An increasing number of companies are outsourcing non-core operations as part of efforts to address labor shortages and work style reforms.

In particular, telephone correspondence, which has a lot of standardized correspondence and is easy to create a manual, is easy to outsource.

With the start of telework, it has become difficult to answer the phone in the office, and many companies may have considered outsourcing services.

Answering the phone is not a profitable business, but it is an important business that has contact with external parties such as business partners.

It is important to understand the advantages and disadvantages of outsourcing and choose the most suitable service according to the application.

Telephone response outsourcing destination “agent service”

The main services in which an operator handles phone calls are “telephone answering service” and “secretary service”.

telephone answering service

This is an outsourced service that specializes in telephone business .

Your company’s phone calls will be forwarded and an operator will respond at the agent’s office.

The operator will answer the call as an employee of the company, so there is no need to worry about distrusting the customer.

Main correspondence contents

• Call handling
• message message
• Acceptance of reservations and orders
• Answer to inquiry
• inside sales call

Secretarial service

“Secretary service” is also a business model that started from acting as a telephone number. There is also another name called “telephone secretary”, and it is sometimes used synonymously with telephone answering service.

However, if you call it a “secretary service”, it is characterized by the fact that it can also handle office work other than answering phones .

There are also services that correspond to industries that require specialized knowledge, such as professional staff who specialize in each business and handle clerical work by division of labor.

This service is also useful when it is difficult to hire a full-time secretary or clerical staff.

Main correspondence contents

• Telephone correspondence
• Email support
• Material creation
• appointment adjustment
• Business trip arrangements, etc.

Advantages of outsourcing telephone support

It can be seen that telephone support is a task that places a heavy burden on the respondent for the following reasons.

• I don’t know when it will come
• I can’t read the required time
• I have to answer calls that don’t concern me
• Calls outside business hours
• Skills take time to acquire

Until now, it was considered natural for employees of the company to answer the phone, but if there is no special reason why it must be handled by the company, it can be said that there are many benefits to outsourcing.

Increase operational efficiency

In most companies, employees answer the phone while doing their own business .

If you interrupt your work every time a phone call comes in, your phone calls will take up a significant amount of your day.

Even if you don’t have to answer calls that don’t concern you, you’ll have more time for your core business and your work efficiency will increase.

cheaper than hiring staff

When hiring staff to answer the phone, in addition to labor costs, you also need facilities such as desks and computers .

In addition, training must be conducted in-house, which incurs training costs.

Outsourced services include fixed-price, low-cost services and services that are billed according to the actual number of cases handled, and can be used at a much lower rate than hiring staff in-house.

Remote correspondence is possible, so there is no need to prepare a desk or equipment in the office.

Prevent omissions and lost opportunities

If you tend to be away from the office, or if you are dealing with a small number of people, it will be difficult to answer all the calls and you may miss them .

If you can’t get through on the phone, you run the risk of missing orders or losing customers to other companies.

If you outsource your phone calls, you’ll always be ready to receive calls, so you don’t have to worry about missing out on important business opportunities.

Overtime available

For companies that may receive phone calls from customers after hours or on holidays, there is also the issue of how well to respond to after-hours calls .

It is not desirable to work overtime to answer the phone or work on holidays to answer the phone, but you also want to avoid losing opportunities by not answering the phone.

If you choose an outsourced service that can handle nights and holidays, you can rest assured that you will be able to receive calls outside of business hours.

Disadvantages of outsourcing telephone support

Although it can be said that telephone support is suitable for outsourcing, it is not possible to provide exactly the same level of support as in-house support.

Make sure you understand the pros and cons before outsourcing.

Unable to deal with irregularities

Outsourcing is limited to tasks that can be handled manually, such as answering phone calls, leaving messages, and stylized inquiries.

If the person in charge is named, you have to call back from here, and the employee must directly respond to troubles and complaints.

Correspondence quality is left to the contractor

Since the operator of the company that handles telephone calls is a specialist in telephone business, it is considered that a certain level of response quality is maintained.

However, since the operator is basically selected by the contractor, we cannot make detailed requests.

Since I cannot directly supervise the customer during the response, I will entrust education and quality assurance to the contractor.

Additional costs may apply

Depending on the contracted service, charges may be set according to the number of calls, and nighttime and holiday support may be optional.

Even if you outsource to a contractor with low initial costs and basic fees, you may end up exceeding your budget as options are added later or the number of cases increases.

Make sure you fully understand the plan details and pricing system before signing a contract.

Should Humans Answer the Phone?

The telephone outsourcing destinations introduced so far are services in which external staff responds to calls as employees of the company.

Having a human answering the phone gives a sense of trust and security, and you probably don’t have to worry about the other party finding out that you are outsourcing.

However, as explained in the Disadvantages section, there are still some concerns compared to in-house support, such as the inability to respond outside the manual and the inability to ascertain the quality of response .

Therefore, it is important to choose a service that has a proven track record and a good reputation.

The era where AI responds to telephone calls

In order to keep the response quality constant, there is also a way to stop human response. Currently, services that utilize AI have begun to appear even in telephone support operations.

With AI, it is possible to provide standardized responses such as intermediary services that utilize speech recognition and language processing functions.

There is no risk of human error and the quality of telephone correspondence can be standardized.

Both high quality and cost performance! What is AI-enabled “Canario”?

“Canario” provided by NEC Networks & System Integration is a new-age phone service that uses AI to provide primary phone support.

• Available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
• Voice recognition of the other party’s utterance and transfer to the person in charge
• Calls with an unknown person in charge are called all at once by the organizational unit.
• Messages are converted into text and sent to the person in charge

With “Canario”, there is no additional charge even if the number of services increases or if the service is available outside of business hours.

There is no need to create a manual, and it can be installed immediately with simple settings, so it is recommended for situations such as “I can’t find a good subcontractor” or “I want to outsource quickly but I can’t spend time on preparations” .

Article Summary

If it is too much of a burden to handle phone calls in-house, consider outsourcing.

However, since telephone correspondence is the face of a company, it is necessary to choose a reliable service when choosing a subcontractor.

Additional charges may apply depending on the number of correspondences and the time period, so be sure to check the terms of use carefully.

AI-powered telephone response service “Canario” is easy to understand for companies considering outsourcing telephone response for the first time due to its simple plan setting and ease of introduction.