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Contact Center Outsourcing - How to Make or Break Customer Loyalty

By Susan J. Campbell, TMCnet Contributing Editor

With the holiday season upon us, that also means the arrival of holiday shoppers. They first emerged on Black Friday (News - Alert), storming the local retail stores and fighting each other to get the latest deal on electronics, clothing or jewelry – whether they needed them or not. The madness continued online with Amazon running its Lightning Deals every hour and other major retailers launching Cyber Monday (News - Alert) extravaganzas.

In years past, the Cyber Monday initiatives were online retailers’ attempts to catch those shoppers wanting in on the Black Friday deals who didn’t want to brave the crowds. This year online shoppers focused heavily on Friday shopping, breaking records, despite early physical retail openings by Target, Best Buy (News - Alert) and Kohl’s.

With online shopping comes online customer service and many interactions are handled by contact center outsourcing. If not handled correctly, the retailer stands to lose customers, market share and long-term revenue. A recent inContact blog explored the phenomenon, sharing BenchmarkPortal findings out of Purdue University (News - Alert). Here’s something important for call center outsourcing providers to consider:

·         A product with no problems presents a 78 percent chance of re-purchase

·         A product with problems and an ineffective customer care center has a 32 percent chance on re-purchase

·         A product with problems and an effective customer care center has an 89 percent chance of re-purchase.

In other words, call center outsourcing providers who handle calls effectively when a problem product is received by a customer have a higher chance of securing a loyal customer than the company that delivers the product properly with no issues. Why? Customers are extremely happy and satisfied when an agent expresses sympathy for their plight and offers to help in any way possible. The agent that simply goes through the motions can quickly create a frustrated – and flight-bound – customer.

The bottom line here is that when your call center outsourcing provider offers customer service that addresses the issue and the customer effectively and professionally in the event of a problem, they are more likely to buy from you again. A failure to handle the issue properly can drive the customer away forever – a cost you likely didn’t calculate into your call center outsourcing business case.

In other call center outsourcing news, TMCnet recently reported that Convergys (News - Alert) is set to open its first contact center in Jamaica. Set to be located in Montego Bay, the new contact center is expected to employ nearly 1,000 people when it becomes fully operational next year.