The Challenges of Outsourcing Call Centers and Why Financial Institutions are Turning to AI

The rise of call center outsourcing for overflow and after-hours calls was a logical and understandable evolution. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, company call centers recognized two developments – 1) their staff were becoming overwhelmed during peak times and 2) the demand for 24/7 support was growing.

Outsourcing for overflow and after-hours to third-party providers was the rational and cost-effective solution at that time – but it isn’t anymore.

With the advancement of AI and Generative AI, traditional contact center outsourcing has become outdated, expensive, and ineffective. Voice AI, or voice assistants, can now automate unlimited calls 24/7, with a 60%+ containment rate. This makes outsourcing redundant at best, and a financial liability at worst.

This blog will dig into the key disadvantages of outsourcing calls, and show how interface.ai’s Generative AI Voice Assistant can completely replace it – cutting costs, improving support quality, and driving scalability.

Outsourcing overflow & after-hours – The challenges and their smart AI solutions

Challenge 1: High costs and unfair pricing models

Outsourcing for overflow and after-hours calls is notoriously expensive. Companies face high service fees, setup costs, and hidden charges that can quickly add up. On top of this, many outsourcing providers use a consumption-based pricing model that charges for every call, regardless of its nature or resolution. This means you can often be paying for spam calls, as well as unresolved queries. Switching from outsourcing calls to AI can save anywhere between $60,000 to $600,000 per year, depending on your setup.

Solution 1: Cost-effective AI with transparent performance-based pricing

To cut call center costs, automation is the most effective solution that offers immediate results. Built on the industry’s most-advanced Generative AI, interface.ai’s voice assistant can automate the majority of calls with exceptional accuracy, allowing institutions to completely eliminate expensive outsourcing.

“Olive [interface.ai’s voice assistant] consistently fully handles over 60% of total inbound calls during business hours and over 75% of all calls after business hours, compared to a less than 25% handling rate with the previous ‘telephone banking’ solution, which did not include AI technology.” – Elizabeth Osborne, COO, Great Lakes Credit Union

With such high call containment rates, interface.ai offers a much more cost-effective solution than traditional outsourcing ever can. Moreover, interface.ai also uniquely offers a performance-based pricing model. This means that we only charge when a call is fully automated – when the Voice Assistant successfully manages a query and completes the necessary workflow.

Importantly, this model also means you never pay for spam or telemarketer calls. With interface.ai you only pay for results, not calls. This drives substantial cost savings that aren’t achieved with outsourcing, or with any other financial services AI provider.

Challenge 2: Low support quality

The drawbacks of call center outsourcing isn’t just cost – it’s quality control too. Outsourced call centers often struggle with providing high-quality service because of high turnover and poor training. As a result, outsourced agents often become message takers rather than query resolvers. Worse still, this lack of training can result in the delivery of incorrect information – a critical issue, particularly for financial services where accurate customer service is essential. This all trickles down into lower customer satisfaction (CSAT).

Solution 2: Hyper-intelligent and accurate Generative AI support

Built on proprietary breakthrough technology, interface.ai’s Voice Assistant is the industry’s-first Generative AI solution that can deliver exceptionally accurate, reliable, and helpful support. Powered by both graph-grounded and Generative AI, combined with domain-specific intelligence, interface.ai’s Voice Assistant can handle over 60% of calls with a 95% accuracy rate from day one. Neighbors Federal Credit Union experienced this firsthand:

“Our call handling rates improved from 50% to 90% within 2 days of deployment, which has allowed our agents to focus on more complex calls to enhance member satisfaction.” – Carolyn Jordan, SVP, Remote Services & Member Development, Neighborhood Credit Union

These industry-leading handling rates can also be attributed to interface.ai’s pioneering intelligent workflows. Dynamic GenAI responses can manage most informational queries. However, by combining this with workflows, interface.ai’s Voice Assistant can manage even more complex and action-oriented conversations. This increases containment rates and improves the user experience.

Challenge 3: Limited scalability

Traditional call center outsourcing solutions typically struggle with scalability challenges. As call volumes fluctuate, it’s often not easy or cost-effective to expand or reduce outsourcing services. Scaling up requires renegotiating contracts and often comes with delays and additional costs, while scaling down often doesn’t lead to immediate savings. With such high call center attrition rates, outsourcing providers can also face resource limitations too.

Solution 3: Unlimited and flexible scalability with always-on automation

interface.ai’s Voice Assistant is capable of handling an unlimited number of simultaneous interactions, no matter the call volume. The platform is also designed for high availability to ensure that even during peak periods, there is no interruption in support or drop in quality.

“Having our virtual assistant answering calls 24/7 has completely eliminated the cost of our after-hours call center service. AI now answers every call. If the request cannot be fully automated, it can intelligently route the call to an agent or schedule a callback during regular business hours.” – Niya Guidry, Vice President, Contact Center, Neighbors Federal Credit Union

It also adapts dynamically to changing demands so you can seamlessly scale up or down in response to fluctuating call volumes. Powered by intelligent AI, the platform dynamically adjusts resource allocation based on real-time demand, ensuring that you’re always adequately staffed.

Wrap-up

Outsourcing for overflow and after-hour support was once a practical solution for call centers grappling with peak volumes and 24/7 demands. Now, however, with the advent of AI, it is highly outdated. 

The high costs, variable quality, and scalability issues of outsourcing calls can be wholly resolved with Voice AI. interface.ai’s AI Voice Assistant Call generates immediate cost savings through its industry-leading automation rates and accuracy. Its domain-specific Generative AI intelligence also enhances support quality, providing customers and members with the fast and helpful support they need. After all, 62% of consumers prefer a customer service bot rather than wait for human agents to answer their requests.

To learn how much money your institution could save with interface.ai’s AI voice assistant, schedule a call with our AI experts. Simply provide your details and we’ll calculate the ROI you could generate by switching from outsourcing to AI.