Should You Outsource Customer Service?
Customer service is one of the crucial parts of any business and so it’s essential to handle it with a dedicated approach and professionalism. Also, it can be expensive in the long run for small businesses and hence it’s essential to understand the finer nuances and decide whether to outsource this type of work.
Outsourcing customer service has its advantages and disadvantages, and it’s important to know both sides of the equation before deciding.
Pros of Outsourcing Customer Service
1. Cost Effective
Outsourcing enables you to reduce operational costs. Having in-house staff to handle customer service is expensive and counterproductive. Maintaining outsourced customer support saves money in the long run and if it’s done properly, it’ll increase customer satisfaction rates.
It’s expensive to train new call center employees. Training and providing training materials lead to a high rate of turnover and all this can be avoided by outsourcing the call center.
2. Scalable
As your business grows, your customer base also increases, and so your customer support needs to be more productive. Whether you’re expanding your customer service or creating a customer service for your new business, outsourcing is a scalable choice that saves you from the hassle of spending more money and setting up. Outsourcing can help to take your business to the next level.
3. Monitored Performance
Outsourcing customer service enables you to invest more resources and energy into the core areas of your company. It’s common to see businesses failing because they can’t provide key resources to all sectors of their operations, and customer support is a cause of this.
Outsourced contact centers have the right resources and tools to guarantee the effectiveness of their customer support agents and their service. They have analytics and KPIs to check employee performance and activities. The existing processes are ready to be integrated with your processes, so you don’t have to build everything from scratch. Make sure the outsourced team is well-facilitated, and this gives you peace of mind to concentrate on your company’s core activities.
Cons of Outsourcing Customer Service
1. Detachment
The main concern of outsourcing is that customer agents in offshore contact centers are unfamiliar with the business culture and values. This may affect the level of commitment and service they offer to clients. But, a good outsourcing company will ensure the service level aligns with your standards and it has policies in place to reflect your business’s culture and values. Choose an outsourcing partner where you can directly watch the operations and be engaged with the employees.
2. Language and Cultural Obstacles
Some companies don’t want to outsource their customer service to offshore companies because they are afraid that offshore customer service agents may lack fluency and cultural knowledge to communicate with their clients. This can be solved by sending clear and specific requirements. So when outsourcing your customer support, include in your requirements that you need someone who can communicate fluently in a certain language and has a neutral accent.
