From first call to live: starting an offshore agent team

Moving your customer calls to a team abroad sounds like a long project. With Double Support it is a short list of steps: what you tell us, how the agents are chosen, how they learn your process, and when they take the first call. This is that list, as our call center page sets it out.

1. You tell us what needs covering

We ask four things: your hours, your volumes, your channels, and what your customers contact you about. From those we tell you how we would staff it. Our agents work as your customer team on calls, inbound and outbound, live chat and email, for customer support and for sales.

2. The hours are worked out, not stretched

Our English-language agents work three shifts from Amman, Monday to Friday. Together they cover the European business day and the full business day in every US time zone, from Eastern to Pacific. Three shifts is a quality decision: agents work standard-length shifts, never a fourteen-hour day. For Arabic-speaking customers, the standard week is Sunday to Thursday, the Gulf week, and we arrange the team around your own week if you work Monday to Friday.

3. The agents are chosen for the accent

Every agent is assessed before hiring by a member of our team who was born and raised in the United States, and passes the Versant English test before taking a call. English and Arabic are standard; other languages, such as French, German and Turkish, are staffed on request.

4. They learn your process

We train the team on your product, your tone, and your rules for what an agent can decide alone and what comes back to you. When your needs change, we train them on the new channel or task. Every agent is trained in data protection and signs a confidentiality agreement before taking a call, and agents never hear or see card numbers: payments go through a secure keypad or a payment link.

5. The first contract is short

• Start with two agents, and grow when you are ready.
• Three months to start, then month to month; either side can end it with 30 days' notice after the first three months.
• Priced per full-time agent, per month.
• Call recordings kept 90 days, included; longer retention is a paid option.

6. Live in two weeks

A team goes live in two weeks. For a language we do not already staff, allow four to six weeks.

For European clients

Call recordings and customer data are stored in the EU: calls run through Twilio's Ireland region, and Zyntra OS is hosted in Europe. A Data Processing Agreement is signed with every European client, and if a breach ever affects your data, we notify you within 24 hours of discovering it.

And the system around it

Every call center client gets Zyntra OS, our business management system, at a preferential price, and larger teams get it free. To start, tell us your hours, volumes and channels.