Mastering The Multi-Sourced Call Center For Maximum Savings, Optimum Service

By Bruce Dresser, chief marketing officer for Echopass Corp.

A closer look, however, reveals underlying risks that can actually undermine the objective of better and more flexible customer service. Sourcing from multiple centers can damage customer loyalty and brand as well as jeopardize cost savings, especially when the call centers lack a common hosted infrastructure. Without a common hosted infrastructure:

• Agents can't deliver consistent customer service because they lack the same set of tools, often driving a company's most valuable customers to take their business elsewhere.
• Companies (and their customers) face unpredictable, unmanageable response times.
• Management's lack of complete agent visibility creates the inability to reconfigure and reallocate call distribution in real time and when needed, which keeps cost per call artificially high.
• Siloed sites on different platforms within the multi-site deployments require separate upgrades, maintenance and staffing, which drain savings sought by having multi-sourced agents.

How do companies like American Express Incentive Services (AEIS) minimize the risks and maximize the rewards of customer service through a multi-sourced call centers? With a common hosted call center platform.