As a child, you might have enjoyed getting customized monograms or finding a keychain in a vacation-town gift shop with your name on it. These days, customization is everywhere:

• personalized streaming and “what to watch” recommendations just for you
• new clothes from a personalized stylist shipped straight to your house
• spiciness levels on a menu at your local Thai restaurant

The list is endless. Just as customization has become a part of our everyday lives, businesses are also beginning to see the importance of tailor-made solutions for their call centers.

But when it comes to your business outsourcing, is it really worth it to spend on a flexible, customized call center solution or is an out-of-the-box option just as good?

When does customization matter, and when is it just a nice-to-have?

When it comes to call centers, the answer isn’t always clear-cut: but a customized solution can make or break your customer service.

Here’s what to know about customized call center solutions—and how to determine if one is right for your company.

Customized Call Center Solutions: What Does it Mean?

Typically call center service providers offer two variations of services: either standard, out-of-the-box packages, or custom solutions that deliver services and resources tailored to your business.

With custom solutions, there are a variety of aspects of call center services that can be customized. In general, a business might customize:

Communication channels: tailoring communication channels supported by your call center allows you to offer multi-channel support without paying for services you don’t need. Perhaps your customers use social media, but don’t need email support; or maybe you want to offer live chat but don’t need social media.

Agent training: Custom agent training allows you to have a stronger influence on how and what agents are trained on before taking over your customer service. Custom training solutions usually implement a stronger emphasis on branding, messaging and tone of voice, products and services, audience personas, industry background and so on.

Call center software. Depending on your existing solutions, it can be essential to implement either specialized software—to ensure it integrates seamlessly—or custom software solutions, to ensure you get the exact functionality needed. Either way, call centers that offer custom solutions should be able to provide flexibility on software to meet your needs.

Scalable capabilities. Companies who have varied call volume or customer service needs throughout the year should definitely look for customizable solutions that allow them to scale up or down accordingly. You don’t want to pay for a set number of agents and then be scrambling during busier seasons, or paying for staff you don’t need during slower ones. Customizing your call center can include having set seasons for scalability, or just ensuring that scalable, flexible solutions are available.

Flexible solutions to meet your needs. Ultimately, a customized call center solution should provide you with the flexibility you need to achieve your goals and meet your customer service needs. Additional flexibility can come from a variety of elements, including the way your call center is designed itself. For example, hybrid or blended call center models allow you to make use of both on-site and remote agents, for more effective round-the-clock support, or to use agents in a variety of locations to improve coverage and cost-efficiency.

The ultimate goal of call center customization is to align your call center more closely with your business needs. You should end up paying for and implementing exactly what you need, and nothing that you don’t.

Benefits of Customized Call Center Solutions

In short: the more customized and flexible your solution is, the easier it will be to hit your goals and adjust your plan to adapt to new consumer demands or market trends. That said, here are some of the biggest benefits of having a customized call center solution.

Improved customer satisfaction. When your call center solution is customized to your needs, it really becomes possible to cater to your customer’s needs. A one-size-fits-all solution may work for the baseline customer service, but for personalized, audience-specific support, you need a customizable solution that offers the channels, experience and branding your audience expects. With more customized solutions, you can offer exceptional service that leads to improved customer satisfaction.

Enhanced operational efficiency. The more flexible your solution, the easier it is to customize it for your team’s style and needs. In doing so, you can improve your operational efficiency based on your core channels, customer needs and internal metrics. For example, if you want to focus increasingly on self-service solutions to provide customers with faster service and improve efficiency, a customized solution will allow you to do so—but voice-only or standard call center solutions may not give you that flexibility.

Flexibility and scalability. Speaking of flexibility, a customized solution is by far the most flexible solution, allowing you to add on additional features, channels or support as needed. You may want to start small and then add on after-hours service or multilingual support when it becomes necessary. Or you may need to scale up or down throughout the year, increasing your team for busier seasons and then scaling back for quieter periods. A custom solution and contract will give you flexibility to adjust as needed and scale quickly, while out-of-the-box solutions typically have stricter contract terms and may require more time or investment to adjust.

Increased competitive advantage. With a customized solution, you can rest assured that you are creating the solution that genuinely works the best for your company and your audience, not just following what everyone else is doing. After all, if you use a standard solution that everyone else is using, how will you stand out from the competition?

A custom call center solution, by contrast, allows you to create the customer experience that best reflects your brand and solutions, giving customers a memorable and exceptional customer experience that will increase brand trust, loyalty and affinity over time.

Case Studies: Successful Implementation of Customized Call Center Solutions

At ROI CX Solutions, we know how important a customized solution can be for our clients—that’s why we take the time with each new client to thoroughly review your goals and challenges and identify the key issues and match them with a relevant solution.

Our custom solutions are as unique as our clients, but can include everything from:

• unique bilingual teams and support
• scalable team sizes and rapid scalability
• multi-channel capability or single-channel support
• improved or integrated software for stronger support
• real-time data analysis for additional customized recommendations
• and more!

These custom solutions tend to have outsized impact. We’ve helped clients achieve results like:

• • 75% reduction in appointment no-show rates
  • 99.7% improvement in speed of answer (40 minutes to 7 seconds)
  • $1M+ revenue per month
  • 15% improvement in customer satisfaction

• maintaining 90% service level averages

Curious how we got these results? See how we implemented custom solutions for Education, Restaurant and Healthcare clients.

How to Implement Customized Call Center Solutions

The key to implementing a successful and effective call center solution—especially a customized one—is to know exactly what your business requirements are, and what you need from a customized solution.

Too many companies want a customized solution because they believe it’ll launch them into success, but don’t stop long enough to consider what level or type of customization can support their goals.

Consider:

• your existing customer service solution
• what resources you currently have to work with
• your biggest objectives and goals in a call center
• the channels that make most sense for your audience
• your audience demographic, preferences, and needs
• what types of technology you’re currently using

Once you’ve come to a clear understanding of your goals and what call center services you’ll need to achieve them, you’re on your way to creating a custom solution that works for you. You can also work with an outsourcing partner to determine what types of services or customization will be most effective for you, which leads us to the next step—find the right call center service provider. 

Not every service provider offers customized solutions, some call centers may only offer set packages or out-of-the-box solutions. Look for a provider that offers or even specializes in custom solutions and is willing to work with you to find the right solutions for your goals. In addition, look closely at contracts before signing to understand:

• what flexibility is provided for should you need to scale up or down
• how or if you can add in additional support as needed
• the availability of additional agents for scaling up
• the overall flexibility of your contract

Ideally, you will work in tandem with your call center service provider to determine the right level and type of customization for your goals.

Conclusion

Is a custom solution for you? You should consider a customized call center solution if you:

• need flexibility and scalability in your team size or support levels throughout the year
• only need specialized support, such as after-hours or bilingual service
• if you’re looking for certain channels, but not others
• if you need support for more than just voice calls
• if you’re not really sure what you need
• if you sense that your needs might significantly change or increase during your contract period

To see what a customized solution could look like based on your needs and goals—and how it could supercharge your results—connect with an expert from ROI CX Solutions today.