Customer Support Outsourcing: 5 Proven Benefits

Outsourcing has become an important part of modern business strategies. Outsourcing key areas of your business such as customer service may appear difficult and problematic for your company, but there are many benefits that can result from such a move.

How Outsourcing is Keeping Pace

As a result of the internet and the prevalence of mobile devices, the merchant-customer experience and relationship has 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.

The best call centers have fine-tuned the services they provide. Some specialize in certain types of customer communications, like order taking or help desk services. Others may become highly proficient in certain industries and some use the latest technology to manage interactions for the highest customer satisfaction. Often, a center will do a combination of these and other methods.

Today’s call centers are not the same as those of a decade or more ago. Customer support outsourcing will continue to adjust to meet the needs of customers and businesses.

Pros and Cons of Customer Service Outsourcing

Along with reducing costs, increasing efficiency, establishing control, expanding your resources, and better risk management, there are other advantages to outsourcing your company’s customer support:

Third party / outsourced customer support gives you flexibility to scale and handle fluctuating demands quickly.
Providers can offer multi-language support when needed.
You can offer support for longer, rather than just during business hours.
Outsourcing providers often have access to the latest technology and infrastructure.
A call center with many agents may reduce customer service response times, which increases customer satisfaction.
Many providers offer multi-channel support, including online chats, email, and social media.

Before deciding to outsource customer service, it’s also important to consider pitfalls that may not be ideal for your business. For example:

Lack of control is one of the biggest potential disadvantages, since you are handing over a business function to someone else.
An outsource provider may have insufficient knowledge of your company’s products/services, which can reflect in their support of your customers.
The quality of service provided might not match what you want or expect.
Restrictive contracts can affect your ability to change if something isn’t working.

With an outsource provider who is a strategic partner invested in your company’s mission and who is also committed to excellent service, these cons can be addressed and alleviated.

At ROI Call Center Solutions, we’ve compiled five of the top business benefits of outsourcing customer support networks.

#1. Cost-Effective

The most obvious benefit of outsourcing strategies is the significant cost-reductions. The outsourced area for your customer support will continue to operate in support of the business, but you no longer need to allocate money, labor, infrastructure, and other resources to it since the partner overseeing the outsourced work will take care of it for you. There will still be some costs, but external partners, particularly those abroad, tend to have more affordable rates.

This, in turn, frees up your finances and general resources to strengthen the core areas of your business. Improving the core components of the company, particularly ones that enhance revenue, shows that you’re putting your full effort into the company’s success, in turn making them more eager to invest in your business.

#2. Increased Efficiency

Another fundamental aspect of outsourcing is that it improves your company’s overall efficiency. You no longer have to do everything on your own, wasting time flitting back and forth between different objectives, so you’ll find that your business processes will become much more streamlined and efficient.

Similarly, having your peripheral areas such as customer support outsourced decreases business complexity so that you no longer have to go through lengthy processes when setting up new projects. Instead, you can just dive right in, moving forward with corporate goals more rapidly.

#3. Establishing Control

You might think that by avoiding outsourcing you’re ensuring that you have firm control over every part of your business. However, that direct connection to the entirety of your company can, in fact, hinder your true level of control over business procedures. Being forced to balance all the different areas of the company can lead to benign neglect and mismanagement over time.

By outsourcing some of your sectors such as customer support, you can apply stronger focus and control over your main business objectives. Furthermore, the third party that takes over the outsourced elements can provide additional management support that you could not have given in a direct relationship.

#4. Expanding Your Resources

Aside from freeing up resources within your company, outsourcing enables your business to invest in outside support. Outsourcing contractors often bring with them specialized tools and knowledge that you and your staff could not otherwise obtain. This has long-term benefits to your business as a whole by giving you the opportunity to pick up new skills to further develop your company.

Outsourcing is especially beneficial for smaller companies that lack the internal resources to handle especially complex projects in-house. With outsourcing strategically targeted at specialized services, your business will gain the capacity to successfully meet the workload of organizations larger than your own despite your smaller size and in-house resources.

#5. Better Risk Management

By far one of the best benefits you can receive from outsourcing your customer support is reducing the overall risk to your company. Due to their specialized skills, outsource providers usually have strong insights on how to avoid potential risks to your business, making it easier to prevent risks without having to do it all yourself.

Furthermore, outsourcing creates general stability in your business’s structure and thereby ensures that the company is at lower risk. The resulting risk management makes the company a safer investment, encouraging investors to support your business’s growth.

Why Outsource Customer Support?

In a nutshell, outsourcing services that you don’t specialize in lets you focus better on your core activities and deliver superior output for your customers. There’s no need to spend time and money training new employees and paying their salaries and benefits. By allowing more capable workers to handle the customer support workload, you also improve that aspect of the business.

You could end up being a more well-rounded organization by outsourcing than if you stretch yourself too thin by doing everything in-house. All of this can lead to higher profits and more opportunities to expand the company.

Professional Business Solutions

Sometimes it’s hard to know what to do and not do to achieve your business objectives. That’s why ROI Solutions has the professional advice you need to be successful in the modern market. These five benefits of outsourcing are only the start of how we can help you amp up your business potential and achieve better results. Contact us today for more help with your company and strategies.