Establishing a help desk, whether for use by your internal staff or customer facing to field enquiries, can be an expensive project however the benefits can outweigh the cost many times over.
In the buying decision, potential customers will look to ensure that you are going to take care of them after they have bought your product or service. After sales care is a key factor in whether they will buy from you or from one of your competitors. Providing a help desk is a tangible, visible demonstration of your commitment to good customer service and that they will not be left stranded after the credit card payment has been processed.
The major decision associated with establishing a help desk is whether to have the resource in-house or to outsource the function. If you are setting up in-house this will require a large capital expenditure to establish the help desk, and the costs associated with recruiting and training the operators. The alternative is to outsource the help desk and this represents a low entry cost alternative as the infrastructure is already in place at the provider. You have no recruiting or training costs and probably the greatest advantage is that you have complete control over how the help desk is deployed to your customers and staff.

How well a business is perceived to be at managing customer relations and after sales care is a key element for many prospects considering buying your products and services. Providing a help desk is a visible commitment to looking after your customers once they have paid over their money. Establishing a help desk can be very expensive if it is in-house. The staff needed to be hired and trained, and this represents a very high overhead that the business may not always require, say for instance, when sales volumes are seasonally affected.
Outsourcing your help desk means that you can negotiate the level of service that will be provided and ensure that sufficient resources are deployed as and when the business requires them. Increasing the numbers of representatives on a help desk when you are engaged in a marketing campaign and expect a surge in calls is easily achieved without any long term commitment. In times of low sales you can cut the numbers deployed and reduce your overhead. Essentially, you are turning what would be a high capital investment with a high fixed overhead into a low start-up cost and variable overhead resource you use as you need.
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