Cents And Sensibility: Outsourcing Can Grow Business While Shrinking Overhead

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Outsourcing to a call center service is becoming more commonplace these days, and exponentially more accessible to smaller businesses. This doesn’t have to mean shipping jobs overseas (something most people automatically assume when they hear the word “outsourcing”). There are plenty of local call centers available for outsourcing your answering service needs. Utilizing a call center service doesn’t mean you’re taking jobs away from people who need them; in fact quite the opposite. Call centers hire dozens (sometimes hundreds) of highly qualified well trained receptionists who dedicate themselves to doing one thing: answer phones in a polite, professional, courteous manner.

Outsourcing to a call center service increases your profitability, and productivity while reducing your overhead. The average professional secretary costs an average of around 40k per annum in salary alone per secretary. Add to that a 401k, taxes, health benefits and worker’s compensation insurance, and you’re looking at quite a hefty sum. Outsourcing to an answering service can reduce this cost drastically, sometimes ...
... by as much as 90 per cent (depending on your specific needs). That’s money that you can put directly back into your business. In salary costs alone that’s 36,000 dollars per secretary that you can put into marketing, advertising, research and development, or even raises for you other employees.

Utilizing a call center service ensures that your phones get answered, and messages get taken efficiently and accurately every single time, and with after business hours available, twenty four hours a day. There’s no need to schedule around holidays, personal days, sick days, or requested days off. The call center service to which you’re outsourcing has a qualified staff working around the clock, and they’re specifically trained to handle your incoming calls. Moreover, there’s nothing that adds quite so personal a touch as reaching a live person as opposed to a machine. It puts the caller at ease and alleviates frustration immediately. No one wants to be asked by a machine to push buttons or say numbers only to be forwarded to another queue and wait forty five minutes to then be asked to leave their message at the beep. Call centers are staffed with real, live people. Yes, they’re still leaving a message, but they’re leaving a message with a live person instead of a machine, and there’s a human connection that causes an instant positive feeling that simply isn’t present with a machine; and as any businessman knows, positive feelings lead to positive thoughts, and positive actions.

Kris Leeds is a freelance writer for Anser.com, a leading provider of call center service outsourcing and answering services. For more information about telephone answer services, please visit Anser.com.