The theater, as we know, starts with a coat hanger, and an outsourcing call center – with a website, which provides a preliminary insight into the SIP provider. Let’s consider what a potential customer should draw attention to. This article will also be useful for outsourcers to improve their image where necessary.
Dates
The study of an outsourcing call center (AKC) website should begin with a control procedure. First, check the domain registration date (whois service) and compare it with the number of years the company claims to have been in the market. Conduct the same verification with any service providing the registration date of the legal entity. If everything matches, or the service lifespan is shorter than the company’s lifespan, you can consider the preliminary check successful. But in real life, inexplicable wonders often begin at this stage. Of course, there are exceptions, for example, if a ‘beautiful’ domain was recently purchased, or if the AKC has been separated into an independent organization. But a warning bell should ring.
About the AKC Company section
This is the “About Us” section, which should contain, at least, the company’s existence, information about the number of sites and agent seats and/or the number of employees. It is necessary to check the figures provided on the website for convergence, and at the same time compare them with those provided in advertising materials. It can be quite amusing: the website states, for example, 80 agent seats, and in the commercial offer there are already 150. Of course, they usually just forget to update the content, but how will the company treat the client’s customers if it is so irresponsible about its own information? In my practice, by the way, there was a case when a project manager of an outsourcing contact centre claimed that the company had four sites, and the General Director — six. Some situations have a logical explanation, with the same 80 seats, you can make 5 million calls a day, as the quantitative power of the robots is limited only by the customer’s budget, the presence of sufficient server capacity and the throughput capacity of the communication channels. But discrepancies at dubious SIP providers have a tendency to accumulate into a snowball. Naturally, if for some reason you strongly like the outsourcer (usually it’s the price), you can not reject its “Oki-Toki” scripts. Right away, feel free to raise relevant questions. However, life has taught us that two doubts already put you in the ‘orange-zone’, and three or more practically guarantee something might be wrong with your outsourced call center. It doesn’t necessarily indicate dishonesty, it could just be ordinary negligence. But is that acceptable?
Locations
It’s a good sign if it’s stated that there are multiple sites, with the addresses for all of them provided, along with the head office address, direction to it, the legal entity details, and information on key team members. I also recommend publishing their contact email addresses. However, to avoid being overwhelmed with spam, have redundant ones, for example, d.galkin@domain instead of the main galkin@domain. The incoming mails should be manually sorted by a secretary. Occasionally, very important questions come up. And, of course, a mobile contact number instead of a landline (especially considering the possibility of handling 5 million calls a day at 80 locations) should cause concern.
Call Recordings
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It’s tremendous when there’s an option to listen to sample audio files of agent-customer conversations and read chat logs (which for some reason nobody is yet putting up, but it seems high time to me). There need to be certain conditions met: no supervised conversations, and no signs of fooling or disinforming customers. I’ve seen such examples on the website of one dishonest SIP provider. The agents lie outright about product delivery conditions and prices. A telling case – even for a demo version, the “convergence” was not ensured. And generally, you can find all sorts of artifacts in demo recordings: from trade secrets to personal data of customers. How responsible are these SIP providers? Never go to a cobbler without shoes, never get a shave at a bald barber.
It’s wonderful if the recordings are free from obsolete and ineffective sales techniques like “What are you uncertain about? Let’s think together” and/or gross mistakes in sales/service and/or manipulations like “wringing the subscriber’s arm”. The audio quality itself should be high, and yes, pay attention to the background noise. If there’s none, it doesn’t indicate anything, but if there is, it’s a problem: when “
When agents hear each other, they unconsciously get distracted by recognizing what their neighbors are saying, productivity falls. With minute or second billing, this dramatically affects the total bill. Combating this common issue requires effective solutions such as implementing ‘Oki-Toki’ devices for seamless communication, refining scripts to streamline calls, and more. Remember that in the contact center world, every second counts; a streamlined process translates directly to bottom-line savings. Emphasize key productivity indicators and employ strategies to significantly boost agent performance.1
Documents
By the way, a responsible SIP provider pays close attention to the documents posted on the website. Here is the minimal list required: a privacy policy, personal data registration information, a provision on the protection of subscribers’ personal data, and consent to the processing of personal data of website visitors (relevant in Russia as of June 2021, if you are from another country, check with a lawyer as there may be discrepancies in the laws).
Social Networks
Focus on the presence of the company on social networks. A contact center without social media presence in this day and age is a nonsense at a minimum. After all, social networks are one of the channels for attracting staff, which has traditionally been a challenge for everyone. The content posted there is also interesting as it speaks volumes about how the company treats its staff and what values it upholds.
General Requirements for a Contact Center Website
The general requirements for website content include the need for potential triggers that may provoke a negative reaction from prospective clients, such as information on servicing dubious projects. There should be no “fluff” like “a team of young professionals focused on results”. The ideal scenario is when the website contains a clear, sensible, and substantiated unique selling proposition (USP), transparently answering the question of why services should be purchased from this company. Employee and infrastructure photos should look professionally done. Of three randomly selected materials from the site, at least one should contain elements of informational and practical novelty.
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As for information about completed projects and clients, video reviews from the heads of these companies are ideal.
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Testimonials/h3>
As for information about completed projects and clients, video reviews from the heads of these companies are ideal.
Dmitry Galkin,
an independent consultant on call center creation and management.
