How to Hire a Call Center: Costs & Key Tips

Call centers are responsible for handling a large volume of inbound and outbound customer calls. And according to Forbes, 80% of companies use call centers as their primary customer service channel. 

But would you need to hire a call center and not build an in-house team? 

Simply put, by deciding to hire customer support from an outsourced services provider, you allow yourself to focus on your core business tasks, while knowing that the professional call center agents are maintaining high customer satisfaction rates. 

Understanding What Your Company Needs From a Call Center

The outsourced center takes it upon themselves to provide the best possible service to your customers while keeping costs as low as possible. It’s no wonder that Research and Markets studies revealed that the call center market’s worth is projected to reach USD $500.1 billion by the year 2030 — the demand for such services is at an all-time high.

It is important to first understand why your company might need to hire customer service agents and how they can help your company. The best way to do this is to evaluate your customer service needs and determine the type of customer inquiries you are receiving.

Evaluate Your Customer Service Requirements

This is the type of information that you should be looking for in order to make an informed decision:

• call volume, customer logs, and peak call periods from the past 12 months
• upcoming launches and marketing campaigns
• customer feedback surveys to identify trends and expectations
• analysis of areas for improvement
• technology and infrastructure needs (e.g., CRM software, AI tools)
• current call center performance metrics 

Here are some call center KPI benchmarks by industry as of 2024. Consider them when planning your own KPIs.

Examine the Types of Customer Inquiries 

By understanding the types of customer inquiries you will be receiving, you can better position the agents to provide top-notch customer care. These are the inquiries and the skills needed to handle them.

• Technical support: technical understanding of your product or service offering and good problem-solving skills.
• Product inquiries: knowledgeable about product features, specifications, and availability.
• Order support: experience in handling order status, shipping, and returns.  
• Billing and account management: handling sensitive financial information, including accounts, payments, and billing issues.
• Customer feedback: experience in conflict resolution and handling of complaints and feedback positively. 
• General assistance: comprehensive knowledge of the company’s working hours, contact information, and related queries. 

Having outlined the types of inquiries you most often receive, you can share this information with the outsourcing company, so that they can select the right specialists for you. This will help improve CSAT scores and enhance overall customer satisfaction. 

To further illustrate the importance of the decision to hire call center services, Dr. Maitland Hyslop, the former CEO of a consulting company and now Senior Lecturer at Buckinghamshire University, says: 

Call centers are pivotal to this ‘connected’ world. They are the means by which everything will work. They can be automated or human – either way, they have to be reliable and be, above all, user-friendly.

When outsourcing call center services to a company with a decade-long experience like SupportYourApp, you can rest assured that the agents are going to be skilled professionals, ready to handle all types of inquiries, keep the pickup times close to zero, and ensure a pleasant experience for your customer.

Factors to Consider When Hiring a Call Center

To find the perfect match for your business’s needs, it is worth checking out the top 10 call center outsourcing companies to determine how they can help grow your CSAT and improve customer relations.

Additionally, the following factors may impact your call center hiring decision. 

Technology and Infrastructure

If your business requires specific technology and infrastructure, it is important that the call center you are hiring is able to realize these needs. 

Whether you require a robust CRM integration or omnichannel capabilities to allow for telephone, email, live chat, or social media communications, the call center you choose must be able to offer you these options to best serve your customers and their needs.

Scalability and Flexibility

One of the primary goals of any business is to see itself grow in the future. The outsourced call center provider you choose should be able to scale their services to meet the expanding needs of your business as you grow, and maintain a high level of quality assurance. 

Cultural Fit and Communication

Your agents will be the voice of your business. No matter the type of customer inquiry they will be handling, they will be representing your business. For this reason, it is important to ensure that when looking for a call center for hire, the chosen agents will offer a good culture fit for your business.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Hiring a Call Center

As with any important business decision, it is essential to weigh your pros and cons before hiring call center services.

The Pros:

Infrastructure: before a call center can run effectively, it requires specific infrastructure to be in place — offices, equipment, and so on. For this reason, it is not only faster and cheaper to outsource a call center, but they will also be able to scale more easily with your growing business needs.

Cost efficiency: when you outsource support services, the staff are already trained and proficient in providing effective customer care services, which means no additional training lead times or hiring costs for your business will be needed. 

Customer satisfaction: due to the extensive knowledge and niche training received by contact center agents, customer satisfaction in outsourced call centers is often higher than that of in-house call centers, which often lack the necessary expertise. 

The Cons: 

Potential security issues: A lot of emphasis is being placed on the protection of customer information. With this in mind, it is important to ensure that the call center you are hiring has strict security measures in place to prevent breaches of sensitive information from occurring. 

At SupportYourApp, we are compliant with several security protocols to guarantee the safety of our client data, including the DMCA (Digital Millennial Copyright Act), the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) of 2018. We are also classified as a level 1 provider by the Security Standards Council and have our ISO 27001 certification in Information Security Management. Proof that we can guarantee our clients’ data will always be safe with us.   

How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Call Center?

The cost depends on numerous factors, including the number of incoming calls, the number of staff needed, as well as the location of the outsourced call center.

At SupportYourApp, the cost of your pricing plan varies based on the size of the team you require, the level of support provided, and the integration plan, among other factors. To make your life easier, we have created four distinct pricing plans.

The pricing plans differ in the number of support consultants, the complexity of support provided, and the level of customization available. As businesses grow, they can access more languages, advanced integrations, and higher support levels. The plans also scale to accommodate different customer base sizes, from small businesses to large enterprises. Each plan offers varying degrees of support, from basic to highly personalized, based on the company’s needs.

Before you hire a contact center, it’s important to understand which of those options will be crucial to your customer’s support operations, and which can be omitted. 

When exploring how to hire a call center, companies often discover that outsourcing offers a huge cost savings potential. Here’s how external providers help reduce call center costs once you’ve stepped into this type of partnership:

• no need for infrastructure and equipment
• lower staff expenses
• no need for team training 
• scalability without extra expenses

An outsourced service provider will tailor your team to your specific needs. For example, here are the types of specialists a call center team might have. 

The outsourcing company will use their expertise to help you determine which roles are essential for your support team and which ones you can do without. In some cases, a Technical support agent or QA specialist may not be needed, allowing you to cut costs by avoiding unnecessary hires.

The best course of action is to request an elaborate breakdown of all costs and pricing involved prior to signing any contracts on your journey to figuring out how to hire a call center for your business.  

Monitoring and Evaluating Call Center Performance 

In a month or so, after your outsourced call center has started working, it’s time to monitor and evaluate its performance to see if you have made the right choice for your business.  

To do so, you need to measure and analyze specific KPIs to ensure the numbers are meeting your goals, such as: 

• average call handling time
• first-call resolution rates
• call abandonment rates
• customer satisfaction scores

This information, along with an attitude of continuous improvement, can help you locate your pain points and develop strategies for tackling the support challenges your business is facing without compromising the quality of your customer service.

Summary

When looking to hire a call center to handle customer inquiries and maintain high levels of customer satisfaction you need to first conduct an evaluation starting with understanding your customer service needs, as well as your business needs as a whole, before you begin your search. Once this is understood, you can look at the pros and cons of employing an outsourced service provider, while balancing this information with your financial capabilities. All of this is crucial to make the right choice when hiring a contractor. After some time, consider conducting an evaluation of the hired call center to determine if your goals are being met. 

FAQ

Why Should I Hire a Call Center for My Business?

By hiring a call center for your business, you are placing your customer care service in the hands of trained professionals who are equipped with the best knowledge, technology, and equipment to guarantee high customer satisfaction while freeing up time and resources to allow your business to focus on growing other areas of operations. 

How Much Does It Cost to Hire a Call Center?

The costs will depend on the unique needs of your company, the location of the outsourced call center, the setup price, number of consultants, levels of support, integration plan, and many other factors.

How Long Does It Take to Set Up a Call Center?

The amount of time depends on whether you have decided to set up an in-house call center versus using an outsourced call center. The setup required for an in-house operation will include training and equipment installation, which can take weeks or months, while the setup involved with outsourced services is usually much quicker — about a month. 

How to Ensure Quality Customer Service From a Call Center? 

This process starts by conducting a thorough onboarding process by the business to the outsourced agents to ensure a good cultural fit between the business and the call center in terms of values, expertise, and company knowledge to ensure that the brand voice is being clearly brought across to their customers. It all begins with the decision to hire the right customer support.

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