Businesses across the spectrum have now been looking for ways to move beyond the average customer service, but at a lower cost. They have been trying to rope in experts to meet these lofty aims because of which call center outsourcing is getting bigger by the day.

While businesses and prospects are hitting the mark in customer service outsourcing with customer relationship management (CRM) at their disposal, they now want to reduce costs and provide better services in a recessive economy. This might appear to be paradoxical but can be made possible by employing outsourcing services. These services give prime importance to the prospects by delivering problem resolutions and new offers in accordance to their consumer preferences.

Outsourced Call Centers will attain new dimensions in 2010

The call center industry is all about efficiently handling specialized customer service duties. The segment would be non-existent if companies could do this task themselves. But as operating margins continue to dwindle it is worthwhile for them to allocate this responsibility to expert vendors. Certain call center outsourcing trends that one can look out for in the year 2009 are:

Nearshoring or nearshore outsourcing: Businesses would be more disposed to partner with call centers in Eastern Europe to reap the advantages of proximity and low cost.

Short term projects or contracts: Arrangements or partnerships on a contractual or short-term basis would become more prevalent this year.

Increase in specialized call centers: Specialization will rule the roost with call centers gaining expertise in specific segments of the industry.

Increased competition: Emphasis would be on providing better quality services at competitive prices. Service costs will fall.

Customer service outsourcing is largely dependent on CRM

Customer relationship management refers to methods that companies use to interact with customers wherein they accumulate consumer data from various touch points and use it to shape customer interactions and track customer information. While CRM is only a decade old system, it goes way ahead of the traditional selling models if implemented strategically to profile the target market. It can also help tracking and attend to problems in the pipeline before they get escalated.

Companies considering call center outsourcing should keep certain CRM directions in mind, namely, getting the customers to furnish new ideas, make the data collection process automatic at every turn and utilizing social networking outlets to provide rich content. The CRM should help interaction with customers reach a very personal level, ensuring higher customer satisfaction.

Let the statistics prove the benefits

Sometimes, numbers speak louder than words as in the case of statistics on the advantages of outsourcing. The return on investment (ROI) has to be taken into consideration when it comes to mapping the performance of the industry in general. A survey by Hewitt Associates undertaken in 2009 furnishes enough reasons, in terms of benefits, for companies to go in for customer service outsourcing

* Beneficial results: 82 percent of the companies surveyed declared that outsourcing has been perceptibly beneficial to them

* Met cost cutting objectives: 62 percent of the businesses who hired call centers to cut costs ended up meeting their financial objectives

* Higher disposition to outsourcing: 34 of respondents said they were now much more inclined to hire outsourced services that they were only a couple of years ago

To conclude, the coming together of outsourced call center services and CRM may take the relationship between businesses and consumers to an altogether new level. This partnership, in turn, might prove to be just the right potion to help your company race ahead of the competition in this slow economy.

A phone system is one of the most important and necessary purchases for your business. The right phone system can increase employee productivity and enhance the perception of your business for your customers, clients and stakeholders. Let us first review some common phone system terminology.

* Ports are the number of connections that can be handled by your phone system and include both incoming lines and extensions.

* Trunks or Lines are the number of outside telephone lines.

* Cabinet, also known as central office (CO), key system unit (KSU), central unit or base, is the main box used for holding the phone system.

* Extensions are used for both internal and external communication. They refer to the unique numbers used for identifying phones, modems and fax machines. Extensions are internal to the business and connect to the outside world via the cabinet.

* Computer telephony integration (CTI) consists of a set of applications that enable integration of your phone system with a computer. CTI provides features like incoming call routing, one click dialing, video conferencing, telephone directory and caller identification in addition to allowing the computer to receive voice, data and fax calls.

Types of PBX Phone systems

KSU-less systems are the cheapest phone systems and offer limited features. They are usually suitable for small businesses with less than ten employees. KSU-less system does not need a cabinet as the telephones have all the routing software installed in them. A KSU-system has certain limitations. These systems are not compatible with Key and PBX systems and may offer little utility if your business expands and upgrades to a better phone system. Additionally, these systems are not supported by vendors and you will have to take care of their servicing and installation.

Key Systems or Key Telephone Systems are suitable for medium-scale businesses with less than forty employees. A set of buttons corresponding to the number of available phone lines are provided with each phone. These phone systems can be easily upgraded but they offer little customization abilities in comparison to other systems.

Private Branch Exchange (PBX) phone systems offer a wide range of features, and can be easily upgraded and customized. Though most expensive, they enable cost reduction as you scale, making them most suitable for large businesses with over 100 employees.

Hybrid systems- These systems combine the cost-effectiveness of key systems with the range of features of PBX systems.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a phone system that uses the internet for call routing and forwarding. It provides a cost-effective and portable substitute for KS and KSU-less systems. The router can be taken from place to place and plugged into any internet connection. However, each time the geographic location of the router is changed, you must inform your VoIP service provider, so that emergency calls can be routed to the nearest call centre. The biggest disadvantage of VoIP systems is their complete dependence on the internet connection. A poor connection deteriorates call quality, whereas connection loss can cause the system to fail altogether. Remember to discuss security and encryption issues with your provider before purchasing a VoIP phone system.

How to pick a phone system?

First assess your current and future business needs to estimate the required phone system size, expected business expansion in two-three years, available budget, and the required phone features and accessories like voice mail, caller id, one-touch dial, forwarding and conferencing. Lines and extensions are the key factors that determine the system size. After you have clearly identified your needs find a phone system that meets all your requirements.

How much would a phone system cost?

Prices of key and hybrid systems usually range from $350-$1000 per user, that of PBX systems from $800-$1000 per user and KSU less systems from $130-$225 per phone. Phone system prices depend on various factors like telephone cabinet, the actual phones, add-ons, training, service, programming, and future modifications.

Before purchasing a phone system, take into consideration the total cost of ownership. Customizable, expandable, reliable, and upgradable phone systems have a higher initial cost per user but prove economical in the long run.

How to pick a phone vendor?

Your telephone vendor usually takes care of supply, installation and programming of phone systems. Select a vendor who has completed a number of installations of your chosen system. Such a dealer will be more familiar with the problems that can occur and their solution. Seek demonstrations of different phone systems to determine the best one for your business. Most dealers will agree to train your employees in the use of the phone system.

Vendors also provide a combination of warranties with your phone system. A service level agreement determines the vendor’s response time to a phone system problem. Additionally, the vendor should provide you with regular hardware and software updates. Always check references before making your purchase, especially inquire about the vendor’s quality of service and experience.

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Effective communication in business is crucial to having good relationships with customers, associates and partners. A well-organized and intelligently used phone system can help a business serve its customers more efficiently, and share ideas and information with associates and partners effectively.

Before purchasing a business phone system for your business, you should think about why you need a phone system and what you can expect from it. Consider the following questions:

* Do your employees need separate extensions?

* Will your employees benefit from voicemail?

* Will your people work from remote locations?

* How many employees do you have now?

* How many employees will you add in the near future?

Survey the market for the various types of phone systems, latest features and technology. Appreciating the usability of the features will help you in selecting a phone system that will benefit your business in the long run.

Analog versus digital phone systems

Analog phones transfer sound through continuous waves. These signals are easily disturbed by external interference such as noise and weather conditions, which is why sound is sometimes fuzzy in analog phones. Digital phones digitize the signal into binary units that are recombined at the other end. This makes the quality of sound much better in digital phone systems.

Digital phone systems are more easily customized than analog phones. Customization of software is easier and cheaper than hardware. Digital phones can be reprogrammed easily whereas analog phone systems can be reprogrammed only by the manufacturer or an expert in analog phone technology.

Digital phone systems are costlier than analog phone systems. The initial setup, programming and maintenance of the digital phone system can only be done by trained technicians.

Popular phone systems for small businesses

PBX: PBX (Private Branch Exchange) systems facilitate internal and external calls. These phone systems were very expensive initially, but technology has made them cheaper and accessible to smaller businesses now.

VoIP: Evolving technology and the internet makes VoIP an affordable and convenient option for small businesses. Its shortcoming is its total dependence on the Internet. If there is an internet outage, the phone system also gets disconnected.

Hybrid PBX: Hybrid PBX phone systems combine VoIP and PBX systems, making it a viable option. Businesses can cut down costs by using the VoIP systems, and fall back on the PBX system when there is a network outage.

Desirable features in a business phone system

Some standard features of a phone system that are very useful and can improve your business’ productivity radically:

* Call forwarding: forwards calls to an alternate number

* Call waiting: allows suspension of the current call to attend the incoming call

* Speakerphone: allows multiple people to interact through a speaker and microphone

* Auto attendant: queries callers and connects them to the required extension without involving an operator

* Remote voicemail access: to keep track of voicemail messages from anywhere

* Speed dialing: to connect to important contacts quickly

* Faxing capabilities: to enable fax

You might consider these advanced features too:

* Email notification on receiving voicemail

* Saving conversations on a hard drive

* Recording conversations and attach them to emails

Ask other businesses about their experience with their phone system installed at their offices, and the features they found beneficial. Users can give a truer version of the performance and advantages of phone systems than vendors. Your business will benefit by increasing productivity and saving costs by using a phone system appropriately.

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The internet age has altered the marketing game for businesses tremendously. Businesses that can adjust and employ a website to reach a bigger audience with the internet experience exponential growth. Just by putting their company online with a website, regular and brand new customers from all over the world can find them online through search engines like Google and other online marketing means.

Small local businesses that are only interested in accumulating customer base in their local area also enjoy a rise in customers through their website. People that would not have heard about them elsewhere are able to find them on the web. More and more people are going online and businesses that have a web presence have readied themselves to be noticed at any moment.

Unfortunately, businesses that can’t afford a website will notice increasing difficulty in trying to compete against companies that do as they continue to rely only on offline marketing tactics such as placing advertisements on phone books and the side of cars. It is easy to imagine that small businesses that only do offline marketing are losing potential customers to companies that run both offline and online marketing strategies.

While big (and some small) companies can afford to create a website, a lot of small businesses do not have the financial means to do so. A website may cost thousands of dollars depending on how intricate the business wishes it to be. Aside from web designing, companies need to find a reliable web hosting service to serve their website. That can run an extra hundreds of dollars if they don’t know where to look. To many small businesses, these prices are just too much.

What if a small company just requires a simple business website without worrying about expensive costs and the required skills needed to run one? Fortunately, it is now possible with the recent .tel domain name. The .tel domain is the rescuer for small businesses by enabling them to start their own www.businessname.tel domain name and have a simple website up in a small amount of time and at a surprisingly low price. No web designing and web hosting is mandatory to create a .tel page therefore allowing businesses to save up to thousands of dollars.

The .tel domain name is unique and operates differently than other domain extensions like .com, .net and .org. The new .tel domain inserts data directly in the DNS server rather than a web server and because of this revolutionary new approach of storing information, web designing and web hosting is no longer required.

Programming and web design skills are unnecessary to add information on a .tel page. All that needs to be done is for one to log in and fill out their company information and their simple business website is ready to be viewed. Another benefit of adding information in the DNS server is that pages load exceptionally fast even on mobile phones which can be a huge advantage for small businesses targeting the local area.

A profoundly important feature of a .tel page that cannot be disregarded is how it streamlines the process of contacting a business with a cellular phone. Contact info such as phone numbers can be clicked and once clicked, the customer instantly makes a phone call to the small business. Before .tel showed up on the scene, the procedure was wearing.

In the past, a patron looking at a business’ site using their phone must wait for pages to sluggishly load, then they had to search for the business’ phone number, then they had to scribble the phone number down or remember it, and in the end they had to launch the phone software to make a call by dialing numbers individually. However, with a .tel page, clients will contact businesses with little effort simply by clicking on the phone number. This is an incredible advantage to companies that rely on customer interaction.

Small businesses holding out for the right time to create a website now have the ability to at an amount they can afford. At only $20, they can start a simple website running .tel technology and make use of its easy contact feature. They can now go up against other businesses that already have a website without handing over thousands of dollars and acquire the same chances to secure new customers through the internet. The .tel registration steps will take about 3 minutes and a simple business website can be up and running practically instantly.

Now small businesses like pizza shops, video stores, tutors, maids, contractors, real estate agents, painters, tow companies, motels, ventriloquists, non profit organizations, etc, can support an affordable website that’s fast and helps clients to contact them with just one click. Small businesses should go and pick up their names promptly before its grabbed by a business with a similar name. Similar to the .com domain name, .tel is a worldwide product and no two names can be alike.

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Sometimes all of the electronic contact in the world is no substitute for making face to face contact with potential trading partners and that’s where trade shows come in.

Attending one of these shows, sometimes called conferences or exhibitions, means that you have a physical presence in the market place, not just an on-line one. This gives you the opportunity to show what you’re good at to your partners, your potential partners as well as your competitors. It also gives you the opportunity to keep up with what is going on internationally in your business sector.