Is Outsourcing Customer Service a Good Idea?

Are you considering outsourcing your customer service operations?

If so, then you are in the right place. Many businesses contemplate outsourcing their customer service roles for several reasons. With rapidly advancing technology and increasingly inter-connectedness, outsourcing is a more viable option than ever. Many of the problems that were previously associated with outsourcing are no longer a problem.

With outsourcing, the idea here is that you need to be realistic about what you want and what you need. It is becoming very common for businesses to explore the outsourcing overseas.

Outsourcing has multiple flavors. Most of them are useful and many are fantastic. It turns out, usually, outsourcing to a reputable company, leads to a better business and happier customers. In this article we can discuss the benefits of outsourcing your customer service to the right call center!

The ‘Good’ Reasons To Outsource Your Customer Service

Let us look at some of the top reasons for outsourcing:

To Lower Operational Costs

Outsourcing your customer support staff is a good alternate to hiring a full-time support team. Outsourcing lets you hire contract workers rather than full-time employees, which saves you many operational costs. This means you do not have to pay a fixed salary and offer benefits like transportation costs, healthcare, overtime, etc.

You can save a lot of money in initial setup and infrastructure costs alone! Your workforce costs can be further reduced if you outsource customer service to a country with a lower cost of living. For example, the cost of living in Philippines is 60% lower than that of the US. This means you can offer lower rates to your outsourced customer service team based in Philippines.

To Increase Support Coverage Quickly

Many businesses like e-commerce might be slightly busier during the holiday season. During these times you might have to hire additional help to meet the higher customer support demands. If you choose to hire employees, finding, interviewing, and training applicants can take quite a few weeks. Certain companies can provide you with fully integrated customer service teams that can quickly adjust to your business processes.

To Streamline Repetitive Tasks

In most businesses, different customers usually have the same query or run into the same issues. Instead of trying to resolve the same problems over and over again, your team’s time can be better spent on other business improvement projects. An outsourced customer support executive is a great option when the questions are not too technical and more repetitive.

To Scale Up Your Business

When your business is undergoing rapid changes and growth, you might not focus fully on customer support. This is the right time to outsource your support to maintain responsive, high-quality service while figuring out the long-term goals of your business.

To Increase Global Coverage

Let us say that you want to increase the geographic reach of your business and expand globally. If you plan to do so, you will need to hire multilingual support employees to communicate with your new customers effectively. You can outsource this support requirement and you can easily advertise this feature to broaden your customer base worldwide.

The ‘Wrong’ Reasons To Outsource Your Customer Service

Outsourcing has been around since the age of the internet. However, there is still a huge knowledge gap that gives rise to all sorts of misconceptions and myths. Do not fall into the wrong pitfalls when deciding to switch to outsourced support teams globally.

To Exercise High Budget Cuts

Outsourcing can cut costs in the short run. However, it might affect your quality of service. Low-cost customer service providers are usually equipped to handle only repetitive support requests. However, they might not be well-equipped to handle highly-specific or technical requests.

To Avoid Support Responsibilities

Outsourcing is not the a way to just get rid of customer support responsibilities. It works as a partnership that requires lot of communication and hard work on both sides. You cannot leave your outsourced support team to fend for themselves as they might get disconnected from your brand and as a result, your customer support quality can drop at an alarming rate.

To Make A Quick Fix

Customer service providers are experts. However, you can’t expect them to solve all your problems right away and overnight! Delivering a great customer experience usually takes time, planning and consistency. You may need to put in a lot of initial hours and train your outsourced team.

What are the Pros and Cons of Outsourcing Customer Service?

Let us look at the pros and cons of outsourcing customer service:

Pros Of Outsourcing Customer Service

Customer Service outsourcing companies have access to the latest technology and resources. And can provide you excellent customer service. Implementing the latest technology in your own company can be costly and time-consuming hence outsourcing is a better option
Good customer service outsource companies are like a well-oiled machine. It is fast and responsive, and just works better than handling things yourself.
Outsourcing companies have highly skilled agents as they always hire the best for the job.
You can tailor operations to be available whenever it is needed and this means access to customer service 24/7
You can often get wider access by hiring skilled agents with broader abilities by outsourcing. This means you can hire agents with multilingual skills and with local knowledge
You can cut down on schedule management, resources and KPI management by letting customer service outsourcing team take over so that you can focus on other areas of your business
With outsourced team you can easily scale your business up and down when needed and can be done easily by simply communicating
You have greater control over costs when you outsource your customer service. Hiring full-time customer service staff is more expensive and can also be financially risky.
Outsourcing guarantees that you are maximizing the efficiency of your customer service and also cuts down on costs

Cons Of Outsourcing Customer Service

By handing over your responsibilities to the customer service outsource team, you lose control over the day-to-day running of your customer service operations. You can trust the company with your information and clients.
If your business has a unique approach or tone of voice then it may be difficult to emulate this and convey this through an outsourced team.
Communicating with the outsourcing team is crucial. . If communication is not handled well then it could cause issues for your customers. Communicating openly will offer the best experience to your customers and your business as a whole
Privacy is an issues when you outsource. Outsourcing companies get access to sensitive or confidential information about your customers, clients, or business.

Key Takeaways

For many company and businesses, outsourcing customer service is not about cutting corners it is about offering the best service quality to fulfill the customer service needs of your customers.

When there is work that can be done more efficiently or effectively by a third party, or you simply don’t have the staff or budget to hire a dedicated resource, outsourcing can be a cost-effective solution.