How Outsourcing Customer Service Improves Client Satisfaction
Customer service outsourcing is a smart and cost-effective way to help grow your business and keep your customers satisfied. It might sound a little strange to trust the most prized part of your business (your customers) with an outsourcing company, but business owners have seen major benefits from doing so.
In fact, one survey showed that 78% of business owners all over the world feel positive about their relationship with their outsourcing company. Outsourcing has also helped 59% cut costs on normal business operations.
In this article, you will find even more benefits of outsourced customer service. Just keep reading!
The Benefits of Using Outsourced Customer Service
When you outsource your customer service efforts, you are making sure your customers receive the best care possible. Not only does outsourcing increase your company’s availability to deal with customer concerns, but it will also cost you less money and give you the freedom to grow other aspects of your business.
Not sure how all those things become doable by simply outsourcing? We’ve explained how it all works below.
Broaden Your Availability
Most businesses operate during their local time for 8-12 hours each day. Some might be closed during the weekends too.
These set hours can make it difficult for your customers who are located in different parts of the country (or world) to reach you during times that work best for them. Outsourced customer service agencies are very flexible in this aspect.
They can make sure agents are available 24-7 to tend to your customers if that’s the type of coverage you require. Even if you choose not to have a call centre that operates a full 24 hours, an increase in availability can even make a small company more authoritative and increase your overall credibility.
Not to mention, customers feel good about companies they are able to reach at their own convenience. Meaning they will continue to do business with you and even recommend your company to friends.
Improve Other Aspects of Your Business
We can all agree that customer service is an important part of every business, no matter what product they’re selling. Without your customers, your business won’t exist, so you should always try your best to do right by them.
When you outsource your customer care, you don’t have to spend time training or managing a team of agents. This will give you more time to improve other parts of your company.
Even if you’re pretty successful, there’s still room to grow. When you have one less department to tend to, you can spend more time on things like:
- Improving products
- Generating new leads
- Training and networking
- Becoming more organised
- Implementing new marketing strategies
Additionally, if you have members of your staff who were hired for one purpose, but they help with customer service, outsourcing will free those people up to get back to their core functions. This often happens within smaller businesses and causes a large backlog of incomplete tasks and frustrated employees.
Improve Contact Quality
When you outsource your customer service with an agency, you are using agents who have experience performing the types of customer service functionality you need. This will prevent you from having inexperienced agents who are fresh out of training answering your phones.
Although they usually mean well, inexperienced agents can cost you customers and even referrals. Which can ultimately hurt your revenue and ability to compete with other companies.
Outsourcing agency will also allow you to choose what speciality would best suit your customer service department. For instance, if you need people to do technical support, they will make sure the agents with technical backgrounds are available for your project.
A High Return on Investment (ROI)
Hiring a customer service team can end up quickly costing you a lot of money. For starters, you may have to move your business into a larger building to hold the department.
There are also expenses that come with each customer service employee. They include:
- Phones
- Headsets
- Training
- Salary and benefits
- Desks
- Computers and other equipment or software
- Raises and bonuses
When you outsource, you are only paying for agents to answer your phones and tend to your customers. The outsourcing agency is responsible for other things like equipment and insurance.
Also, don’t forget about unexpected bills that are more likely to occur the more you hire employees directly. You may have to pay for things like maternity leave and disability too.
Outsourcing might sound expensive at first, but it’s a much less pricey alternative.
A Variety of Talent
Depending on the type of business you run, you may need different types of customer service agents to handle different types of calls.
For example, some companies need a combination of agents who specialise in complex issues like fraud claims, finance, or technical assistance in addition to people who don’t need as much experience to complete simpler tasks like taking orders or updating contact information.
It wouldn’t be worth it to utilise more advanced agents to take simpler calls. You also don’t want inexperienced agents handling more complex issues.
Customer service outsourcing companies can offer you the best of both worlds while making sure the calls are answered by the appropriate agents.
Service Add-Ons
When you outsource your customer service calls, you don’t just get agents to answer your calls. Some outsourcing companies will offer additional features like:
- Online chat support
- Call recording and monitoring
- Upselling
- Welcome calls
- Performance reports
These are all aspects that can make the customer experience more pleasant. But they can also help build your company’s reputation.
Hire an Expert
When you outsource customer service calls, you should look for an established company with a good reputation. They should have a wide range of skills and packages you can choose from to help your business perform at its best.
We have all of that and more. Contact us today and see how we can help.