Your Outsourcing Call Center Directory

LESSONS IN OUTSOURCING: AVOIDING “I TOLD YOU SO…”

You’re the new breed of business using e-commerce to sell it, outsource fulfillment to send it, and outsource call center to back it up. You are leading the pack out of the recession and growing your business without storing one widget or employing a full-time customer care team. Things are going great, until the cracks start to show.

Your fulfillment house gets a larger client and all of a sudden only ships your widgets one day out of the week, then your e-commerce is hacked, and at the same time, your call center has a power outage leaving no one available to cover your mounting and frustrated customer calls. These things may seem unlikely, but nightmares like this can and do happen.

By carefully vetting the partners you do business with, before putting all your eggs in the basket, you need to make sure you understand what you truly need from each and that you get it in writing.

There are three lessons to be learned from the above scenario:

Make sure you have clear agreements with your fulfillment that their services are scalable to your business regardless of demand or circumstance. Additionally, there should be provisions that if they cannot meet your needs, that you have recourse – including the option find another center that can truly service your business.
Make sure you are doing business with a reputable e-commerce developer that ensures redundancy and security for your data and consumers, before you launch your business. It may not be necessary to hire a consultant to write up requirements for you, although it may still be a good idea. However, many e-commerce developers will provide that for you as part of their process or general business model.
Make sure your call center has a back-up to the back-up; it’s the belt and suspenders approach to protecting your business. On-site generators, established and documented data back-up and security, as well as disaster recovery plans are all good signs you’re looking at a good call center candidate.

There are many conditions upon which successful outsource partnerships are based on, including transparency, experience, and an understanding of your business. Outsourcers that respect and are vested in your brand are well worth the money, whereas entering into purely financially agreeable circumstances will eventually land you at, “I Told You So…”

The author, Randall McKee, is Sales Manager for Taction – The Contact Center.