Why is hosting currently such a boom industry with regard to call centres?

From Sabio’s perspective, call centre hosting provides many organisations with an ideal balance between costs and service quality. We find many organisations are turning to call centre hosting because it means they can hand over the responsibility for premises and the technology infrastructure to a third party provider, while still retaining control over key people and processes. This way organisations can benefit from lower up front costs and less capital expenditure, while still maintaining the quality of their operation.

Another important factor for some businesses is time-to-market. For some large organisations with slow internal processes it can easily take up to a year to plan, commission and go-live with their own contact centre operations. However, many business opportunities demand that companies respond within weeks. Call centre hosting can help telescope these lengthy timescales
Are there some less than scrupulous providers out there?

There are some excellent call centre hosting providers – we work with many of them – so statistically there are bound to be some that are less good. If you research the market thoroughly and do your due diligence on prospective partners, then it shouldn’t be an issue.
What kind of problems are inherent within call centre hosting models?

Anytime you take a key business process – in this case customer-facing agents in a contact centre – outside of your organisation, then there’s an element of risk. The key here is to ensure that any call centre hosting model you adopt is both secure and resilient – and that comes down to the quality of technology and the processes your hosting partner uses.

We believe it’s important for organisations to continually evaluate their hosting options. For example, some companies use hosting as part of a Design – Build – Outsource – Transfer or DBOT model. This involves designing and building a contact centre approach, outsourcing the technology and infrastructure to a call centre hosting partner, and then potentially transferring the project back in-house when it is successfully up and running or when the concept is proven. Because no two companies are the same, it’s important to stress that one organisation’s problems might turn out to be benefits for another, so you can’t really generalise!

What precautions can operators take to ensure that they aren’t taken for a ride?

The first thing to look for is a call centre hosting provider that can demonstrate a strong and proven record of success with a similar kind of organisation – make sure that you go and see a good cross section of providers. You should also ensure that the provider has purpose-built, quality facilities, equipped with technology that matches current specifications, and that it’s located in an area where staff with the right skills can be easily recruited.

How can a call centre maintain control when an independent company is in charge of its key technology?

This shouldn’t happen providing you ensure that it’s your call centre processes that are driving the technology and not vice versa. If you’ve got your procurement right, and put the right contract and service level agreements together – ones that still give you flexibility – then maintaining control won’t be an issue.