In the past, setting up a call centre is a very expensive and tedious process which involves a lot of manpower, resources and investment to do a proper setup. But thanks to the advancement in technology, business has the option to set up a cloud-based call centre which is also known as the virtual call centre. So let’s explore the difference between the setup of a traditional on-site call centre and the virtual call centre to let you understand why cloud-based call centre is more popular nowadays.
On-site call centre
After identifying the reason to set up the call centre, the business owner will need to allocate a premise to set up the call centre department that includes the workstation for the call agents and the management, the desktop or laptop, the phones, phone, data and email server, server room and so on. Next will be the number of employees needed to recruit based on the operational requirements which the skillset required to train the call centre personals also depend depends on the kind of services provided to the customer. Common examples are inbound calls enquiry, email enquiry, webchats service and so on.
Once the basic infrastructure and the manpower issue is settled, the next objective is to create a protocol for the service level, the Customer Relationship Management software (CRM) and other related software, the necessary knowledge base to guide the agents to handle the daily call enquiries and other related protocols to provide services to the customer and how to gain service satisfactory from them.
Cloud-based call centre
For setting up of the cloud-based call centre is quite similar as compared to the on-site call centre with some exceptions. The first difference is that the business owner may not require a physical call centre premises as he/she have the option to outsource and engage home-based agents to handle the inbound calls or emails as all they need is a laptop that is link to the call centre software online. Even if the call centre premise is required due to the operational requirement, the company can save money as they can use the call centre software which is cloud-based and provided by a service provider. This means that the company will not need to allocate any space for the servers and spend additional money to employ IT technicians to maintain the servers. One benefits of using the call centre software are that most of the software available in the market incorporates multiple features that include call handling and routing services, CRM, call agent’s statistics and other related features that can aid the call agents to handle the daily call volume.
In conclusion, setting up a cloud-based call centre is definitely easier, cheaper and more efficient than an on-site call centre which is the reason why more and more companies preferred the virtual call centre for their customer service department.