Client service excellence is of utmost importance in business today, as service-related problems account for attrition rates that are at least 300 per cent greater than any other category, including products, prices and billing issues. Unfortunately, it can be challenging to create an efficient customer service department within your firm; many lack sufficient upfront resources, skills or dedication; that is where outsourcing customer service comes into play.
Outsourcing customer service can be an affordable and efficient way to gain the expertise required to provide exceptional service. Still, this guide will discuss its benefits, strategies and types of outsourcing. So, let's dive right in.
Outsourced Customer Service
What is Outsourced Customer Service? As its name implies, outsourced customer service means engaging a third-party provider to manage part or all of your customer service requirements for instance:
- Responding to customer queries.
- Resolving customer concerns and complaints.
- Assist with product returns or exchanges.
- Informing customers of your products and services.
These third-party providers (Customer Service Business Process Outsourcers or CS BPOs) offer an alternative to in-house customer service teams and tools like Customer. Customers give your team an edge by centralizing live chats, support tickets, and emails onto one platform. At the same time, CS BPOs handle tasks such as call center services and technical support - you can check out how a firm used our service to streamline its email support services with LiveHelpIndia.
What Types Of Customer Service Outsourcing Are There?
As soon as you decide to outsource customer service, it is essential to familiarize yourself with all available choices and figure out what fits your requirements best.
Multi Channel Support Vs Omni Channel Support
Multichannel customer support provides services over two or more customer channels like email, live chat or phone. Omnichannel support ensures an integrated customer experience across all customer touchpoints.
Multichannel outsourcing may be appropriate when serving limited channels and processing fewer customer requests as long as a consistent experience can be offered. Omnichannel customer service enhances this customer journey while increasing satisfaction levels and rates.
Onshore Vs Offshore Service Providers
As part of your customer service outsourcing strategy, one critical decision involves choosing between onshore or offshore call center services. Typically, this decision depends on where your customers reside; factors you should keep in mind while making this determination include language differences, cultural norms and technological infrastructure, as well as time zones and language.
Shared Or Dedicated Customer Support Agents
At its core, shared outsourced customer service involves customer support agents taking on multiple companies simultaneously. If your service doesn't require extensive customization and can easily be understood by multiple parties, then shared customer care might be ideal.
If your customer interactions require in-depth knowledge of products, services, and brand knowledge, a dedicated customer service provider would likely provide more value and satisfy more customers - thus increasing customer retention and satisfaction rates.
What Are The Benefits Of Outsourcing Customer Service?
Now that you understand what outsourcing customer service entails, let's analyze its advantages and disadvantages so we can decide whether customer support outsourcing fits into your business's strategy, vision and goals. First, let's review a few benefits of outsourcing customer service associated with hiring third-party customer service for your company:
Cost Savings
One of the main draws of outsourcing customer service is cost-effectiveness. According to a report, 70% of companies prioritize cost reduction when outsourcing services. By outsourcing customer service, your costs associated with hiring, onboarding, training, quality assurance, infrastructure costs and salaries and benefits can be significantly reduced, saving your business significant sums of money. IBM was able to lower customer contact costs by 97% through outsourcing.
Are you thinking about outsourcing customer service abroad? (BPO) Contact Centers may offer cost savings that surpass those found domestically while still meeting Customer demands effectively and reliably. By outsourcing, customer services could be managed remotely at locations with lower living, wage and operational expenses than back home.
But keep in mind to compensate your outsourcing partner fairly for their services. When selecting an appropriate wage for them, please consider factors like minimum wage laws in their country, currency fluctuations and experience level as part of your decision-making.
Reduced Workload
Customer service can be highly demanding; therefore, its performance should require focus and consistency to maintain meaningful relationships with your clients and create lasting impressions of value for them.
As a startup with limited resources looking for fast expansion, handling customer service in-house could become too much to bear. Your core functions may distract you from what matters most in the business. Outsourcing customer service can take an enormous burden from you and give you more time and resources to invest in your growth strategy's critical components.
Flexible Coverage
Outsourcing customer service allows for flexible coverage - providing customers with quality support even on weekends and holidays, or 24x7 support, should the need arise. A recent Customer Service Benchmark Survey discovered that 76% of companies offer support outside traditional business hours - 34% even offer 24x7 assistance. Outsourcing might also be ideal if your staffing levels are limited while still wanting to provide 24x7 availability to your clients - potentially an attractive benefit if short-staffed businesses wish to remain available with customers beyond traditional working hours.
If your business experiences a spike in customer service requests at certain times of the year - such as around holidays - outsourcing can provide invaluable flexibility when scaling up and scaling back customer service requests without incurring extra hassles or expenses. Outsourcing customer service via specific channels - email, voice calls, live chat support, and social media are just a few options - which will cater best to customer preferences.
Employing More Effective Customer Service Management Techniques
Building a customer service team from scratch is no small undertaking - and can prove expensive. Hiring talent, training them, setting transparent processes and workflows, and investing in software for customer support could take several months or more to accomplish.
An exceptional customer support outsourcing provider will have all of the resources and processes in place to successfully manage customer requests of various levels of complexity, making their operations more effective while improving turnaround times for their customers.
Industry Strategies On Outsourcing Customer Service
Customer service is at the core of creating long-lasting relationships between your organization and its clients, creating the basis for lasting business partnerships and results in outstanding retention, loyalty, and long-term benefits for all involved. Outstanding service leads to happy clients who become advocates. Make the most out of your partnership and ensure an outstanding client experience by following these strategies for outsourcing customer service:
Quality Over Cost Saving
Understanding that 68% of consumers agree that kind and courteous customer service representatives define superior service should make you realize how crucial it is to maintain oversight over quality control measures used by outsourced customer support providers.
Your service provider's management structure should be of primary concern when making selection decisions. Some outsourcing firms possess weak structures with minimal supervision or training services offered. Working with a business process outsourcing (BPO) firm that truly serves as your partner and not simply a provider can increase the chances of building an exceptional management-level team for enhanced quality control and support services.
Objectives For Hiring Outsourced Customer Support Solutions
One of the key reasons to hire outsourced customer support agents is to reduce operational expenses. By contracting out, your outsourced customer service partner takes on all costs related to recruiting, screening, onboarding and training for you; plus, they cover office infrastructure needs like space and employee turnover costs instead.
Establish Your Budget And Goals
Outsourcing customer support services to reduce costs is the main driver behind outsourcing customer care services, yet still investing in services that should help meet business objectives and attain those. However, outsourcing should always be seen as an investment that should help achieve business goals rather than reduce them altogether.
Spending time and resources with an outsourced customer service partner with similar goals can feel more worthwhile. Be sure to invest in one that offers continuous training, data collection and general project administration services.
By setting clear expectations, goals, and objectives with your outsourcing firm, you create the opportunity to create an equitable budget that aligns with your desired results. Knowing precisely what you wish to accomplish enables you to monitor progress while finding ways to enhance performance along the way.
Excellent customer care providers invest substantial resources in tailoring processes to meet client needs. They focus on providing outstanding service using modern software and technologies that help simplify processes while expanding client databases.
Don't Neglect To Consider Culture Align, Language And Skills
One of our primary tips for outsourcing customer service is always to consider language and cultural alignment since this will play a pivotal role in creating successful partnerships. Some critical aspects of cultural alignment that you should pay attention to when reviewing a firm are its workflow, communication style, working environment rules and regulations, problem-solving strategies and relationship-building activities.
An effective way of giving an accurate account of your firm's culture is through communicating directly with an outsourced firm's executive and management teams. Through dialogue, you'll discover their priorities and whether their working environment and culture match your firm's. To determine whether it is the ideal firm, seek their views on various areas mentioned here and any interests specific to performance improvement that interest you. Assess their perspectives on technological innovation; this can ensure your views about growth align with each other.
- Industry: Confront your prospective partners on their experience within your sector and compare it with your vision for its development.
- Innovation: When researching companies claiming they innovate, note their methods and track record to understand how well their team innovates.
- Communication: Understand their communication styles, methods and policies internally and externally.
- Team Support: Find out if their HR department supports customer service agents at work.
- Training: If possible, inquire into any existing training programs to ensure they align with your desired outcome.
- Problem Solving: Discover strategies they employ for dealing with both internal and customer-side issues.
- Recruitment: Get familiar with their hiring and onboarding processes.
- Language Proficiency: Ensure their proficiency aligns with client expectations for language use.
- Track Record: Conduct your due diligence by consulting reviews from prior Customers and case study studies, reaching out directly to previous clients of your proposed partner firm and asking about their experiences working together.
Pay Attention To Pricing And Integration
As part of our customer service outsourcing tips, different service providers may charge different pricing structures depending on your company, vertical and industry. A popular way of pricing customer support providers includes:
Pay-As-You-Go
Under the pay-as-you-go model, customers pay only what they consume, whether that be per minute or resolution. Unfortunately, this payment structure could lead to increasing exorbitant prices when calling traffic increases. Customer service agents working under this model focus more on quantity than quality of handled calls.
Pay Time Up-Front
With this payment structure, you pay in advance. It is often advantageous when handling high volumes of calls as discounts are often given for longer time durations. Unfortunately, however, you could overpay fees or waste your money should all the time purchased be unused.
Flat Fee Per Agent
Finally, a flat fee per agent allows you to pay according to how many agents work for your organization. This payment structure promotes service quality since service requests will remain limited. At the same time, your costs will stay the same even as call volumes increase, although this payment plan might require entering into a long-term contract agreement.
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Conclusion
Outsourced customer service doesn't need to be difficult, and these methods will help you begin and achieve the results you seek from outsourcing customer service. Successful outsourcing can result in high-quality service, which increases customer satisfaction while decreasing costs and expanding financial options - plus, there are plenty of reliable service providers like us you can choose from, when considering which providers best meet your needs before making your selections.
