Irrespective of what the buzz is, tech support isn’t a walk in the park for a call center unit. A non-technical inbound call center agent will not be able to handle the work of a tech person if he/she is not properly trained. For example, the answering service agent working on tech support projects may have to answer specific questions about software and hardware, not to mention malware support. Without a grounded back-up in IT, the BPO agent has little chances of answering those questions. It’s a wiser idea to hire technical people who can double up as phone answering agents, rather than the other way round. Callers will be really put off by a telephone answering agent who cannot answer their queries with satisfaction.

In our work as a call center supporting almost every type of business, we have done projects on tech support. In them, we have used trained engineers to handle the answering service functions. Our callers never complained about the phone answering agents because all of their questions were answered with authority and sheer knowledge. The clients were a happy lot primarily because the inbound call center team at our end were able to answer related questions as well, going well beyond the features of the tech support we were providing. Most important, the BPO agents at our end steered clear of technical jargon that provided the much needed relief to callers who were fed up of such exercises in futility.