What is customer service outsourcing?
Outsourcing means moving individual functions or business processes to another company. Specifically, outsourcing your customer service means that from now on most of your customer inquiries are handled by a third party. So you don't necessarily have to grow your own customer service team. When your customers contact your company via your website or a hotline, this third party takes care of the inquiries.
Especially for larger companies, customer service outsourcing (CSO) is now common – trusting that their customers will get the support they need there.
What are the benefits of CSO for my company?
More flexibility
When someone else takes over your customer service, you can use your time and resources elsewhere, for example to improve your product or develop your company further. Customer service outsourcing also helps you manage a high volume of tickets. That can be a big relief, especially during peak season. Above all, it reduces the workload for your customer service team.
Experts in customer interaction
Building your customer service from scratch comes with some hurdles. First you have to find suitable employees whom you then need to onboard and train. Then all workflows and guidelines have to be defined. That can take a few months.
With a third party, you buy more effective customer service management. Their employees already have practice looking after all kinds of customers. Training and setting up workflows are also handled by your third-party provider.
Improve support metrics
Even with a perfectly trained customer support team, your customer service can be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of inquiries. Some of your KPIs then suffer: with so many inquiries, your customers wait longer for an answer (response time), and the average time it takes your team to resolve an inquiry (resolution time) increases. Customer satisfaction suffers most of all.
Since 89% of customers switch to a competitor right after a bad customer experience, satisfied customers should be your top priority. That's why customer centricity should be front and center for your company. Find out what that is in our article here.
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International service
For some e-commerce companies, it can make particular sense to choose a third party with international customer service. That way, several languages can be covered and different time zones used.
Keep in mind, though, that service agents who speak several languages are often more expensive than monolingual ones.
Save costs
For many companies, costs are the trigger for outsourcing their customer service. When it comes to reducing costs, 70% of companies rely on outsourcing various services.
You save on fixed salaries and bonus payments, as well as the hiring process and subsequent onboarding and training. At the same time, you don't have to pay for the corresponding infrastructure (workstations, equipment, etc.).
Of course, you can outsource your service to countries where living costs – and therefore salaries – are lower. But make sure the third party you choose pays fair wages, and familiarize yourself with the country's minimum wage and working conditions.
What are the downsides of CSO for my company?
If customer service outsourcing were the right solution for every company, everyone would do it. Despite the benefits, you shouldn't lose sight of the downsides of CSO.
Hidden costs
When your company starts outsourcing its customer service, it does so to save costs. Unfortunately, many third-party providers are like airlines: the base price looks fine, but then they get you with hidden costs. In customer service outsourcing, additional fees can include further training or onboarding of staff. Missing certain targets can also trigger a fee, and you may face a switching fee if you decide to change providers.
Inconsistent quality
Your customers won't know whether they've reached a service agent from your company or a service agent from a third party is handling their inquiry. The third party's employees aren't as familiar with your product and customers as your own customer service agents. That leads to clear differences in the quality of your customer service. External service agents can't engage more deeply with your offerings and products either, as they probably look after several companies and so lack the deeper understanding your own employees have.
No control
When you outsource your customer service, you don't just hand over part of the work – you also hand over a large part of your control over the customer journey. You won't have full control over the quality of service, and making sure your customers have an excellent customer experience becomes harder and harder. That can cause customer satisfaction (CSAT) to drop sharply.
On top of that, you'll no longer deal with your customers every day. You won't know first-hand what matters to your customers, what problems they're currently having or how you could improve their customer experience. You'll be less able to collect all this data and therefore unable to respond to it.
Dependence on a third party
Every problem your third-party provider faces inevitably becomes your problem too. If they have technical problems, your customers can't reach them and you lose sales. If your provider discovers a data leak or mishandles personal data, it immediately casts a bad light on you and your company.
You also have to remember that you're only one of several companies this provider looks after. You'll never be treated as a priority. When there are technical problems, every client will demand that their service be restored first, and you'll have no influence over where your company stands in line.
Data security
Third-party providers usually have systems and protocols to protect your data and your customers' data. Still, you're handing over all this data and no longer have direct control over what happens to it. Your system can also become vulnerable to hackers during data transfer.
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A chatbot maximizes the benefits of customer service outsourcing without compromising customer service
Customer service
If your customer service is overloaded and overwhelmed, you don't have to jump straight to outsourcing. A first step can be offering your customers self-service options: FAQs, manuals, explainer videos or a chatbot. That already takes some of the load off your customer service.
A chatbot can offer you something no third-party provider will ever manage at an affordable price: 24/7 service for your customers. A chatbot can answer simple inquiries right away without keeping your customers waiting. That makes your customers feel valued, which has a positive effect on customer satisfaction.
Even when your chatbot faces an inquiry it can't answer, there's no need to worry. With smart human handover, the chatbot simply passes the inquiry on to a service agent who can take care of it directly. That way, no question goes unanswered and your customers are sure to get help.
By connecting to translation services, you can offer your chatbot in many different languages and so build an international customer base. Thanks to the wide range of languages and 24/7 availability, no more inquiries slip through the cracks. print24, for example, uses a multilingual chatbot.
Your data stays your data
You also get the benefit of improved KPIs by using a chatbot. Since it answers many questions directly, your employees have time to answer more difficult questions faster. That lowers not only the response time but also the resolution time of your customer support. If you're not sure where your customer service currently stands, take the test here.
At the same time, you keep control over your data and your customers' data. You can define exactly which data your chatbot should collect, and you keep track of what's on your customers' minds. Which topics does your chatbot get the most questions about?
Control over your customer service
With a chatbot, you get all the benefits of customer service outsourcing while keeping control over your data and the quality of your customer service. You decide how your chatbot behaves and how it talks to your customers. Without fluctuations in quality, it looks after your customers exactly as you teach it.
Many people worry that AI simply makes up answers or gives wrong ones. There's a solution for that too: at the start, the recognition threshold is set very high, which means the chatbot only answers an inquiry when it definitely recognizes it. All inquiries it can't confidently assign to a topic are passed on at first. During the training phase, you can review which inquiries your chatbot passed on and train it on all the variations. Over time, the recognition threshold can be lowered step by step, so that spelling mistakes or grammatical challenges are no obstacle to giving your customers the answers they need.
Ticket Automation
With the Ticket Automation feature, up to 60% automation is possible in customer service. Support tickets can now be categorized by urgency, answers are generated automatically and tickets can be forwarded to the right service agents. Generative AI drafts suggested answers for your service agents so they can respond to customer inquiries in a few clicks in a friendly, professional and personal way. You'll find all the news about our new Ticket Automation feature on our website.
Why you should think of a chatbot first when it comes to customer service outsourcing
Customer service outsourcing can be a good decision if you keep all the pros and cons in mind. However, outsourcing customer service usually only pays off for large companies. There, the volume and variety of customer inquiries sometimes can't be handled by internal service agents without waiting times for customers rising sharply. Mid-sized and small companies, on the other hand, often can't even afford third-party services.
Large as well as mid-sized and small companies can benefit from a chatbot. The costs are manageable, and it provides almost instant relief for your customer service team. You keep control over your data and your customers' data, you retain direct influence over the customer journey and can keep adjusting your chatbot to make it even more efficient. With additional tools such as Ticket Automation, you can automate your customer service further and take the load off your customer service team. Take a breath and put your feet up. Your chatbot handles your customer service outsourcing with ease by automating your customer service.
