If you’re a small to a medium-sized player in the telecoms industry and would like to try outsourcing to cut down your costs, increase intellectual capital, widen your market reach, and improve customer service delivery, then check out these 15 tasks that you can assign to your outsourced team of customer support representatives.

#1 Manage the order-to-activation-to-cash process for industrial, commercial and individual clients in the telecom industry.

While the early stages of the process can be completed through the use of software, the rest of the steps wherein data must be validated must be monitored by a customer support team. Order management is most critical during the billing process wherein discounts, cross-sells, and upsells are often incorporated.

#2 Process the ordering and activation of prepaid and postpaid accounts.

The process diverges when managing prepaid and postpaid accounts. Users topping up their prepaid accounts can request the help of customer support once they encounter a problem. Tech support can easily find the problem and fix it. But, postpaid users frequently raise disputes only after receiving their billing statements, and this requires a longer, more refined approach to problem-solving, which only experienced customer service agents can do.

#3 Cross-selling and up-selling to customers.

Customer support agents only have a small window of opportunity to convince customers to buy an add-on feature or change to a more expensive but feature-rich plan. But, this small window is enough for these agents who’ve been trained in various cross-selling and upselling techniques.

#4 Produce welcome calls for new customers.

The goal of a “welcome call” is to reassure customers that the purchase they made was really worth it and that any concerns they may have or answers to nagging questions they may be looking for can be addressed immediately. This assurance puts them at ease. At the same, it helps build goodwill with customers.

#5 Provide after-sales support to old and new customers.

Aside from answering calls and fulfilling the requests of customers, after-sales support agents also record customer feedback to help telecom clients analyze customer satisfaction and use the data to improve their services.

#6 Handle the billing process for clients.

The billing process can go either way. It goes smoothly for those who pay on time and have fewer or no receivables. And, rougher for most who may have problems with their billing computations. This is where a well-trained team of customer support agents can truly deliver excellent service while keeping the client’s brand integrity intact.

#7 Manage the payments and collections.

Don’t let receivables remain outstanding for long, or they will never get paid. A team of experienced agents can help you manage the payments and collection process for both current and outstanding accounts.

#8 Improve customer retention.

It goes without saying that a good customer experience leads to better customer retention. It keeps your brand integrity intact, creates goodwill, develops a loyal following among your end-users, and encourages them to become brand ambassadors without much urging on your part. You can realize all these goals by outsourcing your customer service to experienced agents.

#9 Handle query resolution and escalate only when necessary.

Rather than completely assigning this task to AI or bots, how about creating a hybrid system for answering queries and resolving issues before they become huge problems for your team? A hybrid system makes use of software for routine tasks and complements the process with personalized communications from customer service reps who can provide empathy and warm assurance to distraught customers.

#10 Take care of device-related troubleshooting for customers.

Tech support agents can provide remote assistance for device-related troubleshooting tasks. Most problems with gadgets can be resolved then and thereby resetting the device or simply restarting it. For complicated device problems, however, agents can advise customers on where to find the nearest service center for their brand of smartphone or tablet, what documents to bring, and how they can best explain the situation to the technician.

#11 Provide customer support to telecom subscription services.

Some telecom companies have multi-tiered subscription models for their consumers. With different groups of subscribers numbering hundreds of thousands or even millions, any telecoms provider will need the help of customer-facing service reps as well as a remote team of call center agents.

#12 Provide help desk management and technical support for back-end operations.

Call center agents can also help your back-end operations with the help desk and tech support tasks. Requests can be captured day and night, and these numbered tickets can be assigned to different teams depending on the urgency and nature of each request.

#13 Provide warranty support.

Warranty information can be easily tracked through a monitoring software attached to a customer database. But, disputes and inquiries regarding warranty activation, expiration, and renewal can be easily handled by an experienced support team.

#14 Handle call overflow during peak hours.

When the lines are either busy or unattended, the system automatically redirects these calls to an outsourced support team that will provide immediate assistance to customers no matter the time of day or night. Your customers will never feel like they were ignored or mishandled in any way.

#15 Manage after-hours call answering and customer support services.

Your business will continue to deliver excellent services to your customers because of an outsourced team providing after-hours support. Customers are assured there’s always someone to take their calls and help them with their inquiries and requests. And so, customer satisfaction is guaranteed and brand integrity remains strong.

A faster response rate is just one of many metrics that telecom companies use to help them improve customer relationship management. But, counting the minutes isn’t as important as leaving customers happy and satisfied with the kind of service they got from your tech support or customer service reps. With the right telecom outsourcing provider, high-quality service is practically assured.