When consumers think of contact centers, they often conjure images of large, faceless companies with agent-operated phone systems. They don’t, however, often think of small brick-and-mortar or e-commerce companies. 

The reason for this is that contact centers are still relatively rare among small businesses, even though they have the potential to help small businesses increase their bottom lines and produce more profits. 

How Contact Centers Help Small Businesses Be More Profitable

 1) Contact Centers Save Employees Time

When a small business develops a contact center, it is typically staffed by contact-center specific employees. This means that the employees who work on the floor or behind the scenes of a given company will have more time to tend to production and distribution. 

For example, if a small clothing start-up has only 4 employees and no contact center, the phone may ring off the hook all day long. Every time a manager or employee picks up the phone, he or she is spending time not producing the products that are selling and creating profits for the company. Over time, the minutes and hours spent answering the phone can easily translate into a loss of profit rather than a gain. 

If this small business were to develop a contact center, though, the contact center could handle phone calls for orders and inquiries. This allows the employees of the company to focus on creating products and translating customer feedback into positive change within the business. While the development of a contact center presents an up-front expense, contact centers often save small businesses time and money in the long run. 

2) Contact Centers Scale to Company Needs

The term “contact center” is somewhat fluid. On one hand, a contact center for a large company can be a physical location that houses hundreds of agents handling company calls. For small businesses, however, a contact center is likely an individual or a small team of freelancers or employees who may work remotely or on-site. 

The type of calls a contact center takes scale according to business as well: in some cases, a contact center may handle complex ordering or the design of custom packages. In others, orders may be straightforward and simple and calls may last less than a minute. The fact that a contact center can be completely scaled to meet a company’s needs is one of the most attractive traits of the service itself: when small businesses can adjust their contact centers as their needs develop, they save time, money, and effort that can be better allocated elsewhere. 

3) Contact Centers Can Handle Customer Service

It’s arguable that providing great customer service is the #1 purpose of a contact center. According to HelpScout, 78% of consumers have abandoned a transaction or failed to make a previously intended purchase because of sub-par customer service. Additionally, loyal customers are worth 10 times as much as the value of their first purchase and companies have a 60-70% chance of making a sale to an existing customer versus a 5-20% chance of making a sale to a new prospect. Finally, the stories of poor customer service spread to twice as many other consumers (via word of mouth) than stories of a good customer service experience. 

For these reasons and many more, it’s imperative that all companies (and small businesses especially) ensure they’re nurturing customer service as much as possible. Because small businesses have limited staffs, however, it’s often difficult to manage customer service needs and handle all of the implicit responsibilities of running a company. For this reason, the creation of a contact center can go a long way toward creating an environment in which customers are satisfied and small businesses are driving more profits. 

4) Contact Centers Can Create a Primary Point of Contact

For small businesses that want to expand and become leaders in their industries, creating a primary point of contact is an important factor. This is true for several reasons: for one, a primary point of contact unifies the company and presents a more professional face to customers. 

Secondly, it creates an organized platform for customer feedback, orders, and inquiries. Finally, presenting a primary point of contact allows companies to consolidate efforts, allocate resources correctly, and ensure that the business is meeting all of the goals it needs to in order to succeed. 

Conclusion

While contact centers aren’t often associated with small businesses, they should be. In addition to streamlining business communications, contact centers can also help distribute workloads, create a central contact point for questions and orders, and enhance the customer service experience. 

For all of these reasons, a well-organized contact center has the potential to boost small business profits and ensure a more streamlined work environment for employees and managers alike. 

To learn more about managing or implementing a contact center for your small business, contact Spice CSM today!