Call center investment

Setting up a call center for your business is an investment of both time and money. The right way to build your call center requires a lot of planning.

Here are some important tips- 

A) Set a budget
The very first thing in starting your call center is setting up your budget. Before you make any decisions, you need to have a clear idea of the funds at your disposal to start a call center. Your available funds will help you in allocating resources and people for the business. Remember to make a difference between your initial investment to build a call center and the recurring expenses to keep it running.

B) Cut down cost
When you are setting up the budget, you need to anticipate fixed costs and variable costs separately for at least 6 months' time. For example, you need to note down the office rent, computers and machinery cost, employee salaries, etc. You can cut down major costs by considering shared offices as an option. There are many professional companies that offer a shared office for small and mid-size businesses. For Example, Regus is a multinational provider of shared offices, business lounges, and conference facilities all over the world. This way you can get everything ready to use at a very small cost per month for your business.

Your business model will have a huge impact on investment and cost.
For example, a virtual call center will cut down the cost at the initial level but the physical call center will benefit you by getting more clients internationally. In the virtual call center, employees are geographically dispersed, rather than being situated at work stations in the business premises.

For small businesses, the virtual call center model saves equipment and office costs and can lead to lower employee turnover that tends to be high for physical call centers. This model includes the required software, hardware, and networking infrastructure used to set up and manage a virtual call center. One of the best examples of call center software for such model is Zendesk.

Now when we walk about the physical call center, it helps to bring more clients on board because they get more access to data security, resources, and direct interactions with employees for quality and training.

Here are some of the frequently asked questions about the call center business and investment.

a) How much investment do you need to set up a small 5 seat call center?
- Well, it depends on various factors such as are you planning to set up an international or domestic process. Is it going to be outbound or inbound? Are you located in metropolitan cities like Atlanta, London, or New Delhi or you are based in tier 2 cities. Do you already have a client to start the billing or you are starting everything from scratch? But just to give you a very vague number, you must have a budget of 10 to 15000 dollars to start this business. One thing you need to remember is there is no business without investment.

b) You have a ready office and computers so do you need more investment?
- Of course Yes, As  mentioned, nowadays you get shared offices very easily available in any city. In the initial days of the business, you must invest your money on the marketing side to get clients. Well if you are thinking to get the ready process from the brokers then I give big NO NO. It never turns out the way you expect. Instead, It is suggest to carefully invest your money in marketing and advertising your services to your prospects.

c) How much profit you can earn from a 5 seats small call center?
-Typically you can earn up to 45% profit on the total expense you make in this business. There is a great profit margin if you are focusing on western markets such as the US or UK. You can get the revenue up to 2000 to 2200 dollars per employee per month. And just to summarize your net profit for 5 seats call center can be 4000 dollars per month. Yes, this is practically possible if you are using the right strategies.

d) Can I get someone as an investor for my business?
- Absolutely yes. Private investors and the banks are there to bet their money if you have a solid business plan. If you can show the numbers and if it satisfies their requirement then there are high chances of getting the angel investor or venture capitalist funding your business. But make sure you have a detailed project plan to answer their questions.