Running a small business is full of challenges. While most people make exceptions for small businesses when it comes to expectations – they may excuse a lack of polish in marketing brochures, for example – when it comes to customer service, expectations of good service are universal, whether you’re a giant company or a one-person operation. When customers call (or e-mail, or text), they expect to receive a response.

Essentially, any business that has customers must operate a contact center. Even if it’s just a single person, it’s vital that customer queries don’t go unanswered. For many companies, this means using a team of subcontractors to manage this role. It’s the business’ job, however, to provide the platform on which these subcontractors will operate, according to a recent blog post by Rhonda’s Virtual Office, LLC. This is particularly true in a multimedia environment.

“For example, if you are selling a membership service on your website as a part of a product or service that you offer then you need a customer service department that can handle calls regarding billing, general inquiries and help desk questions,” wrote the blogger. “If you hire all these subcontractors to do this service without a central platform for them to operate from it can create utter chaos for your business.”

This is where call center on demand solutions become a critical element of the mix. Small businesses can have access to a state-of-the-art customer support solution without the  need to invest big dollars upfront, and the solution can be used by contractors who are located anywhere.

“If you use US based cloud call center software like Five9 (News - Alert) or InContact, it will allow you to manage your customer service departments underneath one umbrella while saving time, money and adhering to telecommunications rules and regulations,” wrote the blogger.

The reason is that these solutions often offer all-in-one capabilities: a telephony platform with necessary extras such as multimedia features, call recording, integration with customer relationship management (CRM), skills-based routing and more. They allow very small companies to offer the same robust customer support as the largest organizations who can afford premise-based solutions properly integrated by an IT department.

The convenience factor is high: anyone can log in to these solutions from anywhere there is a high-speed Internet connection and essentially become a call center agent. For small businesses that lack central offices, this is critical for optimum customer support. It’s a way for small companies to compete with – and even exceed  -- he big boys when it comes to critical customer service.