With the improvement of technology, many businesses have adopted the new approach for their call centres operation and set up a virtual contact centre is the latest trend among many organizations today. One of the few reasons why virtual is so popular is the fact that it offers the company the flexibility to run their operations and companies do not need to invest heavily on the infrastructure and the manpower to set up the virtual contact centre. However, to understand the pro and cons, one must first understand what a virtual contact centre is and how they run the daily operations.
Virtual call centre by definition is a phone support solution that offers companies a virtual representation of their organization’s offices. Rather than employing the call agents who are situated at workstations within the business premises. The company has the option to employ representatives who are geographically dispersed around the world.
For example, employees working in the Virtual call centre can be arranged to be situated in several groups in the call centres or they can also work from their homes instead. While the benefits are flexible hours, no dress code requirements and traveling to work. The company who adopt the virtual call centre concept for their call centre also saves money in terms of housing and equipment costs plus the potential reduction in the employee turnover rates, which is often quite high in the physical call centres.
For your understanding, I have listed down the Pros and Cons of using Virtual Call Centre as shown below.
Pros of using Virtual Call Centre
– Using the home-based call agents for the call centre operations is beneficial to the company as the startup costs are only limited to the computer and telephone system which the agents need to handle and route the incoming calls.
– Aside from running the call centre’s operations in the office, companies have the flexibility to hire additional employees who are working as home-based agents as and when required.
– Virtual Call Centres are more easily maintained than traditional call centres as the all the servers and other related IT infrastructure are maintained and service by the service provider.
– Virtual Call Centres have many additional features which allow the business to switch from customer services to inbound sales or other related operations for the call centre using the same software easily.
– Using Virtual Call Centres is more cost-effective and efficient especially for small business who have the budget constraint to set up the call centre.
– It is possible for call agents working in the Virtual Call Centres to service both local and overseas clients from around the globe using the internet.
Cons of using Virtual Call Centres
– Due to the fact that most Virtual Call Centres agents are handling both local and overseas customers, high call volumes are frequent and demanding and the call centre has to operate around the clock to meet the demands of the customers. Thus, the management needs to ensure that there are enough call agents to handle the call volume to maintain the status quo of the service level.
– Regardless of using the multi-line phone system or the virtual phone system for the call agents to handle the call. The call centre management must commit time and resources to train the agents well in order to use the features efficiently during the operation hours.
– To handle the international clients, the management needs to schedule the call agents to work on flexible hours or willing to work on evenings and weekends to accommodate and handle clients in different time zones. Which may also apply to the local business for the agents to work on evenings and weekends as part of the service support requirements.
– While the Virtual Call Centre is a versatile and efficient concept for the call centre nowadays, the one challenge which most companies will face is to find a reliable and trustworthy company that can provide excellent Virtual Call Centre software and IT support to their client for their call centre’s needs.
However, there is one company in Singapore to recommend due to its strong reputation, experience, and reliable service. This company is known as Converged Solutions which is based in Singapore but have years of working experience in the info-communications industry. Currently Converged Solutions have successfully delivered call centre solutions to several countries around the world and thus can be trusted to deliver efficient services to companies who are interested in setting up the Virtual Call centre.