If you’re thinking about outsourcing your customer service operations, chances are you’ve already experienced the challenges of an overwhelmed support department—or maybe you’ve never had a dedicated service team for your business in the first place.
Whatever the case may be, if your service tickets are piling up, calls are going unanswered, and you’re worried your business won’t grow without somehow adding more agents, then outsourcing your call center might be a tempting solution—but you should only do it when it’s worth the investment.
For many businesses, the final costs of outsourcing can actually be on par with what they would end up paying for an in-house customer service team. That’s why it’s essential to know when the benefits will outweigh the costs.
Here are three cases when footing the bill and outsourcing your call center makes the most sense:
1. Your Team Is Doing More Customer Support Than Anything
Many successful businesses experience the growing pains of fast expansion, ultimately leading to the demands for customer service outpacing their available supply.
Especially in smaller businesses, this means that customer support issues will start to fall on the shoulders of everyone else on the team to help out whoever was handling them before. When this happens, it’s not uncommon for team members and even managers to get stretched thin as everyone takes on more responsibility.
In these times, it’s not that your employees aren’t great at providing support—because they know your product or service best and can probably answer many questions off the top of their heads. Similarly, they’re also likely to be more personally invested in your brand’s success than a group of third-party agents would be.
When it comes down to it, the problem here is that your team just doesn’t have the time or bandwidth to handle all of the inquiries that come in as your clientele grows. No matter how hard they try, they can’t seem to keep up.
Overburdening your in-house team with customer service can be a brand killer. Studies show that poor service leads to a domino effect where employee morale begins to drain, ultimately leading to a trifecta of reduced productivity, customer satisfaction, and brand loyalty.
Of course, when your team spends too much time fielding calls and chats, they also won’t be able to focus as much on core business activities. This will invariably cut into other strategic tasks that drive growth, such as developing creative marketing campaigns, conducting outbound lead generation, and strengthening relationships with existing customers.
To avoid this stagnation and lost revenue for your business, outsourcing your call center can do the trick. If done right, it can become an extension of your core team, helping you improve your operations and raising your customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores.
2. You Need 24/7 Customer Service
Even if your team can handle all of your support issues during normal business hours, there may come a time when the pile of after-hours calls you’re receiving gets too high.
This is something that all businesses should be looking out for, but especially those businesses with a global customer base. When you start to see an increase in calls from the time you close until the time you reopen (like 5-10 calls every hour, not just a few calls between midnight at 4 a.m.), you may need to find a way to provide 24/7 support as soon as possible.
Think of it this way—without 24/7 support, customers in distant time zones can be left waiting for hours, potentially leading to frustration or even causing them to seek a competitor who can answer questions immediately. Meanwhile, when your support staff clocks in the next day, they may be met with an insurmountable amount of tickets to work through before they can make themselves available to handle incoming inquiries.
If that’s the case at your business, you run the risk of failing to meet user expectations, leading to big drops in customer satisfaction.
So, what are your options? Well, first-contact support upgrades like self-service FAQs and AI-powered chatbots can provide some helpful relief, but if you truly want to maximize your customer satisfaction rates and capture some of your global market opportunities, then offering 24/7 customer service might be the way to go.
First and foremost, outsourcing your call center to a provider that offers round-the-clock support can normalize the burden on your existing staff, but it can also lead to the following:
- Increased customer satisfaction. Your customers will receive timely assistance no matter where they are or what time they call.
- Improved brand perception. You’re more equipped to demonstrate your commitment to exceptional customer service, fostering trust and loyalty.
- Boosted sales and conversions. You’re finally available to answer questions and address concerns whenever potential customers need you, leading to quicker conversions.
In almost all cases, outsourcing to a call center for after-hours support will be cheaper than maintaining a 24-hour, on-premises help desk. These dedicated call centers effectively come with the physical infrastructure, staffing, and training expenses that many small businesses simply can’t bear.
3. There’s an Offshore Call Center Capable of Upholding High-Quality Customer Support for Your Specific Business
There are many types of call centers, so depending on how you look at things, it might be very difficult or very easy to find the right one for your business.
In the United States, for example, there are outsourcing trends for both domestic and offshore call centers, and the decision regarding which route to take depends on several factors. Some companies, like Helpware, are headquartered in the United States but offer services in several different countries.
In a perfect world, there are a lot of reasons why you would want to keep your call center on domestic soil. Some of the big reasons include the following:
- Cultural understanding. Domestic agents inherently understand more cultural and language-based nuances, potentially leading to better customer interactions.
- Data security and compliance. Keeping customer data within the country may be a priority or necessity due to stricter data security regulations.
- Time zone alignment. Operating within your own country means easier collaboration and communication with the call center team if they’re in nearby time zones.
- Simpler labor and tax laws. For some companies, understanding and complying with labor and tax laws in another country isn’t worth the complications.
- Boosting the local economy. Some businesses prefer contributing to their communities by employing locally.
Having said all of that, most growing businesses do not live in a perfect world, which means they probably can’t justify the operating costs of hiring onshore support. Not only can employee salaries be higher, but finding qualified agents can also be more challenging.
As an alternative, many offshore call centers exist specifically to serve global brands, and the best ones can offer high-quality support at a fraction of the cost.
However, saving money can’t be the only reason you decide to outsource your call center; the center must also be able to provide the same level of support that your customers would expect from an in-house team. Thus, if you can find an offshore call center that is so good that your customers won’t even notice that the agents aren’t part of your regular staff, that’s when you know to go for it.
When looking for an offshore call center that fits the bill, try to find one that does the following:
- Employs agents with excellent communication skills, both written and verbal
- Trains agents for cultural sensitivity and appropriate language skills for your global audience
- Prioritizes accent neutrality so your customers won’t know they’re offshore
- Takes the time to develop a deep understanding of your products and services so that agents can provide accurate and helpful information
- Has tight data security and adheres to all relevant regulations to safeguard customer information.
- Is able to scale its services and grow with your business.
By carefully evaluating your options based on these factors, you can find a reliable offshore call center that can act as an extension of your team, delivering high-quality support while keeping your budget in check. This will, in turn, free up your in-house team to propel your business forward by focusing on its core operational strengths.
