Technical contact centres – counting the benefits

Traditional contact centres are typically judged on two metrics – cost per contact and response times. For a specialist technical contact centre, however, these are just two elements of a much wider suite of benefits. 

Response 

In today’s fast-changing world – particularly from a technology perspective – accessibility is king. Clients demand help and support at times that suit them. It’s certainly easy to see why in b2b markets. In the retail sector, for example, estimates show the cost of equipment downtime at £3,765 per minute, so an accessible support team is critical.  

Resolution 

By outsourcing a technical call centre, clients gain high levels of flexibility to meet demand – but being accessible is only half the battle, the team need to be able to provide effective resolutions to a host of problems as well.  

Our experience with a wide range of technology suggests that up to 80% of problems are resolvable over the phone by skilled technicians and engineers. Combine this with effective processes for returns, swap outs, warranty management and other interventions, a good contact centre can transform the customer experience.  

Customer focus 

Throughout all this, and no matter the problem, potential solution or time frame, the customer focus must never be lost. This is the point of using a dedicated contact centre – it provides clients with a 100% customer focussed operation, where no one is taking the calls as part of wider responsibilities and priorities. A team of knowledgeable, dedicated, and skilled professionals help build an operation that is entirely focussed on the needs of the customers and end-users, including any special requirements such as local language support or multi-channel access.  

Consistency 

The key to the success of any call centres is applying all the above consistently. By centralising all these functions into one place, this becomes much easier to manage, with all the possible components (site visits, replacements, repairs etc.) being bookable by one point of contact.  

Of course this is also a significant factor in building a technology companies brand and reputation. Great customer service generates great word-of-mouth, resulting in repeat business and new business by recommendation.  

The case for outsourcing 

High-quality support is increasingly a must-have item for technology manufacturers, and the specialist technical contact centre is an effective and efficient part of this. Investment in a technical contact centre can not only build customer loyalty, repeat business and word-of-mouth reputation, but it can reduce costs across other areas of the business.  

In addition, this is an aspect of the technical services mix which is readily outsourced to a specialist partner. You can read more about the benefits and process of outsourcing technical contact centres in our e-guide, here.  

For more information, to discuss your technical contact centre requirements, or to explore how technical services outsourcing could benefit your business, please contact us at outsourcing@qcom.co.uk or telephone +44(0)1905 827650 to arrange an initial conversation in complete confidence.