The Advantages of Outsourcing Customer Service

A team of representatives busy working.
There are many advantages of outsourcing customer service, from increasing your revenue to cutting costs. Discover the 8 most important ones.

Theodore Roosevelt once said: “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” This is still true to this day. Customer service plays a major role in customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and even in avoiding the feared customer churn. This is because, much as FDR once stated, people only care about how much you care. Specifically, about them.

So, how do you show customers that you care about them? Is an in-house customer service strategy better? Or should you opt for outsourcing your customer service? We’re here to say that outsourcing is the way. Below is a list of 8 advantages of outsourcing customer service. 

The Advantages of Outsourcing Customer Service

1. It’s Cost-Effective

The biggest advantage of outsourcing customer service is that it’s cost-effective. Implementing an in-house solution will require a big investment in money, resources, and time, whereas a third-party outsourcing vendor already has everything you need: infrastructure to handle the customer support needs, trained personnel on hand, streamlined processes, and more. 

It’s really a no-brainer: outsourcing your customer service to a third-party vendor will save you time and money, two of the most important resources of any business. 

2. It’s Scalable

The Advantages of Outsourcing Customer Service

If your business is in peak season or if it grows greatly but unexpectedly, you may find yourself in a deep pool of service tickets. If an in-house solution is in place, the company may find itself pushing the workforce to the limit – at the risk of alienating the customer base due to poor customer service. Or it may need to hire more customer service agents, thus raising the overall costs for this particular business unit. 

But when you outsource your customer service, you don’t have to worry about this. Your service provider can easily scale your operations to fit your business’s needs, whether they’re current or projected. This saves time, since you no longer have to train new employees, and money because it’s all part of the package you currently have with your third party customer service providers.

3. Specialized Workforce

“You’ll never have a product or price advantage again. They can be too easily duplicated. But a strong customer service culture cannot be copied.”

Jerry Fritz

The key ingredient to any customer success program is training. Every customer service agent must have the technical knowledge and expertise necessary to tackle any issues that may arise for the company they’re working for. And not just that – they also need to provide excellent customer service by following best practices when it comes to dealing with difficult clients. This combination is hard to come by, and it is even harder to train. Once again, it takes time, money, and resources to train any agent for an in-house customer service unit. 

But this is another advantage of outsourcing customer service: they already have trained agents. A strong customer service culture is the backbone of any third-party customer service provider – it is literally, what they do best. This is why a specialized workforce can tackle your business’s needs while also ensuring that your customers remain loyal to your brand and company.

4. Focus On Your Core Business

When you have an in-house customer service solution, it’s easy to lose focus on the business’s core needs. You can end up swamped in customer tickets, straying away from your main activities and mission. If your company is focused, for example, on entertainment, you want to stay focused on the creation, innovation, and improvement. You don’t want to shift your focus to customer service. 

This is where a third-party customer service provider can do the heavy lifting for you, allowing you to concentrate on what really matters: growing your business. You can leave the customer tickets to them.

5. Customized Approach

When hiring a third-party vendor for your customer service, many people fear that they will be getting a cookie-cutter, standard service. Meaning, that the customer service provided won’t be personalized to fit their business needs, leaving them at a loss and at a disadvantage when it comes to customer loyalty. However, nothing could be further from the truth. At iCall Services, we focus on providing a dedicated service with a team focused solely on your program. Every detail – from recruiting, hiring, and training to quality control, scheduling, and front-line management – is tailored to meet your specific needs and objectives. This means that our specialists will effectively become your brand ambassadors, acting as an extension of your internal business model. Brand messaging, culture, customers, products, policies, and systems are all taken into account to facilitate every customer interaction.

6. Increased Revenue

We’ve already discussed why outsourcing your customer service is cost-effective. And whenever something is cost-effective, it means you are in fact increasing your potential revenue. And not only that, but you can actually increase your net revenue when you provide excellent service because – believe it or not – nearly 90% of American consumers are willing to pay more in order to ensure a superior customer experience. You can actually charge more for your products and services when your customer service is on point, and if you are reducing costs by outsourcing it, then you are effectively in a win-win situation.

7. Increased Customer Loyalty

“Our attitude towards others determines their attitude towards us.” 

Earl Nightingale

According to Talkdesk, 67% of customers hang up the phone because they are frustrated that they can’t talk to a real person. When your customers feel taken care of, and most importantly, heard, they are more likely to stick to your brand. We’ve just mentioned that the majority of people would pay more for superb customer service – and this is the reasoning behind it. An in-house solution can also work in order to achieve this, but when you outsource your customer service you have a team of experts that are trained and attuned to your specific solution, answering your clients’ calls and emails, and can help you increase your customer loyalty.

8. Better Customer Service

“As a result of the internet and the prevalence of mobile devices, the merchant-customer experience and relationship have evolved. For example, consumers are no longer content with only receiving support from 8:00 to 5:00, and they expect to be able to get questions or concerns addressed from multiple channels. Outsource providers recognize these and other changes and have evolved as well to fulfill business needs without sacrificing customer satisfaction.”

Han Butler, Chief Revenue Officer at ROI Call Center Solutions

When you have an in-house customer service team, there are two ways your employees will be working. The first is the typical 8-5 format, where they are available during normal business hours. The second is a split between shifts, where one part of your employees are available during the morning and another during the evening. However, customers are no longer happy with this limit. They expect to be able to reach your company and find a solution to their problem at any given hour of the day, and through other channels than just a phone call. While an in-house solution could work towards becoming a customer service powerhouse, an expert outsourcing solution is more flexible and ready to adapt to any change. You can hire a solution that fits your customers’ needs, whether they want to reach you via phone, email, messaging platforms, or smoke signals. Although the last one is clearly a joke, we are not kidding when we say that we are a 24/7/365 Service: we are here for you and your customers around the clock. So whether you need our support full-time, after-hours or to handle your overflow, we can customize a solution that suits your needs perfectly. Thus, better customer service all around!

Conclusion

In the end, there are clear advantages when it comes to outsourcing your customer service. From saving you money to actually helping you make more money, to even functioning as an extension of a brand ambassador program. Your customers will be happier, their needs will be met, and your revenue and brand loyalty will increase exponentially. At iCall services, we’re focused on you. Our call center and customer service operational expertise and customer service agent resources are here to help support your business. Learn more about our customized approach or request a quote today.

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