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How to Set-Up a Call Center With a Limited Budget

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Are you setting up a call center for your own business? Or maybe planning to provide call center services to other businesses as a service? In that case, the cost required to set up a center is something you should take note of. For companies, big and small alike, a call center is a cost center. As such, they try to keep their costs to a minimum by hiring the services or outsourcing their call center initiatives. As for the companies that set up call center services to provide third party assistance, try to keep an option of increasing their capacities, so that they can fulfill more customer requirements at a future date. However, at the very start both kinds of companies try to look for a cost effective set up to gauge the initial success rate of their call centers.

To set up a call center with a limited budget, you should be clear about what you want in the first place. Stick to your checklist and do not stray into redundant avenues. Here are a few pointers that will help you stay on the course and get everything right.

Know the purpose

As stated earlier, whether you are small, medium or a large business or if you are planning to start call center services for other businesses, you should know what you really want from your call center. This is the first step in helping you understand how much it is that you are ready to shell out for this particular venture. Setting up a call center is much like investing in a new factory, setting up a new office space, or buying other assets. You need to connect the cost and revenue from it directly with your business. This will help you measure how much you are willing to spend on setting up the call center in lieu of the return you expect to generate.

Gauge the scale

Get an idea of how much you are willing to expand. Do you want your call center in a particular location or any location that suits your budget requirements will work well for you? What will be the scale at which you will be operating? These pointers will help you gauge the office space you will need to rent, the number of employees you will be hiring, and number of phone connections or the network servers you will be establishing. Even though you are working within a fixed budget, always try to maintain some room to accommodate future growth. Keep provisions for expansion as it might help you in saving a lot of money later on.

Hire the right people

If you are running on a tight budget, it will serve you well to go through a rigorous recruitment process in order to hire the best and brightest. Keep it simple as hiring costs too will take up part of your expenses, but have a checklist ready to make sure you are hiring the right candidates. Finding the right people will help cut down attrition rates and also ensure high turnovers and quick call turnarounds.

Set up business processes

Map your business processes in advance and follow them through religiously. Whether it is a matter of recruitment and staffing, or setting up CRM systems and PBX lines, each and everything should be planned and executed thoroughly. The more you stick to your business process flowchart, the less you will digress from your budgeted limit.

Real estate

This is one of the major expense units when it comes to setting up a call center. As in any other case, real estate takes up a lot of money. You have the choice of renting or leasing it, so you might as well try to look for a location which is comparatively cheaper than the other options. You should also bear in mind that the location should be a place easily reachable by your employees, else transportation costs will add on to your list of expenses as well. Since it is not a client facing location it does not need to be in the heart of a business hub. This is an area where you can aim to save a lot of money.

Technological requirements

Knowing at what scale you will be operating will help you zero down on the right software for your call center processes. You can also have an idea of the PBX connections you will need and whether you will need an onsite server or a cloud server will be a better option for you. Try to go for cloud servers as they let you pay on a monthly basis and you need not worry about the maintenance part of it. Also, using VoIP call center solutions tend to cut down expenses drastically as compared to the traditional forms of phone-calling solutions.

Knowing the requirements from the call center does half the job for you. Make a checklist, work on your business processes and spend smart while setting up your call center.

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