Could a contact centre elevate your brand and customer services to the next level?

Introduction

According to ibisworld.com, in 2024 there were around 520 contact centres in the UK. Many of the UK’s leading banks, energy providers and retailers like John Lewis Partnership have contact centres, as do government agencies like HM Revenue & Customs .

The brands outlined above are major national companies, many of them quoted on the London Stock Exchange . However, contact centres are viable propositions for much smaller, regional and niche brands. This article outlines the pros and cons of outsourced contact centres for such brands. It also asks what determines when a business/brand is mature enough to consider a contact centre business model.

What is a contact centre?

There are various definition of a contact centre, but a good summary definition is that a contact centre manages a brand’s customer interactions through a variety of channels such as phone calls, live webchat, social media, email and messaging apps.

In larger organisations, contact centres are often in-house departments staffed by employees recruited by the brand. When this article refers to ‘contact centre’ however, it means an outsourced third-party service provided by organisations such as Paperclip and sometimes referred to as ‘contact centre as a service’.

Sometimes third-party contact centres like Paperclip handle ‘overflow’ calls for in-house contact centres at peak times.

What are the benefits for your business and brand of having a contact centre?

As a business grows, and the number of customer interactions increases, it becomes ever harder to deliver effective customer service without a dedicated service team and communication channels; going through a central switchboard with the resulting delays, and possible reliance on voicemail, doesn’t really cut the mustard.

Customer service

Virtually every business talks on its website or in its literature about customer service and support. A question to ask yourself at this juncture is whether your business is genuinely committed to delivering first-class customer service or is it simply marketingspeak. If it’s the latter, marketingspeak, then a contact centre is not for you. A contact centre only delivers true, measurable benefits when the brand/contact centre relationship is built on a shared, collective belief in the value of customer service.

What would the competitive benefit to your brand be if you could promise customers that their calls would be answered with 10 seconds or three rings, with similar time ‘guarantees’ for communications received through other channels? Not ‘your call is important to us and you are number ten in the queue’, but customer communications answered and questions resolved quickly and effectively. Furthermore, what if you could promote statistics that reassure customers and prospects that this is measurably true? Quick and effective resolution of customer questions is the primary benefit of engaging with a contact service provider like Paperclip.

Here are just a few of the other benefits your brand could derive from having a contact centre, although most of them are linked to the primary benefit outlined above:

-?????? Customer satisfaction. Your brands customer journey should be simplified and enhanced. We have all experienced dealing with brands that appear to have ‘sales prevention departments’ rather than a genuine customer service orientation.

-?????? Sales. Building on the above, contact centres make it easier for your customers and prospects to buy from you because their questions and potential objections are resolved quickly and effectively.

-?????? Cost control. A contact centre can be extremely cost-effective as it centralises customer and prospect communications, streamlines operations and reduces overheads.

-?????? Efficiencies and risk reduction. If you establish an in-house customer service or contact centre facility, there is a high probability that at certain times of the day, on specific days or the week, or at times of the year activity levels will fall. Using a contact centre provider like Paperclip transfers this risk and removes the hassle of recruitment and personnel management.

-?????? Scalability.

Contact centres providers like Paperclip can help you scale your business at short notice. The same applies in reverse should a brand be in decline. You only pay for the minutes you use.

-?????? Multitasking. Paperclip team members are trained to handle multiple enquiries at once. This can help improve response times.

-?????? Brand consistency. A good contact centre will deliver a consistent brand experience across multiple communication channels.

-?????? Data management and insights.

A contact centre channels customer touchpoints into a single ‘location’. This makes it far easier to capture data from which strategic insights can? be derived, and changes made.

-?????? Compliance and quality. Contact centres typically implement protocols for quality assurance and compliance purposes.

We have outlined above some of the many benefits of a contact centre for your business and your brand. However, for such a relationship to work effectively there is plenty of upfront work needed. That’s what this article looks at next.

The steps you need to take to ensure your relationship with your contact centre provider is a success.

Or, put differently, is your business/brand sufficiently mature to support a contact centre relationship?

In Paperclip’s experience, successful contact centre relationships are built on brands having clearly defined goals and objectives. What do you want, or expect, to gain from the relationship?

The building block for effective goals and objectives is a clear understanding of current and projected activity levels. What is the volume and complexity of your current customer interactions? In Paperclip’s experience, the vast majority of customer queries can be handled within the format of well-defined FAQs supported by access to client systems (see below). For example, we have provided the contact centre for an upmarket greenhouse brand, whose core product range could be almost infinitely variable due to the number of build and accessory options. However, with clear protocols and product training in place, it was extremely rare for a customer query to be escalated to the manufacturer’s in-house specialists.

Clearly, it is important to choose the right contact centre provider for your business/brand. Does the provider have previous experience in your sector? How good is its reputation and online reviews? Do they have the technical expertise to engage with you technology and systems? For example, Paperclip provides contact centre services for several healthcare groups such as physiotherapists, osteopaths and podiatrists. This is facilitated by our knowledge of healthcare practice management systems such Cliniko, Jane and Nookal.

Your chosen provider must have the capacity and scalability to support your business plans. Paperclip, for example, would not be able to support the volume of interactions of an operation such as the AA or RAC, but we are ideally suited for other brands.

Handover of customer service interactions to a third-party specialist like Paperclip can be challenging and emotive for many brands which have grown up handling all queries in-house. The stress can be significantly reduced by starting with a pilot programme and by ensuing contact centre have received the right training and training materials such as product and service documentation, FAQ sheets, customer personas and client systems protocols. In partnership with contact centre clients, Paperclip develops a portfolio of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) covering service delivery, client communications and reporting.

It is also important to agree a basket of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for service dimensions such as average handle times, first call resolution and, where practicable, customer satisfaction. In Paperclip’s experience, the basket of KPIs is most effective when it is focussed and limited to key measurable deliverables. If a ‘Google Analytics’ approach is adopted where everything is measured and reported on, it is easy to lose sight of what really matters.

Confidentiality and security are fundamental to a successful contact centre arrangement. Paperclip complies with strict data protection and compliance regulations as a matter of course as it operates in sectors such as family law and healthcare provision.

If the contact centre model is a new approach for your business/brand it is important to prepare your customers for the change; notify them in advance and set expectations. These ‘expectations’ are, of course, typically positive in that the customer should experience a significant improvement in service levels such as response times, question resolution and more. Such communications can be treated as a major marketing opportunity of handled correctly.

Finally, although you are using a contact centre it is still your brand. Maintaining oversight of contact centre activities and performance are, therefore, very important. It is not a fixed or static relationship and, in Paperclip’s experience, satisfaction with the arrangement is enhanced when regular adjustments are made to protocols and KPIs in response to customer feedback and data analysis.

If you want to know more…

Establishing a contact centre is rarely an ‘off the cuff’ decision. To start the process Paperclip recommends an initial discussion, or series of discussions, to explore what you expect a contact centre to deliver for your brand and the relationship you are hoping to build.

In the first instance, please call me on 01246 418 181 for an initial discovery call and to agree next steps.

Our contact centre clients enjoy working with us, and I believe you will too.

Louise

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