The full guide to customer service outsourcing 2p.

The full guide to customer service outsourcing 2p.

customer service outsourcingRead the first part here – The full guide to customer service outsourcing 1p.

In the previous article we introduced you to our full guide to customer service outsourcing. We explained what outsourcing is, why you should outsource and the different methods of customer service outsourcing. Now, we are going to take a closer look at what you should look for in a support center and how to make the transition.

What should you look for in a support center

–          Professional call handling – this one may be tricky to figure out. If you find out who are the customers of the support center you have your eye on, you can give them a call as a customer, asking a question. This way you can get an idea of how the support handles the calls and decide if it fits your company’s policy and way of work;

–          Positive customer reviews – search for the company online and see if you can find some consumer reviews on blogs or forums, from clients of the support center. Anything that can get you further insight into their typical customer experience;

–          Language differences – if you are going to outsource overseas you should be aware of the language barriers that may occur. Check if the support center has a problem with your language and if you understand everything they say;

–          Incentives program – a professional managing of a customer support center means professional managing for your support center. If the outsourcing company takes care of its employees, provides bonuses for exceeding goal expectations or overtime incentives and provides regular training and coaching, than this is the right company to outsource to;

–          Call monitoring and data tracking – some customer support companies have systems that record some or all calls for further reviews by their customers. This way, you can check out if the customer support handles the calls properly and pick out occurring problems with your product or service, or with your company, that need a more general solution.
Also, a good customer service center will always provide you with all the data from the calls on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, or whenever you need it. This way you can track the progress and make changes if needed;

Making the transition to an outbound customer service center

So, if you’ve made up your mind and decided to outsource your customer service to a third-party professional company, than you should consider the following things:

–          It may be an obvious one, but if you are dealing with a large customer support center, always read the contract thoroughly and don’t be afraid to ask for explanation or suggest changes. It’s a business to business relationship, so be thorough;

–          The focus point of many support centers is minimizing the average call time. This way they can provide more efficient service, handling calls for about 1-2 minutes per customer. Generally, this is a good thing, but you should consider if this applies to your business and if such method be efficient to the type of customer service you strive to provide to your clients. Depending on your product or service, minimizing the call time may not be a good idea or at least may not be as effective;

–          Be sure to maintain a connection between your company and your new support center. Even if outsourced to professionals, isolating your customer service is always a bad idea. The best way to avoid isolation is to assign a employee of yours to act as a buffer between both companies, by facilitating communication. This way he can keep both parties informed on the current situation, assist when needed and prevent misunderstanding about expectations and procedures.

–          Keep tabs on how the customer support company is doing and what level of service your customers are receiving. It’s clear that you outsourced your customer service to focus on a different things, this is the point of it, but it is still a part of your business and you need to at least monitor it;

So, there you have it, you full guide to outsourcing your customer service to a third-party. If you want to focus on different aspects of your business, upgrade your customer service or you simply don’t have the resources to assemble an in-house support center, outsourcing your customer support can give you additional advantage over your competition.
And if you already decided outsourcing and you are looking for the right company – contact us, we can help you with your customer service and the expansion of your business.