Is customer care outsourcing really worth it? 

We’ve been working with clients to manage customer care for decades, and the link between customer care outsourcing and customer satisfaction is obvious—to us, anyways. But if you’ve never outsourced your customer care before, it can feel like handing off a crucial piece of your business to an unknown partner. 

In this article, we’ll show you the clear connection between outsourcing and customer satisfaction—and how to ensure your outsourcing partner enables you to increase customer satisfaction. 

Understanding the Link Between Outsourcing and Customer Satisfaction

While outsourcing has gotten a negative reputation in previous years, in today’s world, outsourcing to a trusted and reputable provider can improve customer satisfaction, both directly and indirectly. Consider just some of the benefits outsourcing provides that can improve customer satisfaction: 

And this is just the tip of the iceberg! In the rest of this article, we’ll dive into some of the key ways that customer care outsourcing can improve customer satisfaction, and we’ll also provide some best practices to ensure you get the most benefit from your outsourcing partnership.

6 Key Ways Customer Care Outsourcing Boosts Customer Satisfaction

That said, let’s look at some of the specific ways customer care outsourcing can boost customer satisfaction. We have 40+ years of experience managing customer care for brands and companies around the world—here’s what we’ve seen as the biggest drivers of improved customer satisfaction. 

24/7 Availability

As major corporations like Amazon and Netflix set expectations for on-demand content, 2-day shipping and other customer-centric perks, customers come to have higher expectations for all e-commerce experiences. Companies who want to stand out from the crowd need to rise up and meet—or even exceed those expectations. 24/7 availability for customer care is one of the main ways companies can do so, and a growing customer expectation. 

24/7 availability also provides better service for global companies, or companies who are expanding into multiple regions. When you have 24/7 service, you don’t have to worry about customer time zones or availability times—they can simply contact you anytime they’re available. 

But does this really improve customer satisfaction? The data says it does: 

• 90% of customers say an “immediate” response is “important or very important” when it comes to customer service 
• 60% of customers expect “immediate” responses within 10 minutes or less 
• 60% of customers say that being able to “resolve their concern quickly” is the most important aspect of good customer service

As you can see from the research, the majority of customers expect immediate responses from customer service, and even consider quick responses—and resolutions—as the most important aspect of good customer service. This is even more true for industries such as healthcare, tourism or finance, where concerns and questions may happen at any time and require quick resolutions. Outsourcing allows you to offer 24/7 service effortlessly, easily enhancing your customer care. 

Specialized Training for Agents

Partnering with an excellent call center provider with proven experience (like ROI CX Solutions!) can allow you to boost customer satisfaction through more specialized, skilled and well-trained agents. Obviously, the more skilled your agents are, the better service you can provide—as your agents are the direct connection between your brand and your customers. 

Specialized training can look like: 

• increased training on your brand and company knowledge 
• specialized language training or multilingual agents 
• training in empathy, communication or other emotional intelligence skills 
• technical training and troubleshooting to provide higher-quality tech support 

Outsourcing allows you to access wider talent pools and provide more specialized training to your team without having to manage it all in-house. 

Access to Latest Technologies and Tools

Another major benefit of outsourcing your customer care is gaining access to the latest technology, software and CX tools that may be difficult, expensive or impractical to access in-house. When you’re working with an in-house team, shelling out the cost of software licenses, top-of-the-line tech, and other programs can be impossible to do while staying on budget.

However, when you outsource, the “cost” of such tools is split amongst all of the clients of a call center provider, thus lowering the cost for you individually. Even better, such tools will already be up and running within a call centers’ workflow and processes, so you get access to the technology without the training time needed to get it up and running. And all of this technology can help you give a better customer experience, whether through more efficient processes, more streamlined communications or simply easier and more accessible service. 

Scalability During Peak Times

One of the primary reasons many companies outsource their customer care is to access increased scalability, especially during peak seasons. If your business regularly: 

• experiences drastic fluctuations in call volume demand 
• needs to scale up for holiday seasons 
• struggles with call overflow 
• experiences long wait times or phone queues 

then working with an outsourced customer care center can definitely improve customer satisfaction. Remember that immediate service and round-the-clock availability is critical for customer satisfaction—with flexible scalability, you can ensure you’re always staffing the right number of agents to provide that quick and immediate service, without overstaffing. 

Outsourcing can also provide you with the option to set up overflow call centers, keeping some operations in-house but having an overflow team available for peak periods. Not only does this ensure that you’re always maintaining consistent service levels, but it’s one of the most cost-effective ways to enhance customer satisfaction. 

Multilingual Support

Multilingual support is another important factor in improving customer satisfaction, and outsourcing offers a much easier and more cost-effective way of doing so. 

Hiring bilingual agents in-house is usually expensive, not to mention difficult to find. However, when outsourcing your customer case to nearshore or offshore locations, bilingualism and even multilingualism is much more common, even the norm. This makes it much easier to support Spanish, French, German, Chinese or other audiences, whether as part of a global expansion or simply expanding your audience base. 

With 20% of homes in the US speaking a language other than English at home, expanding your language options can significantly increase your audience and improve your customer experience. In fact: 

• 70% of customers are more loyal to brands if they can engage with customer support in their native language 
• 62% of customers are more willing to tolerate mistakes or problems if they can interact with support in their native language 
• 40% of customers won’t buy from companies who don’t offer content and support in their language

As a result, offering multilingual support goes a long way in ensuring customers feel cared for, supported and welcomed in interacting with your business. 

Consistent Quality Assurance

Finally, having a consistent quality assurance (QA) process is more easily accomplished when outsourcing, and creating consistent QA processes not only enhances the customer experience, but also customer satisfaction. 

The link isn’t hard to make: the better your QA process, the more consistent your service quality will be, and more consistent service quality only enhances your customer satisfaction. 

That said, what makes QA easier when you’re outsourcing? 

Outsourced call centers who manage customer care typically already have QA processes in place, which overcomes a huge hurdle from the outset. If you can start with a solid set of processes, a consistent workflow, and an effective QA process to measure and stabilize quality from the outset, you’ll have a much easier time ensuring customer satisfaction. 

Overcoming Potential Challenges in Customer Care Outsourcing

All of that isn’t to say that customer care outsourcing is a foolproof operation—there are several common potential pitfalls. Avoiding those often comes down to just one crucial step: 

partnering with the right call center provider. 

When you’re looking for a call center provider, finding the right partner can not only help you avoid common pitfalls in outsourcing, but also help you improve customer satisfaction. So what should you look for in an outsourcing partner? 

Among other elements, you should look for: 

• cultural and brand alignment between your outsourcing partner and your brand 
• an emphasis on agent / employee training and brand alignment 
• a priority on digital and data security and privacy, including PCI compliance certifications 
• reviews and testimonials that indicate the quality of their work 
• a portfolio and/or case studies that demonstrate proven ability to get results 

Partnering with a good call center provider can help you avoid challenges such as poor communication, misaligned priorities, poor quality and results, and more. 

Steps to Begin You Customer Care Outsourcing Journey

As you begin your customer care outsourcing journey, don’t be daunted by the sheer number of options and potential providers available—simply remember the ARR method: analyze, research, review. 

Analyze your business needs. Begin by figuring out what exactly you need and what your goals, objectives and plans are with outsourcing and with customer care. The more clear and specific you can be about your goals and needs, the more likely it is that you can find an outsourcing partner that’s a good fit for you and your needs. 

Research and carefully vet potential partners. Jumping too quickly into a partnership is a common mistake that often leads to problems and challenges down the road. Instead of signing the first dotted line that appears, carefully vet your potential providers and do adequate research to ensure you understand how this call center can serve your needs both now and in the future. 

Review and optimize processes continuously. Customer care—even when outsourced—isn’t a “set it and forget it” operation. Your customer care team needs to be continuously reviewed and optimized to ensure you’re giving your customers the best service, and to ensure that your processes are as effective and efficient as possible.

Real-World Success Stories: Outsourcing Leading to Enhanced Customer Satisfaction

Although finding the right partner can be difficult, a good customer care provider really pays off—for your customer satisfaction, and for the bottom line. 

For example, here at ROI CX Solutions, we’ve worked with clients across a variety of industries to provide customer care, and we’ve achieved results for all of them, including: 

• increasing CSAT by 15% in less than a year
• improving service metrics to support and bolster customer satisfaction
• increased revenue by more than $12M annually through improved service and satisfaction

We believe that every company and brand is unique, and requires unique care and solutions. As a result, we work together with your team to find the services, solutions and processes that make the most sense and will create the results you need. And, as you can see, whether you need results for your bottom line, your customer experience, or anything in between, we’re here to help. 

Conclusion: The Outsourcing Advantage in Customer Satisfaction

So, is outsourcing your customer care right for you?

Each business has their own unique needs and goals, but if you want a scalable and cost-effective way to improve your customer satisfaction, outsourcing can certainly help. Through an outsourced customer care, you can improve: 

• service levels and quality 
• technology and tooling
• accessibility and availability 
• cost-effectiveness
• linguistic abilities and services  
• omnichannel or multichannel support 
• and more! 

All of this serves to improve customer satisfaction, both directly and indirectly. And as customers come to expect more and more from their customer service experiences, working with an outsourcing partner can place you above the competition as expectations rise. 

Looking for a customer care outsourcing provider that you can trust from Day 1? Our team at ROI CX Solutions has decades of experience getting results for companies in a wide variety of industries—we can get results for your team, too. Connect with an expert from our team today to see how ROI CX Solutions can support your goals and needs.