DEV Community: Octopus Tech

How Call Center Services Can Help in Customer Lifecycle Management

Octopus Tech — Sat, 13 Jan 2018 07:29:37 +0000

Every business function revolves around its customers. Everything from the very first contact with them to keeping them engaged with the brand needs to be carefully managed to provide them the best experience needed. There is an entire funnel that of customers and the different stages at which a company has to engage with them that is referred to customer lifecycle management. In this post, we will discuss how businesses can utilize call center services to help improve their customer lifecycle management.

Before we can go into the ways that call center services can, we must understand what exactly is customer lifecycle management and the various stages that are involved in it.

Stages of Customer Lifecycle Management

There are mainly four stages of CLM (Customer Lifecycle Management). These stages can differ based on each organization and its business goals. In this post, we will discuss the four stages that will be recognized by most of the companies out there.

Stage 1 – Customer Acquisition

As it is clear from the name, this activity refers to acquiring new customers for the business. This is the primary stage where your business establishes contact with a new customer for the first time with the hopes of converting them from a prospect to a paying customer or client. This activity is necessary for the growth of any business. You need to grow your customer base in order to maintain a constant growth of the organization.

Stage 2- Customer Engagement

The second stage of CLM is customer engagement. When you acquire a customer and they have been with the brand for a while but now their usage of your product or service has declined, you need to increase their engagement with your brand. It could be in the form of using your app more or visiting your website more often. Customer engagement ensures a customer’s loyalty to the brand and puts the business at ease about whether customers will stay with the brand or not.

Stage 3 – Customer Retention

Retaining your existing customers is an extremely import part of customer lifecycle management. If you lose your customers, it will have a negative impact on your business’s bottom line. It will also lead to the increase in marketing costs and customer acquisition costs. A good customer retention strategy can not only save costs but lead to stronger brand profile overall.

Stage 4 – Customer Feedback

This stage lets a business understand how loyal a customer is to their brand. You get to know what they feel about your product or services, what they like, what they dislike and most importantly, the changes they would like to see. It helps a business become better by implementing the changes that customers want and it makes the customers feel appreciated when they see their opinions have been valued.

Call Center Services and Customer Lifecycle Management

All the above four stages or the entire CLM process requires a company to have dedicated teams of professionals that have experience dealing with each and every such stage. Outsourcing call center services help a business handle these complex stages using experienced staff and techniques.

A right outsourcing company can provide a business with customer acquisition services using outbound and inbound telemarketing and lead generation services that help a business increase its customer base thus increasing overall revenues. Similarly, that same company can handle customer engagement by reaching out to customers and informing them of new features as well as offers related to a business’s services.

Customer retention processes are also carried out by call center service providers. Customers that wish to leave your services will be contacted by the call center team to understand the root cause of them leaving and provide those customers with the required incentives to stick by the brand. The fourth stage of CLM, getting feedback from the customers is also handled by call centers through their customer survey process where customers are contacted to conduct a quick survey to know the overall level of satisfaction they have with the services.

Conclusion:

In the end, what really matters is finding the right call center partner that can deploy a team that can get your customers through all entire customer lifecycle management process efficiently thus helping businesses reduce their costs and boost profits

The Evolving Scope of An Indian Outsourcing Company

Octopus Tech — Tue, 26 Dec 2017 11:11:48 +0000

Outsourcing and offshoring are two terms that I am sure every businessman is aware of whether you outsource any function of your business or not. Most of the times, these two terms are interchanged in conversation or even confused by some to think they are one and the same. However, there are some fundamental differences between the two. In this blog post, we shall explore these differences and get a clear sense of what both these terms actually mean for a business.

Outsourcing

In simple terms, outsourcing refers to the act of contracting a third party company to carry out certain functions of your business. Outsourcing can be done for the sake of reducing operating costs as outsourcing is more cost effective than hiring an in-house team. Another reason why companies outsource services is to avail expert or specialized skills that their own team does not possess.

Here are some benefits of outsourcing for businesses –

Cost-effective

As stated above, outsourcing provides cost-effective services to businesses. When a company sets up a department in-house, apart from the salaries, they have to bear other expenses live electricity, internet, furniture, computer systems, employee benefits, paid leaves etc. Outsourcing saves the business these costs.

Access To Specialized Skills

Instead of going through the time-consuming process of finding and training staff members with certain skill sets needed for the job, it is easier to outsource the functions to an Indian outsourcing company that already employs staff members with those skill sets, who are already well trained.

Flexibility

Outsourcing offers companies the flexibility to scale up or down according to their business requirements. If seasonal hiring has to be done, its better outsource this than conduct this in-house. This will save you the inconvenience of constant hiring and firing.

Focus on Core Functions

No matter what your company does, it has many non-core functions like customer services, billing, hiring, training, accounts etc that need to be handled. Outsourcing these functions to a third party helps your company focus its resources on the core objectives.

Offshoring

Offshoring refers to a company getting their various services handled in a different country to make the most of the cost advantage. Offshoring is usually done by finding a country where the exchange rate gives your business a distinct monetary benefit. Companies based in western countries like the U.S or U.K offshore their business to countries like India, Philippines, and China etc.

Now, this is where we cannot confuse outsourcing with offshoring. A company can offshore their particular department but not outsource it at the same time. For example, companies based in the U.S can offshore their customer service to their Indian captive units. This way, they are not hiring any third party company and still getting cost reduction benefits.

Offshoring has the following benefits for businesses –

Reduced Cost of Operations

Whether it is help desk service or manufacturing, when any service or function gets offshored, it is usually for the benefit of cost reduction. Cheap labor or workforce is a big driving force for western companies to offshore. Through offshoring, work can get done with just a fraction of the cost of doing it in your own country.

Capitalizing on Skills of the Locals

Due to various reasons, there are certain geographical areas where the locals have developed skills in a particular industry or sector. For example, India has been for long considered the hub for offshoring help desk services or tech support services. The reason for this is that India produces well educated and tech-savvy workforce that is perfect for the tech support processes for some of the biggest technology companies in the west.

I hope that this blog post has clarified for you the basic differences between outsourcing and offshoring. It is important to remember that you do not have to outsource in order to offshore. There are several captive units of companies set up across different countries that can be used for offshoring. When work is contracted to a third party that is set up in a different country, then it can be called offshore outsourcing.

Embodying Social Media in Call Center Services

Octopus Tech — Wed, 20 Dec 2017 11:37:04 +0000

Today’s customers are extremely active online, especially on social media platforms. They expect a prompt response from brands regarding their various queries. Businesses upon recognizing this changing trend are changing their customer engagement strategy to ensure social media becomes a big part of it. There are special teams that are set up by companies that handle all communication between the brand and its customers on various popular social media websites.

Why is Social Media So Important In Customer Engagement?

Social media has been embodied in every aspect our lives. From personal moments being shared on Facebook to professional connections being made on LinkedIn, social media is in every part of our daily lives. Here are some of the reasons why social media is so crucial for customer service and engagement –

It Lets Customers Share Their Opinions

Whether positive or negative, customers usually share their experience with a company online. Social media is one of the most important platforms where your customers air out their grievances. That is why every reputed brand is expected to have their pages on all popular social media sites. Customers can leave their issues in the comment section of the page and the brand is expected to respond within 30 minutes ideally.

The opinions shared by customers can also help you get feedback from your customers about improving your products or services. This feedback can be implemented to improve customer experience and make your customers feel like their opinions matter.

Lets You Capitalize On Your Followers

Social media is an important tool for promoting your company or brand. When you have a substantial number of followers, you can make the most of them by posting various deals and offers on your pages. This increases the reach of your promotional message free of cost. If any of your followers share your post, it can help in getting even more followers.

Opportunity To Stand Out

Social media gives brands the chance to stand out from their competitors. This can be done by creating a unique identity for your brand on social media. Create engaging posts and content that is completely original and links well with the message your company is trying to communicate. Attractive posts are a good way of engaging customers with your brand and gaining new social media followers. Developing a unique social media identity is a strategy that has worked for several brands.

Linking Social Media with Call Center Services

Now that you know that social media plays a key role in customer engagement, let us see how it actually links with call center or BPO services in India. A majority of companies outsource their customer service function to third-party call centers in India. Since social media is now a big part of customer service, social media engagement service is also being outsourced to them.

Companies are looking to partner with multi-channel support providers like Octopus Tech to cater to their customers on every channel possible including social media.