Customer service suffers an unfortunate distinction—it is too often regarded (although sometimes subconsciously) as having lower stature than sales. The reason is that the unenlightened view it as a non-revenue-producing business function. The truth is that this thinking is skewed as good customer service is a catalyst to increased sales and customer loyalty. In other words, customer service leads to sustainable sales activity.

To achieve sustainable sales through customer service, this job function needs the latest tools and technologies to reach peak performance. The good news is that today’s hosted solutions take a good chunk of the financial pain out of the implementation of these tools so corporations can remain pleased with their profit pictures.

Of course, all hosted customer service solutions are not created equal. Therefore, it behooves customer service call center management to become educated in the hosted call center solution features that will not only enable customer service reps to address incoming customer calls effectively and with the utmost efficiency, but to do so in a fashion that fosters sales opportunities. 

First, take some time to decide if you want to take advantage of the fact that with a hosted solution you can have your customer service reps physically located anywhere in the world because all they need is a headset, a computer and a broadband Internet connection. One reason to decide to do this is it gives you access to the very best customer service reps available, which boosts the odds of customer service efforts leading to sales opportunities. One hosted call center software provider, Five9 (News - Alert), explains  that when hosted call center software, such as its Virtual Call Center, leverages web-based applications and VoIP, customer service reps, regardless of their location, will have a reliable and clear communication channel with which to interact with incoming callers. Not only that but supervisors and managers can perform real-time monitoring as well as remain in communication with everyone involved in the customer service effort via message broadcasting and chat that is integrated into the system.

Regardless of where you decide to locate your customer service reps, one feature you must have in the inbound hosted solution you chose is a routing feature that not only directs each caller to the appropriately skilled agent, but also sends historical data about each caller along with the transfer. When you think about your own experiences with customer service call centers you know that one of the quickest ways to lose a customer is to make him or her repeat information. When a solution, such as Virtual Call Center, equips agents to converse intelligently with customers because they have been provided with background information, regardless of whether or not that caller has just been transferred from another rep, the caller typically becomes more relaxed and friendly which opens them up to considering the purchase of additional or upgraded products or services.

Another way a hosted call center solution facilitates customer service profitability is that it allows businesses to scale operations up and down as needs dictate so money is not wasted employing reps when it is unnecessary or having to make major infrastructure investments that may be needed for only a short time. In fact, at all times, with a hosted call center customer service model expenses for infrastructure and maintenance shrink.

Although the naysayers will be reluctant to admit it, it is hard to deny that with a hosted customer service contact center solution, customer service is anything but a drain on profits. To the contrary, the features available with hosted customer service contact center solutions allow customer service to not only improve the customer experience, but be a revenue producer as well.