Overflow Call Answering Providers in South Africa

Despite all the best intentions, there are often times when your business or call centre is unable to handle the call volumes required to service your customers effectively, and you may need to engage an external partner.

Using overflow call answering providers in South Africa not only ensures your calls are answered, but it can save you money compared to similar services provided onshore in Australia by at least 30%.

Whilst good forecasting practices can help reduce the risk of having call volumes you can't handle, unexpected events can and do happen. Without strategies in place to handle unexpected surges in call volumes, it can instantly result in longer wait times or engaged signals and, with them, increasingly frustrated customers, lost revenue, and brand or reputation damage. 

Recent results from our Australian Call Centre Rankings reports revealed that some industry sectors in Australia are failing to answer over 40% of new business calls! That's a lot of new revenue opportunities that were lost entirely.

This is just one of the many reasons why it pays to explore partnering with trusted suppliers in South Africa who are experts in handling overflow call volumes for your business. 

A quick word about 'Overflow'

The overflow call answering service is typically used by companies with an existing call centre who need some additional support in place to handle excess call volumes along with some other reasons we've outlined below. 

 If you only expect the odd call or two, search Virtual Reception & Message Taking or Virtual Assistant services >

Reasons to Use Overflow Call Answering Providers in South Africa

There are a host of benefits of engaging specialist overflow call answering providers in South Africa, including: 

1. Improved Scalability

One of the toughest things about running a contact centre is ensuring you have the right staff on the phones at the right time when customers call (a skill known as Workforce Optimisation or WFM).

But like most businesses, call centres are prone to random events that can impact even the best-laid plans.

Wild weather, unexpected sick leave, etc., can quickly increase your business's call volumes and dramatically increase customer wait times.

In a service call centre where customers are calling for general enquiries, a few extra minutes can quickly lead to increased frustration.

For sales-based call centres, every lost call is lost revenue.

2. Scheduled Relief 

Needing a call centre overflow service is not always a result of unexpected events.

Lots of businesses rely on having a call centre outsourcing partner ready to handle excess call volumes at scheduled times (e.g. during peak periods, lunch breaks, scheduled training or meetings) or when there is simply no physical capacity left at your existing facility to add more resources. 

This can provide welcome relief for your internal employees and help to reduce sick leave and turnover, both very costly for your business. 

With call centre attrition often exceeding 40%, enabling more time for building employee engagement, coaching, etc., can reduce attrition and save considerable costs for your business. 

3. Increased Revenue

If you're handling sales calls via your call centre, longer wait times typically equate to lost revenue as customers lose their propensity to wait and will happily take their business elsewhere.

By using a call centre outsourcer in South Africa to handle your overflow calls, it can keep wait times to a minimum and maximise your revenue-generating capability.

4. Reduced Customer Frustration

For customers, trying to connect to your business and not getting the call answered is a major turn-off. For potential new customers, it's a very bad impression that may result in a lost opportunity. 

And for your existing customers, the latest CX statistics confirm that bad/frustrating experiences reduce loyalty and substantially increase the risk of you losing the customer.  

5. Lower Costs

Using a supplier in South Africa can provide cost savings over similar services in Australia that can deliver cost-efficiencies for your business.  

Outsourcing services conducted in South Africa for Australian customers is typically at least 30% cheaper than conducting the same service in Australia ($AUD).

How to Choose an Overflow Call Centre Provider in South Africa

The good news is there are call centre outsourcers in South Africa who specialise in providing overflow call answering service either at short notice or as part of a regular planning cycle for Australian customers.

But like traditional call centre outsourcing, it's important to do your research when selecting the right partner.

Questions to ask include:

• Do they have experience running overflow campaigns for other clients?
• What is their current capacity? Do they need to hire additional resources?
• How many other campaigns will their employees also be handling?
• What type of commercial models do they offer (per call, per minute, per hour etc)
• Can they provide technology that helps automate some of the calls to reduce costs?
• Do they offer onshore and offshore solutions?

You can contact the overflow call centre providers directly below or try our free call centre outsourcing wizard, which can recommend suitable outsourcers based on your requirements - saving you a lot of time, money and frustration. 

Only have very small volumes?

If you only have the odd call or two that need to be answered, most call centre outsourcers in South Africa will not be interested in providing you with a solution.

The good news is there are companies who specialise in low volumes with cost-effective solutions. 

Search the South African suppliers for Virtual Reception & Message Taking or Virtual Assistant services >

Search Overflow Call Answering Providers in South Africa

Just search suppliers below or use the search filters to search by suppliers in other countries or different outsourcing functions.