AnswerFirst Communications, Inc. - Answering Service, Virtual Office, Call Center Solutions, Scheduling & Reservation Services, Customer Care and Order Entry

Client Expectations

When looking to outsource key functions of your business to a call center, it is important to identify the scope of work required and what the focus of those functions should be. Is it most important your callers be greeted by a friendly live voice thanking them for calling your company or is it more important information gathered from your callers be accurate and delivered in a timely manner? What, you say it is essential both of those things happen on a consistent basis? You would not be alone in your assessment as most business owners realize the staff of a call center answering calls to their business ARE their business. Callers dial the number, staff answers in your name, why wouldn't callers assume they have reached someone at your office?

While every business would like to have every call answered by a live person every time and while every business would like for all information to be totally accurate 100% of the time, business owners must also face the realities of everyday life. You know your own staff will make mistakes from time to time and you even know calls can be missed on occasion by your staff, your staff is human after all. It is important to consider the reason a call center can be a cost effective solution in the first place. You appreciate the expense involved in hiring your own staff and the ability of a call center to "share" the cost of Live Operators among all of their clients is why call centers can be such an attractive alternative. They can deliver close to the same performance as your own staff at a fraction of the cost.

So what expectations should you have for your call center? What is considered "quality" performance when guaging a call centers' production? To find the answer to that, one must first consider the environment of a call center. Here are some common concerns a call center faces on a day to day basis:

Abandon Rate
Availability and Agent Utilization
Average Speed of Answer (ASA)
Contact Volume
Customer Satisfaction

Handle Time
One Call Resolution Rate
Quality Monitoring
Schedule Adherence
Turnover Rate

From a client perspective, excellent call center performance can be guaged by three main statistical criteria:

Average Ring To Live Operator Answer - 2 rings or less
Average Percentage Of Calls Answered By Live Operator - 85% or greater
Average Length Of Hold Time For Callers - 45 seconds or less

Another critical factor when guaging a call centers' performance and feasabilty is average call length. A typical message may require on average only 35 - 45 seconds to complete while an order entry, scheduling or technical support call can require considerable more time. For example, if you are selling a product for $19.95 and your average sale is one item per order, is it feasible to consider outsourcing the order taking to a call center? Since an average order takes an operator between 3 - 5 minutes to complete and would cost you some where between 3 - 5 dollars per order, it might not make financial sense to use a call center for this product.

At AnswerFirst, we maintain or exceed the three main citeria for excellence and try to make it as easy as possible for our clients to know exactly how we are performing on their account. Through our Client Web Access feature, clients have the ability to run a variety of reports in real time to guage how well we are doing. Not only can you see our performance statistically, you can listen to your calls, view your messages and web form submissions and view your account screens with this feature. We WANT our clients to know how we are doing. It is only through our client's feedback can we improve on our performance.

A quality call center can be an enormous help to many businesses, but have limitations just as any other business. Ours is a business powered by people and people can make mistakes. We think one of our best qualities is how we react to those mistakes to insure they are not repeated in the future. People are also our biggest strength, cheery, helpful and efficient operators can add immeasurably to the satisfaction of your clients. Give us a call and you too will discover the AnswerFirst difference.

You may also contact us by using our Service Request Form

CLIENT EXPECTATIONS

Client Expectations