Thinking about investing in customer service outsourcing? We get how stressful it can be to find the right option or service for you. You don’t want to throw money down the drain on a service you don’t need, or at the same time, choose the wrong thing and end up missing out on the level of support that your business really needs.
That’s why we’ve put together our expert guide to help you understand what options are out there and their benefits, to help you make an informed decision.
What is customer service outsourcing?
When you run a business, whether you’re a startup or an established company seeing substantial growth, it becomes critical that you build and maintain a loyal customer base. In most cases, the majority of people looking to outsource customer service are at a point where they need the support but aren’t in a position to hire, train, and add experienced staff to the payroll.
When you outsource customer service, however, you can avoid the stresses of building an expert in-house team, while reducing costs and retaining more customers than ever.
6 benefits of outsourcing customer service
Customer service is a critical component of your brand’s success. Unless you have it, you risk ruining your brand’s reputation and missing out on potential valuable possibilities. Here are just 6 of the countless benefits of customer service outsourcing.
1. Save time
Imagine how much time you’ll have to spend hiring your own team, organising your own team, training your own team, and even more time will be spent managing metrics and tracking the performance, revenue, and success of your in-house customer service department. That sounds exhausting, and that doesn’t even take into account running an entire business as well. When you’re building an empire, time is precious. Cutting out needless hours where you can is crucial, and here is where you can do it.
2. Save money
Let’s talk about the real costs of recruitment. Hiring isn’t cheap, and if you’ve found this blog, that probably means you aren’t in the position to spend where you might not need to. Avoiding unnecessary hires is where you can cut those costs. The average company spends thousands on hiring a new employee, not even including salary and benefits. When you outsource your customer service, you can rest at ease in the knowledge that you’re paying a set fee per month, and everything you’ll possibly need will be covered.
3. Make more money
You’d be surprised how much money can be made in profit when you have great customer service that your customers trust and can rely on. Investing in new customers is between 5 and 25 times more expensive than retaining existing ones, so it’s important to focus on retention. But when you invest in inbound sales outsourcing, you’ll also see an increase in new customers. This means as well as staying on top of existing customers, you’ll be able to build your business and speed up growth.
4. Create a loyal customer base
93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies offering excellent customer service. You already know how crucial retention is, but when you invest in customer service outsourcing, you can relax knowing that your customers have access to experienced specialists, 24/7. Customers are more inclined to forgive and forget if they have a negative experience with a company and receive excellent customer service. A negative experience when combined with poor customer service increases the likelihood of a customer leaving a bad review, not coming back, and discouraging others from supporting your business in future.
5. Make scalability a breeze
Investing in flexible outsourced customer service means you can react quickly and effectively to higher demand. With hundreds of trained customer service experts at the ready, it’s easy to update your needs when things grow. In fact, we like to partner with businesses so we can help you grow and be there next to you to help scale when needed.
6. Get access to cutting-edge tech
These days, it’s so important to keep up with the constant technology curve. With new AI and machine learning being developed every day, it’s important to make sure your business isn’t getting lost in the crowd. Partnering with the best customer service and tech support outsourcing companies will mean you’ll get access to up-to-date technology for better customer insights, straightforward process automation, simpler operations, and increased efficiency. Get in touch with us to learn about our technologies.
And what do customers think of customer service?
According to the Microsoft state of global customer service report, 96% of customers across the globe say that customer service is a crucial factor in their choice of loyalty to a brand. This percentage demonstrates that the quality of customer service is becoming as important as the quality of the company’s product or service. We believe that outsourcing customer service will be a beneficial investment. According to American Express, consumers are willing to spend 17% more on companies with exceptional customer service. It’s clear what customers think, you’ve been one too. It changes your view of a company completely, in fact, if you treat them well, 78% of consumers will do business with you again, even after a mistake has been made.
Is outsourcing customer service right for your business?
If your company does not have a dedicated department focused on customer service or if your in-house team needs improvement or additional capacity, outsourcing is an excellent option for you!
The primary goal of customer service is to guarantee that your customers are well taken care of and satisfied with your product or service. A pleased customer is likely to become a retained customer, and will positively influence the growth of your business.
It is tempting to save every penny possible with your business operations but cutting costs at the expense of the customer experience is never a wise decision. Instead, find a method to balance the costs by outsourcing your customer support to an experienced partner who will represent your brand in the same way your employees would.
Outsourcing can be a highly effective method of achieving that balance.
What are the options?
1. Customer service support
Customer service support is the general level of support you might need. It usually covers big and small tickets, emails, live chats and telephone enquiries. Usually, companies like to manage the big stuff themselves, so this option allows you to leave the general enquiries and messages to your outsourced team, meaning you never have to worry about them!
2. IT/tech support
Now, this is a little more specialist. Tech support requires expertise and experience, so outsourcing is pretty popular. Outsourcing tech support gives your customers access to engineers who can troubleshoot and document any tech problems they may have, helping them get back on track, without it being your problem.
3. Call centre outsourcing
Call centre outsourcing is a slightly higher level of customer support. Not only does it cover the day-to-day, but it can include inbound sales outsourcing. You’re not only covering the basics, but actually turning enquiries into new customers, and subsequently, tangible increases in revenue.
4. CX consulting
As well as taking over the management of your customer service channels, you can invest in CX consulting, which will allow you to get organised, optimise processes, and have experts on hand to help you work through the nitty gritty.
5. Seasonal support
Not all businesses need 24/7, around-the-clock support. For some seasonal businesses, it suits them better to outsource customer service for only the busiest times of the year. During this time, you’ll get full-blown support, but perhaps only for a set couple of months, or when it suits your unique model. This makes it easier to scale the business and watch it grow.
5. Back-office support
If your company is like most, your systems are a patchwork of homegrown and off-the-shelf solutions stitched together with “swivel chair” integrations. The best of back-office support takes the leftover manual repetitive tasks off your plate leaving your teams to do higher-value work. With back-office outsourcing, it’ll be like having an extension of your business that supports the front office.
To wrap up
So, after all that, we hope you have the beginnings of what you need to make an informed decision about what outsourcing service you might need, and what suits your business best. If you want to scale your business, increase sales, grow a loyal customer base, and at the same time not have to worry about any of it, it looks like outsourcing customer service might be for you.
The value Sirius Support brings to your brand
Sirius Support is your go-to partner for all of your outsourcing needs. With over 40 years of experience in support and customer service delivery, having run both traditional on-shore and off-shore customer support and 100% remote customer support across various technology and customer service functions, they are well-equipped to handle any of your outsourcing requirements, including customer service.
In addition to the standard advantages of any outsourcing provider, Sirius Support offers a few extra incentives as part of its onboarding. Having Sirius Support on your team allows you to do several things, including:
- Save time and money for your company
- Provide 24/7 support for your customers
- Make yourself more accessible to your customers by providing them with omnichannel support
- Increase customer loyalty by providing a customized customer experience to each of your customers.
- The opportunities are endless with Sirius Support on your side.
Ready to get started? Reach out and learn more
Schedule a call with us to discover more about how we can improve your customer service experience.
