Call center services: what to know

What the job involves, what changes the price, and what to ask a pro.

What call center services is

A call center provider answers or places phone calls for your business, handling customer questions, orders, support or appointment setting using your scripts and systems. Businesses use outside call centers to cover busy hours, handle overflow or staff a line without hiring in house.

Signs you need it

  • Calls go unanswered during peak hours and customers are leaving voicemails you cannot return fast enough
  • You need after hours coverage for emergencies, orders or questions from customers
  • Your team spends so much time on the phone that sales or service work is falling behind
  • You want outbound calls to confirm appointments, follow up on quotes or check on customer satisfaction
  • You are launching a new product or campaign and need extra call capacity for a short period

What the pro does

  • Learn your products, services, pricing rules and the questions customers ask most often
  • Write or review the call scripts and the decision paths for common situations
  • Set up the phone numbers, call routing and the systems the agents will use
  • Train the agents on your business, your tone and the cases they must escalate to your team
  • Answer or place calls according to the schedule, logging each call and its outcome
  • Send you call reports with volume, outcomes, common questions and escalations

What changes the price

Every job is different, so we do not publish prices. These are the things that move the quote up or down.

  • The number of calls expected each month and the hours of coverage needed
  • Whether calls are inbound, outbound or both, and how long each call usually takes
  • The languages the agents must speak and whether they must handle technical questions
  • How much training and script writing the provider must do before go live
  • Whether the provider must connect to your scheduling, order or customer systems
  • The reporting level required, such as call recordings, quality reviews or detailed analytics

What a written quote should spell out

  • The hours of coverage, the time zone and the holiday schedule
  • The number of agents assigned and how coverage changes at busy times
  • How calls are recorded, stored and reviewed, and who can access the recordings
  • The systems the provider will connect to, and who sets up that access
  • The reports you will receive, how often, and the call outcomes they measure

Questions to ask before you hire

  • What businesses like mine have you answered calls for, and what did the calls involve?
  • How do you train agents on a new product, and how long does that take?
  • What happens when a call is beyond what the agent can handle?
  • How are recordings stored, and who can listen to them?
  • Can you send me a sample call report from another client, with names removed?
  • How do you handle calls that ask for personal or payment details?

Red flags

  • Will not share sample scripts, call reports or a description of their training
  • Agents are reading from a script that you have not approved for your business
  • Cannot explain how calls are recorded, stored and who can listen
  • Asks you to give up control of your phone numbers or customer records without a written agreement

What you can do yourself

You can write a short list of your most common questions and the answers you want given, set up an answering service for basic messages and keep your own team on the calls that matter most. Hire a call center provider when call volume exceeds what your team can handle, when you need coverage outside your hours or when outbound calls need dedicated staff.

Licenses and permits

No license is usually required for call center work. Ask instead for references from businesses with similar call volume, samples of training materials and a written data security description; if the calls involve licensed services, such as insurance sales, check with your state or local licensing agency about the rules for those calls.

Call center services questions

Will customers know they are talking to an outside provider?

That depends on the script you approve. Decide with the provider how agents introduce themselves, and make sure the introduction is accurate.

Who owns the call data?

You should. Put the data ownership, storage period and deletion steps in the agreement before the first call.

How do I keep quality consistent?

Review a sample of recordings each week, score them against the script and give the provider written feedback. Consistency comes from regular review, not from the first training.

Pro reviewers

Pros who offer call center services remotely can improve this guide, like Wikipedia. We check every edit before it goes live. Every approved edit is credited in the edit history and on the pro's profile.

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  3. 3. They reach out

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