Many business owners believe customer service outsourcing to be synonymous with hiring offshore call centers, but that isn’t always the case. Call centers in the U.S. can help your business maintain and grow its loyal customer base by offering an exceptional, culturally-aligned customer experience.
While some may be concerned about the cost of hiring a domestic call center, business owners must realize that partnering with offshore providers can cost them in many unexpected ways.
If you are currently weighing your sales or customer service outsourcing options, learn about these six critical ways that hiring a U.S.-based call center can positively affect your business and customers.
1. Ensure Effective Communication
Whether customer interactions take place via phone calls or a messaging app, agents and customers must be able to understand one another. Language barriers can get in the way of effective communication, which can, in turn, hurt the customer experience.
Unfortunately, 61% of customers who experience frustration in their first interactions with your business will decide to shop with competitors.
Hiring a call center in the U.S. ensures a much smoother experience for customers making a purchase or calling about a problem — it eliminates language barriers and the issues they can cause. It makes it more likely that customers will have a pleasant experience and get their issues solved in the first call, which ultimately increases customer satisfaction and retention.
2. Build Brand Continuity
If you have a U.S.-based brand, your location is likely reflected in your brand values, content, and messaging. Maintaining consistency in your branding across every point of customer interaction is key. It helps you distinguish yourself from market competition, build brand authority, and establish trust and loyalty with your customer base. Without brand consistency, all of these elements are compromised.
Partnering with an American call center is critical to maintaining continuity with your brand. It ensures that customers will be greeted with the same brand personality that attracted them to your business in the first place and that they won’t encounter messaging inconsistencies that could cause them to lose their trust in you.
3. Navigate Cultural Nuances
Interacting with customers isn’t just about selling a product or service or answering a sales question. Your call center agents need to build connections with customers by understanding cultural nuances, such as weather patterns affecting a particular part of the country or what’s trending in pop culture.
Customers appreciate talking and connecting with agents about the things they know; it greatly enhances their experience and increases their comfort throughout the interaction.
Using culturally aligned American call center services also ensures that your business won’t have to worry about navigating the nuances of a different culture, such as alternative attitudes toward time management, work ethic, and communication. Agents will be on the same page, which makes the entire experience easier for all involved.
4. Provide Values-Based Training
You may not realize that the agent training experience is one of the most important aspects of the customer support experience. How your call center agents are trained will dictate how they interact with your customers.
Because these agents are representatives of your brand, this training also impacts how customers perceive your company and how much they feel you care about them beyond the sale.
With U.S.-based call center outsourcing, you’ll be able to ensure the training that agents receive aligns with your brand and cultural values.
Most domestic call centers will meet with your management team to discuss the content of the training and any specific materials you want to use. Agents will also receive training on professionalism, conflict resolution, and other communication aspects that can affect brand representation.
5. Eliminate Financial Risk
When U.S. companies outsource sales, service, and tech support calls to offshore call centers, they have to pay attention to foreign currency exchange rates.
In volatile markets where exchange rates change frequently, it’s easy for businesses to lose money when things fluctuate. This often necessitates having to make special deals with offshore call centers to mitigate these risks.
However, even with a deal in place, it can be difficult to plan for the future when pricing structures are constantly moving. When you use U.S.-based call center solutions, you don’t have to worry about currency movements, as you’ll pay your outsourcing partner in U.S. dollars. This can make it much easier to develop budget forecasts and allocate resources to your outsourcing needs.
6. Connect With U.S. Audiences
If you own a brand outside of the U.S. but wish to market to and connect with U.S. audiences, it’s a good idea to hire a call center that operates within the country.
You likely understand how language barriers and cultural incongruencies can impact customer trust. If you want U.S. customers to have a favorable experience with your brand, you must find a way to address these issues.
Fortunately, hiring U.S.-based contact centers can eliminate these risks and help you build loyalty with a local customer base. When customers in the country speak with someone who understands and effectively communicates with them, it makes them feel valued and casts your brand in the right light.
Offer Excellent Service for All Customers
Business owners must remember that the cheapest option isn’t always the best. Outsourcing your customer service and sales calls to an offshore call center often seems to be a more reasonable investment on the front end, but it doesn’t always prove cost-effective in the long run.
You must consider what is best for your customers and what will inspire brand trust and loyalty from your base. The location of your call center partner has a big impact on your revenue, as many customers will shop with one of your competitors when service isn’t up to par. Hiring a domestic call center is the safest bet for many businesses catering to or trying to reach U.S. customers. It will not only provide plenty of benefits for your business but also ensure your customers receive service that exceeds their expectations.