Maintaining efficient travel industry call center services is an important part of providing excellent customer service. Yet, it can also be expensive and time-consuming. Outsourcing your call center to an expert BPO provider can free up valuable resources, which you can use to grow and improve your core business.
For more information on how to outsource as well as the benefits that outsourcing can offer travel industry call center services, call us today for a free quote.
Call Centers Still Have a Place in Customer Service
With the rise of chatbots, digital messaging, and social media, it is easy to imagine that traditional call centers are already obsolete. This is untrue: as Forbes points out, the best customer service experience is the one that can integrate both automated and human solutions.
OutPLEX can provide you with travel industry call center services that:
- Are either domestic or nearshore: We allow our clients to evaluate the benefits of using our call center agents either domestically or nearshore in Colombia or the Dominican Republic. We employ fluent English-speaking agents who live in the same time zones as many of your customers. Their similar cultures also allow for easier communication.
- Save you money: Outsourcing your travel industry call center services costs less than trying to operate a call center yourself. Our clients see an average savings of 40% on their labor costs.
- Employ trained agents: We ensure our agents are equipped to handle issues pertinent to your specific industry (travel, tourism, and hospitality). When recruiting for your brand, we look for candidates who have experience in your industry and are knowledgeable of relevant practices and terminology. We provide ongoing training to guarantee that their scripts and messages continually reflect your needs and goals.
Unlike digital communication channels, which are most helpful in solving basic or common inquiries, call centers are still the best channel for helping customers with:
- Unusual issues: Chatbots and other digital systems often learn by experience. If a customer’s inquiry is unique or obscure, the chatbot would not have had a chance to learn how to respond to it effectively.
- Complex problems: A live agent can walk a customer through problems that take a long time to resolve or involve many steps.
- A need for human empathy: Customers who call into a contact center may have already tried solving the problem independently and may be very frustrated. A live agent is far better at expressing sympathy than an automated channel.
Outsourcing Can Benefit Your Business in Many Ways
According to Boston Consulting Group, there is more to outsourcing than choosing a vendor and signing a contract. To get the most benefit from an outsourced call center, plan carefully. This includes:
- Setting goals: What do you hope to get out of outsourcing your call center services? It is important to have specific, achievable goals, such as increasing customer retention or reducing operational expenses by a certain percentage.
- Collaborating with the vendor: OutPLEX can review and refine your goals and customize a CX strategy to meet them while staying within your budget.
- Establishing deadlines and deliverables: All involved parties should know exactly what should happen by what date and who is responsible for each part of the project.
Once you have outsourced your contact center to OutPLEX, you can expect to see benefits across multiple areas of your business, including:
- Increased customer retention: When you give your customers what they need, they are more likely to remain loyal to your brand and continue using your services.
- Greater savings: By spending less on call centers and customer service in general, you can devote more resources to developing other parts of your business.
- Improved efficiency: Our live agents have the experience and knowledge to solve more problems in less time. We can also incorporate a variety of support channels that allow a single agent to resolve multiple queries simultaneously.
- Fewer worries: Trying to run a call center in addition to your regular business is stressful—and unnecessary. We are happy to handle the day-to-day call center operations.
Digital Solutions Can Streamline the Call Center Experience
For many customers, traveling involves having to keep track of many factors at once, including:
- Departure and arrival times
- Delays and cancellations
- Check-in and check-out times
- Luggage limits
- Ticket costs and other expenses
- Availability of car rentals or taxis
- Availability of amenities or discounts
- Safety protocols or other special circumstances
Much of this information is straightforward and will be the same for multiple customers. Rather than having customers who seek that information contact a call center, make it easy for them to get it from a:
- Chatbot: An easy-to-find, easy-to-use chatbot allows customers to solve simple problems independently using automation that provides immediate answers and gets them back to their travel experience more quickly.
- Text message: Incorporating SMS support into your CX strategy allows customers to communicate via the most preferred method, getting them answers and updates about their travel plans at their leisure.
- Digital messaging: Messaging services like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger are familiar and comfortable to many customers.
By making your company available to the customer via digital channels, you:
- Improve the digital experience: As the Conversocial State of CX Trends Report 2021 found, an increasing number of customers are relying—and want to rely—on digital communication channels.
- Improve the call center experience: With so many customers solving problems through digital channels, fewer will have to call into the call center. This reduces wait times and eliminates the bottleneck for those who cannot or do not want to use digital channels.
- Increase customer satisfaction: Customers enjoy being able to interact with you when and how they choose.
- Empower customers: Rather than waiting for the next available agent, your customers can use digital channels to control their experience and get what they need when they need it.
OutPLEX offers all of the above solutions and more. Call us for a free quote to find out which solutions best fit your needs.
Using Social Media to Improve Customer Service
Social media is popular with users across a broad range of demographics. Whether you are already on social media or not, OutPLEX can help you by:
- Identifying which sites your customers use: You may get better and more frequent interactions if you are on the platforms that your customers prefer.
- Monitoring engagement levels and chatter: OutPLEX can determine which types of posts your customers like and what people are saying about your company.
- Refining your posts: Once you know what type of content your customers respond best to, you can give them what they want.
This information is useful for improving social media outreach and defining broader business goals.
The Technical Side of Customer Service
Your customers expect you to be available when they need you, regardless of which channel they are using. To meet this expectation, both call centers and digital communication channels will need maintenance and regular updating.
OutPLEX keeps operations running smoothly by implementing the following solutions:
- IVR deflection: When a customer calls in, an automated interactive voice response system can identify their issue and either provide an answer or direct them to the most helpful resource.
- 24/7 tech support: You can call us with technical problems at any time, day or night.
- Developing and installing what you need: We ensure that new hardware and software solutions are integrated with your old systems. This saves you from having to overhaul your entire system.
- Reprogramming as necessary: We update chatbots and text messages continuously, enhancing the knowledge base, so that they can respond to new situations and better serve your customers.
When done right, your customers do not ever have to think about all of the hard work that goes into developing and maintaining your travel industry call center services. OutPLEX is willing and able to assume complete responsibility for the operations of your customer service solutions and provide you with substantial savings.
Let OutPLEX Optimize Your Customer Service Experience
Outsourcing your call center is a great way to improve and expand your customer service while minimizing costs and headaches. To learn more about our travel industry call center services and other communication solutions, call OutPLEX today for a free quote. We can review your business goals and develop a CX strategy that is right for you.
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