Google, the world’s number one search engine, is outsourcing its numerous services, ranging from customer service to IT services to app development teams, etc. The impact is such that, as per the report in 2018, their outsourced employees have outnumbered their direct hires.  Not only Google, but Amazon, the world’s leading brand, outsources its call centre functions, which allows their services to continue around the clock.

Well The customer is regarded as the king thus it is necessary for companies to go out of their way to provide exceptional customer service. As the business grows, handling customers’ expectations and demands becomes complicated and cumbersome. Hence, in this situation, it is necessary to consider customer outsourcing service to maintain a high level of customer satisfaction.

60% of customer-centric companies are more profitable than others. So if you have still not added customer service outsourcing as one of your business strategies then you should put it on your list. Customer outsourcing service should be a must-followed business process if the company is growing.

As customer satisfaction and experience is the top priority for any company 84% of companies who invest in customer experience report an increase in revenue.

What is customer service outsourcing?

Customer service outsourcing is an act where a business approaches a third party to handle customer support services. These outsourcing partner understand your business and help in providing qualitative service to your customer. It is a process where a business delegates its customer service to a counterparty for a better customer experience.

Various customer channels that can be outsourced

You can use below various trending channels for optimizing customer experience

    • Phone service

    • Email service

    • Live chat

    • Self-service

    • Social media channel

    • Video chat

    • Mobile messaging

Reasons you should outsource your customer service

Why companies outsource customer service.
Why companies outsource customer service. [Source – Hubspot]

Are you still skeptical about outsourcing customer service?  Below are the various various reasons you should outsource your customer service.

Reduction in cost

One reason you should outsource customer service is cost saving. 70% of business use outsourcing to reduce cost.

As in-house service comes with a variety of Expenses like Remuneration to current employees, infrastructure costs, maintenance costs, training expenses, and other variable costs. But outsourcing helps your business save on this capital expense.

Access to trained professionals

Outsourcing helps your business to get access to professionals who help in shaping your business goals.

Training your in-house employees will be more time-consuming as well as expensive, but by outsourcing your company will get top-notch representatives who know how to respond to customers and maintain your business voice through their knowledge and experience.

Increase your business efficiency

Whether it is a big enterprise or a small business. Every organization wants engaging customer service.

Outsourcing customer service is a brilliant way to improve your resource management as your business’s time and efforts are saved in training new employees. Outsourcing also helps you to manage high customer service volume and also helps you to cover various modes to improve customer experience like calls, live chats, emails, social media response, etc.

Helps in focusing core business operations

In this competitive era, it is necessary to focus on the things you are best at and outsource the other work.

Outsourcing your customer care helps you to analyze and concentrate on core business functions and take strategic decisions to move ahead of competitors.

Factors to be considered before outsourcing

There are numerous things you should consider before outsourcing customer service to outsourcing partner.

Define your business goals

The foremost thing you should consider before investing on outsourcing is to check your goals.

Spend some time thinking about your requirements, why are you outsourcing?

Are you outsourcing to save costs or to get better access to technology ?

What Kind of contract do you want fixed or flexible?

What kind of customer service does your business require?

Calls, chatbot, and social media interaction.

Thus, let’s make the picture clear in your mind by considering customer aspects and customer demand before finalizing your outsourcing partner.

Consider your budget

Costing should be undoubtedly one of the most important factor to be considered when planning to outsource customer service.

You should prepare a proper budget to analyze if the prepared budget meets your business requirements and generate proper ROI.

NET INCOME / TOTAL COST = ROI

Research and analyze the price quoted by various outsourcing companies before binding into any contract.

Keep an eye out on training process

While outsourcing customer support, check on their training process as it is necessary to provide qualitative service to customers to enhance your business performance.

    • Check if they are having dedicated full-time trainer.

    • Check on the process and strategy to train new staff.

    • The time period of training.

Review their track record

Do research and analysis about the track record of the outsourcing company.

    • Check the history of the company

    • Take feedback from their previous client

    • Check if they are having the reliable experience required for your business

The above points will help to understand the nature and process of the outsourcing company.

Availability of the latest technology

Analyze tools and technology used by the outsourcing company as it is an important factor to deliver quality service. Technology is a crucial aspect to be considered for getting desired output, always check on tools used by an outsourcing company to meet your business requirements.

Do extensive Research if the technology adopted by your outsourcing partner is proficient in handling complex projects.

Check cultural alignment

Cultural correspondence is one such factor that many businesses ignore but it is one most important aspects that have to be considered.

Various points like

    • Communication patterns align with your business partner

    • Problem-solving technique

    • Relationship building

    • The pattern of the business to be followed

Consider security and legal risk

As your outsourcing partner will have access to your company’s most valuable information.

Before you decide on a company for customer service-

    • Check on their history of outages and system uptime

    • Check for their data security aspects and legal obligations

    • Make sure that they are trustworthy and if they comply with industry standards and regulations

    • Determine that they use systems that have internal control to secure consumer data.

 Ownership liability

When outsourcing customer service, make a proper hierarchy regarding which team is accountable for which process.

If you have to escalate a certain issue to your team then you have to prepare a blueprint that will be followed by you and your outsourced partner.

Hence make sure to paint a clear picture of the ownership and communication matrix to make it convenient to track the goals and business performance.

Benefits of customer service outsourcing

Outsourcing customer service sounds difficult and problematic but below are the various benefits that result from outsourcing.

24/7 customer support

Outsourcing customer service offers the benefits of 24/7 customer assistance which help the business expand coverage and improves customer satisfaction.

Reducing your business workload

Generally, employees are already dressed in numerous hats of workloads hence outsourcing customer service helps your employees to focus on larger picture.

Increase in ability to meet demand

As there is an increase in customer expectations, it is necessary to be prepared for the upcoming trend and benefit businesses with more global talent and professionals by outsourcing customer service.

Multilingual support

If you are eager to have a global reach and want to expand your business then outsourcing customer service will provide you with multilingual support.

Thus customer feels more comfortable and confident as outsourcing helps to remove communication barriers.

Various Myths about customer service outsourcing

Myth – Outsourcing will decrease the quality of customer service

Reality – As one of the major reason of outsourcing customer service is cost saving, you might think that quality will be compromised.

But this is not a true outsourcing partner with trained professionals and experience offer features like 24/7 support, backup coverage, and multilingual support which only enhance customer support services.

Myth – outsourcing is only for big companies

Reality – outsourcing customer service is often considered for large organizations but this is not true.

Small and medium organizations or startups can also avail of outsourcing customer service and can focus on their core business operations.

The only difference is that the size of the team that works will vary. Thus outsourcing services can be broken down as per the requirement of the business.

An outsourcing partner will serve your business as per your needs only.

Myth – Due to outsourcing, there will be a lack of control over  employees

One of the major misconceptions you might have heard is due to outsourcing there is no ownership and control over the project and it will be difficult to manage outsourcing partner located overseas.

But the reality is due to innovative technology and advanced business tools you can now monitor the performance, analyze the growth matrix, and can schedule meetings.

You can keep an eye on progress happening and can analyze whether your expectations are achieved.

Myth – The language barrier will be a hurdle

Reality – one of the reasons most companies refrain from outsourcing customer service is the fear of linguistic barrier.

It is a misconception that accent and language would affect customer support.

But the reality is that these agents are well-trained and skilled to carry out the work provided more efficiently.

They are able to converse well in English and in other languages.

Myth – Outsourcing could be costly

Reality – you have often heard that outsourcing increases expense but this is a wrong notion. Outsourcing customer service will not increase your expense but will help save your cost.

As the cost of in-house training of employees, infrastructure development, installation, and maintenance of the latest technology will be more costly and cumbersome as compared to outsourcing.

Outsourcing customer service will be cost-effective and flexible. outsourcing customer service will result in long-term cost savings and will increase business revenue.

Myth – Outsourcing is all about cost saving

One of the misconceptions about customer service outsourcing is that outsourcing service is only about cutting expenses.

No doubt cost saving is the main reason for outsourcing but not the only reason.

Professionally trained employees, advanced tools & technology, and experience to handle customer expectations are the various reasons you should invest in outsourcing customer service.

What’s next

Kudos to you for taking such great step towards your customer satisfaction.

Outsourcing customer support is surely a big decision. You will have to do plenty of research to find the right team that fits your business needs and help your business to nurture a positive relationship with your customers and enhance your customer’s experience. Outsourcing will become the best decision once you will find a result oriented partner.