The Pros and Cons of Outsourcing Customer Service

When it comes to outsourcing customer service there are many pros and cons that a small business owner needs to weigh.

In this article, we do our best to help you decide if outsourcing will work for your business.

Pros of Outsourcing Customer Service

Outsourcing customer service can benefit your business in the following ways.

An Inexpensive Way to Add Help:

Small business owners know providing customer service is important but staffing up can be expensive.

One pro for outsourcing customer service is that it can cost you a lot less than hiring one or more full-time employees.

Not only will you save money on not having to pay employee benefits but you can also outsource for just the hours per week that you need instead of the standard 40 hours.

Can Provide Immediate Support:

As a small business owner, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking you can handle customer support on your own.

The fact is there are a million and one things that need your focus and customer support tickets can easily fall low on the priority list as you attend meetings and phone conferences.

Outsourcing your customer service ensures your customers receive the help they need when they need it. This will make your customers happier and will leave you less stressed.

Relieves Workload on Full Time Staff:

Without a customer service rep on the team, the duty falls to you or your full-time employees to handle the task. Since it’s very likely that you’re too busy, the responsibility will probably land on the desk of your developer or a marketer. busy-customer-service

Unfortunately, both of these two employees already have enough work to fill up their work plate, and adding anything else can make them resent their jobs.

You can keep everyone happy by outsourcing your customer service.

There’s nothing more frustrating as a consumer than talking to a customer service rep that clearly has no understanding of your problem or the agency to fix it. This can lead to a few cons for outsourcing customer service if it’s not handled properly.

For example, an outsourced customer service rep:

Will Initially Require Training:

When you begin outsourcing your customer service you’ll need to train your new assistant. She will need to understand the ins and outs of your service or product so she can intelligently help your customers with their requests.

It may be helpful to provide a script for basic inquiries; however, the customer service rep should be knowledgeable enough to be able to go off-script when necessary.

May Not Be Able to Fix the Problem:

An outsourced customer service rep will be best at handling basic support inquiries.

When it comes to technical issues or complex problems your outsourced customer service rep will need to escalate the ticket to someone who can resolve the issue internally.

This can add to the length of time it takes for a support inquiry to be resolved, which may frustrate customers. It’s important for the rep to stay in contact with the customer throughout the process to let him know the ticket is still being worked on.

Doesn’t Know Your Business Like a FT Employee:

No matter how much training you give your outsourced customer service rep, he/she’ll never know your business as well as a full-time employee.

businesspeople on an education training

She/he probably won’t know when a new feature is being worked on that hasn’t been announced publicly yet and she might not know when a big bug release is about to go live. She/he definitely won’t know what your company culture is like from the inside.

All of these things can impact the way in which your customer service inquiries are handled; however, none of them are deal-breakers when it comes to outsourcing customer service as long as you keep your rep in the loop as much as possible.