of high or low utilization.

Meeting this challenge means not only employing enough agents to ensure that all customer inquiries are handled promptly .
Source: www.shutterstock.com.

Meeting this challenge means not only employing enough agents to ensure that all customer inquiries are handled promptly and efficiently during the busiest times of the year—say, during the chaotic sales seasons of Black Friday or Amazon Prime Day—but also making sure that those agents are of the highest possible quality.

With retail contact center outsourcing, you’ll always have access to as many agents you need. That means that all of your customer service needs will be met by top-quality professionals even during your busiest times, without having to rely on temps, or foot the additional bill of employing those agents all year.

Pro Tip: How to Manage Retail Seasonality with a Flexible Workforce

#5: The Power to Keep Customer Data Safe and Secure

A downside of today’s hyper-connected world is the vulnerability of sensitive data—and that’s a risk that only gets more serious each year, as this TechRepublic report shows. Your customers are well aware of this fact, too: According to a PricewaterhouseCoopers data security survey, 85% of people will not do business with a company if they have concerns about its data-protection practices.

“5% of people will not do business with a company if they have concerns about its data-protection practices.” Click To Tweet

Partnering with a dedicated retail contact center outsourcing provider gives you a powerful tool in the never-ending struggle to secure your customers’ sensitive information. Leading outsourced contact center solutions come complete with sophisticated data protection policies and methodologies—all without the need for additional investment in sophisticated technology or dedicated IT security personnel.

Pro Tip: about How to Improve Call Center Security with Retail Contact Center Outsourcing

#6: The Freedom to Focus

Beyond the obvious benefits of cutting costs while gaining access to an enormous pool of skilled labor, retail contact center outsourcing also frees you from the burden of managing your own customer service. And that, in turn, enables you to focus on doing what you do best: Running the business.

On top of that, while you’re focused on your own growth strategies, your outsourced call center will support those efforts by boosting your sales and marketing capabilities. At Working Solutions, for instance, our contact center agents are skilled in not only providing premium customer service, but also helping your company grow with built-in upselling, cross-selling and revenue-growth strategies.