Location, location, location. It’s the biggest buzz word in real estate, but it’s also crucial to the success of your business, no matter what industry you’re in. The location of your call center can have an impact on everything from the quality of your service to your bottom line.
Number of Call Center Locations
The first key point to consider is the degree of risk incurred by having only one location from which to operate. What happens to your operations in the event of a natural disaster? With a power or internet outage? Or with unprecedented reaction to pandemics like COVID-19? With just one location, your customer service could be eradicated or suffer significant downtime by an unforeseen event.
Vervent has five strategically located operations centers that offer 99.9% uptime. Geo-redundant environments in San Diego, CA; Baja California, Mexico; Portland, OR; Sioux Falls, SD; and Longview, TX, work together to support your business, no matter where you are headquartered. These handpicked locations, which are already disaster-averse for many weather and nature-related issues like blizzards, hurricanes, floods, and tornados, offer your customers extended hours, bi-lingual agents, and diverse recruiting pools that can support a variety of industry specialties. And because our solutions are spread across multiple locations, they can be adjusted from region to region to keep servicing your customers in the event of an emergency.
Scalability& Staffing Impact
Scalability is a key factor for determining the location of your call center for two reasons: physical facilities and staffing. While dense metropolitan areas are often financial hubs ripe for conducting your business’ core operations, there are many economic and logistical setbacks to housing your customer support there. Skyrocketing property values make it extremely expensive to build and operate in these areas. In addition, it simply may not be possible to build or expand due to low real estate inventory or inaccessibility because of traffic or location within the geographic area.
From a staffing perspective, the concerns are similar. You cannot run successful customer service without well-trained agents. Your operations center’s location must be in a region rich with qualified candidates seeking professional opportunities. This means access to multiple levels of experience and education and enough other business and educational institutions available to help ensure both. Vervent’s geographically diverse locations paired with expertise in recruiting ensure that your solution will be staffed effectively. For example:
Vervent is headquartered centrally in San Diego to take advantage of county-wide candidates. This facility houses a 100-seat state-of-the-art operations center along with our primary corporate staff. Vervent Portland is the center of our non-voice operations and specializes in our tax, lottery, and structured settlements businesses. It also has a 150-seat-capacity call center, offers an excellent pool of candidates with technology experience, and focuses strongly on commercial lease servicing.
Located just 10 minutes across the border from San Diego, Vervent Baja’s 1,100-seat operations center was specifically designed with scalability in mind so we can support your business growth when you need it. In addition to size, technology, versatility, and best-in-class recruiting are standout features of Vervent Baja. Built specifically for Vervent this location offers access to experienced agents, as Tijuana is a prime call center location and has recruiting funnels into three large, reputable local universities. Our Vervent Baja agents are bilingual with American English and Spanish, and there is added economic advantage with the same service levels by being located in Mexico.
With the acquisition of Total Card—now Vervent Card—we added even more capacity. Vervent Longview has room for 250 agents and Vervent Sioux Falls offers 200 seats along with additional corporate offices. Both cities are hubs for customer service and credit card servicing support, ensuring an experienced pool of local candidates.
Determine Location Value
The local economics of the area you select will have an effect on the overall cost of your operations, as the price of everything from rent and utilities to labor and technology differ from region to region. When evaluating where to station your call center, remember that cutting corners on facilities, equipment, and/or staffing may sacrifice the quality of service you provide your customers and, ultimately, your bottom line. Data from Bain & Company shows that companies with a strong customer experience mindset drive higher revenues by 4-8%.
Whether you are looking for a highly scalable, economically advantageous option for a relatively simple service campaign, an expert solution for a complex lease portfolio, or the insurance of a steadfast partner to back up your portfolio, Vervent can help.
Operations Centers vs. Call Centers
Additionally, Vervent offers operations centers as opposed to simple call centers. In each of our locations, there are multiple business functions running, management on-site, custom training centers by location, and well-informed employees who deeply understand our business, your business, and your customers. Built from the ground up with cutting-edge technology, optimized data, and physical security and platform-wide artificial intelligence, we are so much more than just people who answer the phone and take pride in being true partners in your service, growth, and success. This is the kind of service that just doesn’t happen in any ‘call center,’ it takes a fundamental understanding of business, management oversight, dedication, and experience to achieve.
Learn more about how Vervent’s operations centers can benefit your company—contact us today at 888.486.2509 or [email protected].
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