For most companies, customer service is a key component in business success, but for others, customer service isn’t even on the radar. When a company doesn’t deliver quality services to clients and customers, its profits will begin to slowly decrease. If you are a company that hasn’t taken customer service seriously in the past, it will take loads of time and money to get back on track. Luckily, if your business hires a third-party business in order to handle all the improvements and activities needed to boost customer service, you will reap the benefits.
This is when a process called outsourcing comes into the picture. Outsourcing happens when a business hires an outside company that will specialize in a specific area, or handles specific tasks that your business needs. A modern example of outsourcing would be to hire a lawnmower to mow your lawn once or twice a week. Sure you could do it, but it will save you time, the money of having to purchase your own lawnmower, and the stress of doing it yourself, by hiring a professional. This is exactly what outsourcing is meant to do but in terms of your business.
Whether your company needs help with customer service, sales, technical support, accounting, payroll, or staffing, outsourcing is an important component for businesses that are looking to grow and reach peak success. Of course, some business owners might be wary of leaving some aspects of their business in the hands of strangers, but it’s important to remember that outsourcing exists because it’s a proven answer for business owners. Outsourcing companies are packed with professionals in whatever department you wish to enhance and provide real value for your company.
Outsourcing Customer Service
If you have plenty of customers that are trying to get in touch with your company for support, purchasing, or service inquiries, then it’s imperative to stay on top of these requests. In the new modern world of business, it’s important to be able to effectively connect with your customers, and provide them with the best experience possible. With multiple forms of communication, from phone calls and emails to social media and SMS messages, customers can get in contact with your business in many forms. However, not every company will be able to keep up with the fast pace of customer habits.
The result of not being able to support all customer’s needs on various channels could end in loss of sales and customer loyalty. Customer service outsourcing is the most popular type of outsourcing offered by third party companies. The right outsourcing company will be able to answer all customer questions, help to increase sales, resolve any customer complaints, and provide useful feedback that your business can use in order to improve products and services.
Along with those given benefits, outsourcing can also help your company save money, scale your service levels, expand your company, and break down language barriers between customers and employees. Truly, the benefits of outsourcing are endless and have been proven to benefit businesses both large and small.
Benefits of Outsourcing
When your company outsources any business needs, you will be handing off the critical responsibility of improving your profits and customer service needs. Your business will then need to decide what level of customer service they wish to meet. KPI’s, which are known as key performance metrics, can measure your business’s performance in real-time, using call center metrics. By using these metrics your company can track a number of things, and listed below are a few of them.
- Customer Satisfaction- This can be tracked by surveys and reviews. If you wish to deliver a service that is thorough and effective, each customer needs to feel satisfied. You can rank customer feedback and figure out what works and what doesn’t, making it easy to implement new ideas or ways to boost your business reputation. Most outsourcing agencies already have some background on what works for customers and what doesn’t, so hiring a professional agency will save time, money, and the trial and error of improving service.
- Access to the best practices- When selecting a third party outsourcing agency, you will receive the best practices that they have. Because most outsourcing companies have been running for many, many years, they have the experience needed to improve your business functions. By doing this, your business will become more efficient and effective, because they will utilize improvements that are known to work for most companies in the past.
- You will be able to focus on what is needed- By outsourcing your business needs, you will be able to free up you and your employees time, leaving you to focus on your core business values and other business aspects. Every organization can benefit from outsourcing departments that aren’t exactly in their skill set.
- The ability to provide customer support 24/7- If you have customers that need around the clock help, which is more than the average website can provide, outsourcing can do wonders. By hiring extra agents that specialize in all lines of customer service, you will have all the help you need, during all hours of the day and night.
- Cost savings- The best benefit of call center outsourcing is the amount that your business can save in cots. Usually, these third party agencies are much cheaper for your company once you eliminate the cost of space needed, technology, employee hiring, and capital. This will allow you to reduce your spending in a few different sectors. Sometimes, your business may spend the same amount of money, but increase the service and sales by plenty. Besides saving money from the known expenses, you can also save money by focusing more on long term employees and your businesses core values. By hiring such outside resources, you can focus on business, employee, and sales growth, being able to spend your money on needed resources in house.
- Scalability and growth- Call center outsourcing can help your company grow and scale because as you expand operations, the rest will grow with you. Your business will be able to move into new markets, launch new products, promote all services, and even support new languages. The right outsourcing agency will be able to target their agents to meet your needs.
The Process of Outsourcing
It’s important to note that all these benefits won’t happen overnight, and in most cases, it will take about 90-120 days for the transition period. The agents that you hire on will need to adapt their proven practices to your core values and customer needs, in order to deliver quality services and all the benefits listed above.
It’s imperative that you have the right agents on the job, and agent training is usually always needed. Some agent training will last a few days, or last a few weeks. It all depends on the complexity of your business and any requirements you have in order to boost your needed departments.
After all this is taken care of, and agents are training and getting ready to support your business, you need to start looking at the costs. There are three different ways to pay for the services you are receiving by outsourcing.
- By the minute- This is one of the most popular ways that businesses pay the outsourced agents. As long as call volume is frequent, you can price the agent’s services by the minute. Using this method, you will usually spend around 70 to 120 cents per call, but will ultimately depend on the amount of activity your business receives.
- By the hour- If your company can track calls on a day to day basis, and receive the same amount of callers per day, then expanding payment to the hour will be beneficial. This will cost you around $25 an hour to $45 an hour, giving you a low flat rate, no matter how many calls are answered.
- Fixed Cost- This costing method is rare but it will work well for some companies. If you choose this method you will be able to employ agents for a fixed amount of time, for a set fee, leaving the outsourcing agency to create invocations that they chose to help make profit margins for your company.
Being To Improve Your Business and Start Outsourcing Today
Most outsourcing agencies will focus on soft skills and the things that equate to poor customer service. It’s all about the little things companies do that make or break customer satisfaction, and outsourcing agents are there to close the gap. There are a lot of elements to look at when choosing an outsourcing agency, and by doing research on local companies, your business will choose the best suited third party. Don’t keep wasting your time worrying about all the things you need to do to improve your business, simply hire professionals who will do it for you.