The Critical Role of Equipment in Successful Outsourced Customer Service
We have all had poor experiences with customer service. Whether it is an operator who has trouble communicating, static on the line, a dropped or distorted connection, nothing ruins your day quite like a bad call. When selecting a customer service partner to field your voice communications, equipment may not be at the top of your list. Consider, however, that the quality of a call rests not just on the competence of the agent but on the reliability of the connection itself.
Testing 1, 2…
There are three vital areas where equipment is involved that you will want to consider when selecting a customer service provider.
- Your connections. How will the provider connect to your customers? Will guests be calling via a PBX or other system? Do you need a new dedicated number? Is there any special equipment that will need to be installed to provide this connectivity? Who pays for it and maintains it? How is uptime guaranteed?
- The provider’s connections. What is the backbone of the provider’s system? Having established in the item above that it can connect to your callers, how stable is the system itself? Does it use a shared or dedicated server? Is there a backup in case the server goes down or needs maintenance? What is their contingency plan in case of emergency?
- The operator’s equipment. Once you feel confident that calls will be connected and maintained between the provider and your customers, the next question to ask is about the operators themselves. Are they all in one building or a set of buildings maintained by the provider, or do they work from home? There are pros and cons to either setup. For the purposes of this article, the questions we encourage you to ask are the same. Are there standards for what types of microphones, headsets, and other equipment is used? How is the agent’s setup tested and maintained? What protocols are in place to maintain call quality, uptime, and security?
Licenses & Compliance
In addition to equipment, note what licenses and compliance certificates your potential providers have. Medical companies will, for example, require that all agents and managers are certified HIPAA compliant. Ask yourself what types of certifications are important and ask for proof of compliance by any potential partner.
The Tyme Global Difference
Tyme Global relies on tried and true quality assurance and testing measures to ensure that voice calls are of the highest quality and clarity. We are also PCI-DSS Compliant with Level 1 AOC, PHI certified, and HIPAA compliant.
We offer:
- Extensive pre-hire tech check to confirm internet speed / latency / jitter
- Confirmation of proper backup internet connections and power supply
- All agents on TG managed and controlled Virtual Desktops only accessible via VPN
- Multi Factor Authentication required for access to VDI over VPN
- Complete call and action recordings
- Fully redundant / high availability Core phone system
- Acronis Smart backup and restore solution
- Backup servers hosted in secondary datacenter in different location
- 24/7 in-house tech and monitoring team
- Realtime network monitoring and alerts of all servers and agent connections (Ping Plotter)
To learn more about Tyme Global and how our customer service offerings can help your business, please contact us today!
