Quick overview of the article: Customer service outsourcing involves hiring a company to take care of your customer support needs. It is beneficial in many ways, as it is more cost-efficient, ensures experienced professionals, and is available 24/7. Some companies that you can hire for customer care outsourcing are Support Your App, Helpware, and Foundever.
Introduction
In this post, we’re going to guide you on customer service outsourcing, an important strategy that forms the backbone of many large, growing companies. We will tell you all about what it is, what benefits it provides, how you can do it, and the companies that you can hire for it.
Without further ado, let’s get started.
What is the Meaning of Customer Service Outsourcing?
Customer service outsourcing is the process by which a company hires another company or agency in order to deal with its customer service tasks. These tasks can include providing customer support via digital chatting portals, answering emails, handling calls, and so on.
The scope and scale of the outsourcing can differ from company to company. Some companies may hire another company simply for handling phone calls, while some companies may only outsource the email-related tasks. On the other hand, it is also possible for larger corporations to hand over the entire customer relationship management to a third party if they don’t have the resources to handle it themselves.
What are the Benefits of Customer Service Outsourcing?
There are many benefits of customer care outsourcing.
1. More cost-effective than hiring a full support team
Compared to hiring a full support team, hiring a third-party to take care of customer service is much more affordable and cost-effective.
With hiring an in-house team, there is a plethora of costs that you have to cover, including salaries, equipment, amenities, software resources, and so forth. On the other hand, when outsourcing, you just have to make one big payment, which ultimately amounts to less.
There is less commitment to the costs when you’re working with a third party. In other words, when you need to stop the arrangement, you can do it quickly without incurring more expenses in the process. On the other hand, for an in-house team/equipment, even ceasing operations requires effort, and comes at a financial cost.
There are also no costs related to training the new employees, which is also an advantage.
2. Around-the-clock support with minimal hassle
Another benefit of outsourcing customer service is around-the-clock support. As compared to providing 24/7 support using an in-house team, outsourcing it is much less of a hassle. The hired company can effectively manage its resources and employees, and make sure that your customers are taken care of at all times of the day.
3. Experienced and qualified personnel
Outsourcing gives you ready access to trained professionals who specialize in customer service. Unlike building an in-house team from scratch, you can simply tap into a workforce that already knows how to manage customer interactions for maximum satisfaction.
4. Scalability and control
You can scale and control the services that you outsource. You can tell the hired company which channels they should cover, which products/services they should provide support for, and so forth.
When your company’s operations grow, you can increase the scale of your outsourced services. Likewise, if the operations dwindle, you can reduce the scale of the outsourced services.
Instead of committing to a large team and the concomitant expenses, outsourcing allows you to spend as much money as you need to get as many services as you precisely require.
5. Better and dedicated tools and technology
A company dedicated to customer service will naturally have better, dedicated tools and tech for it. By hiring such a company, you will be able to get the benefit of said tools and tech, making sure that the customer interactions are smooth and satisfactory.
6. Easy coverage of all essential channels
There are numerous channels that your company must cover when providing customer service. Emails, messaging platforms, calls, physical visits, etc., are all examples of such channels.
An outsourced company, being adept and skilled in customer service, will be able to cover all of these essential channels without a problem.
How Do You Perform Customer Service Outsourcing?
Here is a rough sketch of the steps that you have to perform in order to outsource customer service.
- First of all, you need to find a good customer service outsourcing company. Later in this post, we will give you a list of some that you can choose from. There are different aspects that define how good or otherwise a company is, such as its experience, offered services, customer service channel coverage, and pricing.
- After picking a customer service company, you should conduct research online and find what other people have to say about it. User reviews and testimonials can reveal a lot about the company, such as how it treats its customers, how effective its services actually are, and so on.
- Once you are satisfied with the company of your choice, you can go ahead and contact them to discuss your needs and requirements. You can inform them of your customer service needs as well as the scope of your operations.
- Once you and the company reach an agreement, you can hand over your customer service platforms and channels to the latter. This will let them get started.
When Should You Opt for Customer Service Outsourcing?
Another important point that needs to be addressed is when you should consider hiring a company for customer service.
For smaller companies and agencies, customer care is not very demanding. The customers aren’t numerous, and their questions can usually be addressed in just a few minutes. In such a situation, outsourcing customer service can be unnecessary. An existing employee in the company can take some time out of their day to answer the emails or take the calls.
You should opt for customer service outsourcing when your customers start increasing and their support needs grow beyond the capability of your existing workforce.
List of Excellent Companies to Hire for Customer Service Outsourcing
Moving on, let’s take a look at some companies that you can consider hiring when outsourcing customer support.
1. Support Your App
Support Your App is a renowned and reliable customer care outsourcing company that provides live chat support outsourcing, call center outsourcing, eCommerce support, and more. They even provide outsourced IT services and receptionist services, and claim to be an omnichannel solution for their clients.
Their full suite of services is quite extensive, and they seem to provide coverage for everything that can be needed by a company looking to outsource customer service.
Features of Support Your App:
- Coverage in more than 60 languages
- Project documentation
- Analytics (basic or advanced, depending on your plan)
- Quick service deployment
- Scalable teams; adjustable team sizes as per client needs
- 24/7 availability
Pricing
The pricing details are not mentioned on Support Your App’s official website. The pricing is available on request. However, there are different plans that you can view and choose from as per your needs and requirements. The plans are:
- Essential
- Growth
- Advanced
- Enterprise
Here is a screenshot showing some of the distinctions between these different plans.
2. Helpware
Next up, we have Helpware.
Like Support Your App, Helpware provides a number of different solutions. It offers digital customer experience solutions, cybersecurity solutions, and back office support. The customer care services are encapsulated in the customer experience solutions.
Helpware can help you take care of different customer support channels, including calls, live chat, emails, and so on. They create dedicated teams of professionals to handle your customer service tasks. When making the teams, the onboarding, vetting, training, etc., are all taken care of by Helpware.
Key features of Helpware
- Inbound and outbound call center services
- Multilingual support is available in 25 different languages for your customers around the world
- Chat and email support services
- Technical support services
Pricing
As is the case with Support Your App, the pricing for Helpware is not publicly available. It is available on request. However, there are three different plans that you can choose from, including:
- HW Talent
- HW Team
- HW Hub
HW Talent is the most limited plan, while HW Hub is the largest.
3. Foundever
Foundever is a customer experience outsourcing company that offers omnichannel support, including email, live chat, voice calls, etc. What makes this company different than the others that we’ve listed is that it not only offers outsourcing services, but planning and analytics solutions as well.
With Foundever, you can design your customer support strategy before handing it over to be implemented by an outsourced team. Later, you can track your customers’ experience during the support interactions to see how satisfied they are. This can help you make changes to your strategy and ensure that your customers are always happy.
Key features of Foundever
- Multichannel support for all your needs
- Scalable solutions for businesses of all sizes
- Immersive brand training to keep customer interactions aligned with your company’s tone and identity
- Offers customer service in more than 60 languages for people around the globe, ensuring familiarity and ease during support interactions
Pricing
Foundever’s website doesn’t provide any pricing details whatsoever. If interested, you can get in touch with them directly and enquire about the costs for your specific outsourcing needs.
Best Practices for Outsourcing Customer Service
Here are some best practices that you can follow when outsourcing customer service. By following these practices, you can get the most out of the outsourcing process:
- Be clear and specific about your goals: When outsourcing, be very clear about the goals that you’re looking to achieve. When you set clear goals for yourself and communicate them to the company you’re hiring, you can achieve them easily. On the other hand, if you don’t have any such goals and you go ahead with a vague plan in your mind, then the outcomes of your campaign will likewise be vague and unsatisfactory.
- Provide your outsourced company with detailed guidelines: Make sure to share your SOPs and SLAs so that your outsourced team can interact with your customers without sacrificing your image and reputation. Although you can expect the outsourced company to be proficient in their work, don’t expect them to know the nitty gritty stuff about your company’s customer interaction policies.
- Start off slowly instead of outsourcing everything at once. Dip your toe in to test the waters, as they say. To get started, give your outsourced company one support channel, like live chat. This will help you see how effective their services are and how they are at handling your customers. Once you are satisfied with the way they’re handling things, you can give them another channel, like email, before fully handing everything over.
- Keep some talent in your in-house team, regardless of the outsourcing: Even when you’re outsourcing customer care to another company, don’t make the mistake of not keeping any specialists in your in-house team. You need to have some in-house experts so that they can monitor the outsourced team and track their progress. That way, you’ll make sure that you’re getting ripped off by the hired company and they’re actually doing what they’re charging you for.
- Last but not least, make sure to pick the right company: We can’t stress how important this is. It is essential to pick the right customer care outsourcing company. We have mentioned some options above, but if you don’t want to pick any of those, then at least choose one that is similar in terms of features and channel coverage.
Potential Downsides of Customer Service Outsourcing and How to Address Them
Although outsourcing customer support has many benefits and perks, there are some potential downsides to it as well. We’ve discussed them below, along with how you can address them.
Lack of technical know-how
This can be a problem, especially for tech companies and SaaS providers.
In-house support agents can be trained on company products and services, allowing them to address complicated problems faced by customers. However, the agents in an outsourced company may not have the same know-how, which can lead to dissatisfied and frustrated customers.
How to avoid it?
Make sure that you hire a company that explicitly offers technical support. For example, if you hire Support Your App, you don’t have to worry about this issue arising, as they specifically mention that their teams can provide technical support.
Detached and lifeless communication
This issue can arise when the outsourced agents aren’t aware of the brand’s voice and identity. Instead of using the cheery tone that the brand is known for, they can adopt a monotone method of communication. This can make customers dissatisfied.
How to avoid it?
Make sure that you provide relevant guidelines to the outsourced company, informing them of the tone and style they’re expected to adopt.
Time Zone Issues
This problem can occur if you outsource to a company in another country. Their working hours may not match yours, which may lead to customers not getting hold of support when they need it. For example, if a company in the US hires a company in the Maldives for their customer support, the latter country’s daytime would be the former’s nighttime.
How to avoid it?
Hire a company that provides 24/7 coverage, like Support Your App. This will help make sure that your customers can get support around the clock, whenever they need it.
Conclusion
And with that, our guide on customer service outsourcing is complete.
In this article, we’ve covered the meaning of customer care outsourcing, which is to hire another company to provide support to your customers. We’ve looked at the benefits, some of which include reduced costs, 24/7 coverage, access to better talent, etc.
We’ve also discussed how you can perform the outsourcing when needed, as well as some companies that you can consider hiring.
If you enjoyed reading this post, be sure to come back for more!
