Inbound order taking.

This site is meant to provide basic information on call centers and inbound order taking and to provide contacts for companies that need a call center service to answer calls from customers ordering products from a catalog, mail order ad, infomercial, direct mail, or web site.

WHAT IS A CALL CENTER?
Simply put, a call center is a place where telephone calls are answered and made. Although call center companies continue to provide a growing number of services, including; out-bound telemarketing, fax on demand, web based chat, escorted browsing, e-mail communications and more; our focus here is on inbound order taking by live operators for mail order and direct marketing related companies.

In this context, inbound telephone order taking can be defined as the process of an operator receiving a request for information, or an order for a product or service, through the telephone, usually via a toll free number. With the operator recording the event by entering all relevant information regarding the request or order into a database, including payment information, and possibly processing the payment for the product or service. Then, forwarding this information to the fulfillment company that will deliver the order to complete the entire transaction. Note: Sometimes the payment is processed at the fulfillment center, right before goods are shipped.

Since the majority of direct marketing orders are taken by telephone through inbound call centers, order taking and fulfillment go hand in hand, and many people assume that one company handles both processes.

Although some fulfillment companies do have an in-house call center, they are usually limited in nature and used mostly for customer service after the sale. Inbound telemarketing (order taking), is best kept separate and handled by specialists who have state of the art equipment, trained telephone operators, and 24 hour/7 day per week coverage.

Call center companies will usually have a fulfillment center they like to work with and can make a recommendation, and vise-versa. But the client will have the final say on what he wants done, and who does what— and with whom. A client my want to deal with just one company, so in these cases he would ask the call center or fulfillment company to prepare an estimate/bid for the entire process using the companies preferred vendor.

To read the rest of this article,  please click on the link on the left that says: Call Centers Continued

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