Evaluating the professionals and cons of a customer support BPO

17

Outsourcing a business process to save lots of costs and gain access to specialized expertise is nothing latest. 

Customer support is one business process outsourcing (BPO) service that has seen consistent demand over the past decade.

Outsourcing customer support to a high-quality customer support BPO can have significant advantages like increased brand repute, easy scalability, and higher work efficiency. Nonetheless, it will possibly also cause serious concerns about security and lack of productivity.

So if you happen to’re trying to outsource customer support, it’s crucial to realize a deeper insight into its advantages and challenges.

In this text, we’ll explore the five key advantages and 4 major concerns of outsourcing to a customer support BPO. We’ll also break down the qualities you need to search for in a service provider so you possibly can ensure excellent customer support. 

Table of Contents

Let’s begin. 

5 key advantages of working with a customer support BPO

BPO or Business Process Outsourcing is the technique of outsourcing or handing over a business process to a third-party service provider. 

So customer support BPO means passing over the identical to a support team of outsourced customer support agents. 

While outsourcing your customer support has many advantages, we’ll explore the five most significant ones. 

1. Reduce costs

That is the important thing reason why firms select customer support outsourcing. Firstly, it helps save the associated fee of establishing an office and helpdesks and providing agents with the obligatory latest technology. Secondly, it also saves you the capital needed to fund training agents to widen their knowledge base. 

Outsourcing to a reputed customer support BPO gives you ready access to third-party service providers with expert personnel, obligatory infrastructure, and streamlined workflows to offer excellent customer support.

2. Access specialized expertise

A key advantage of outsourcing to a customer support BPO is accessing specialized expertise that might not be available inside your in-house team. As an illustration, if you happen to’re trying to generate quality sales leads, you possibly can decide to outsource to a reputed outbound customer support BPO.

A customer support BPO can be well-versed in managing quality assurance teams and helping you measure their output through KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and other metrics. This may enable you determine if the outsourced expertise is helpful to your organization’s growth. 

3. Get one of the best customer support agents

When hiring a service provider, you gain access to their customer support representatives who can solve all customer problems and supply high-quality customer support, irrespective of the problem. 

The outsourced agents are trained to:

• Handle inbound customer services, reminiscent of 24/7 customer helplines, technical assistance, etc.
• Provide outbound support, including upselling, cross-selling, market research, cold calling, etc.
• Cope with high call volumes when your corporation decides to scale up.
• Ensure quality assurance by correlating customer sentiment with key metrics like call duration, First Contact Resolution (FCR), hold time, Net Promoter Rating (NPS), etc.

4. Gain the pliability to scale

Since your organization’s customer support is handed off to a different specialized service provider, you possibly can give attention to your core competencies and scale exponentially. 

Let’s say you’re an American software company planning to scale a mobile app in Poland. An outsourced customer support BPO in Poland can handle your customer support whilst you give attention to quickly scaling the marketing of your app. 

5. Eliminate lengthy HR procedures

Human Resources (HR) are an integral a part of any company. Nonetheless, maintaining a separate HR team to your call center can quickly eat into your bottom line. Moreover, hiring and maintaining experienced agents is a costly endeavor which you could hand over to your service provider. 

Customer support BPOs will help because they’ve access to specialized talent of their countries. They’re also in a position to optimize their recruitment process using:

• Volume hiring software.
• Worker referrals.
• Strong repute and employer branding.

In consequence, BPO vendors have a big workforce waiting for brand spanking new opportunities and clients.

While all these advantages are a superb reason to outsource your customer services, you need to also concentrate on some drawbacks of the method.

4 vital concerns of working with a customer support BPO

Listed below are 4 limitations it’s good to consider before deciding to outsource your customer support:

1. Additional training

For the reason that outsourced agents aren’t acquainted with your corporation culture and values, chances are you’ll need to offer additional company-specific training about your products/services, customer needs, technical support, etc. Nonetheless, call center agents are trained to choose up these details quickly to offer seamless service.

2. Security concerns

Providing access to confidential customer information to a third-party company may result in a security and privacy breach. 

That is primarily because digital data is accessible to people through a shared network. BPO security threats include phishing, hacking, malware, etc. 

Nonetheless, this may easily be prevented through company-wide security solutions like firewalls and blacklisted IP addresses.

You may also be certain that the outsourcing provider meets your corporation’ security and data privacy standards through careful screening.

3. Communication and language barriers

Outsourcing customer support to a third-party company may result in communication and language issues, especially in a distinct country. 

These include:

• A difference in accents between agents and customers.
• Use of slang or culturally specific idioms.
• Cultural differences and an absence of cultural context.

Nonetheless, with recent technological advances, global communication has turn out to be a breeze. Moreover, most customer support outsourcing firms hire multilingual agents that may cater to multiple markets.

4. Agent productivity concerns

Not having your customer support teamwork from the identical location as you possibly can cause apprehensions about their productivity and performance. 

Let’s say you’re paying your outsourced customer support team by the hour, they usually can’t meet their targets with out a reasonable explanation. There’s no way for you to envision if the agents have been productive in the course of the hours you’re paying them for. 

Its key features include:

So how do you choose the correct customer support service provider? 

We’ll explore that in the following section! 

What to search for in a customer support service provider

Selecting a BPO service provider to your customer care needs is not any easy feat. 

With so many call center service providers out there, it’s essential to select the correct one for your corporation needs. 

You remember the next points in mind while looking for a superb customer support team. 

1. Inbound and/or outbound call center services

Not every business needs each inbound and outbound call center services. It’s on you to first determine your requirements, so you already know the way to approach the service provider. 

You preferably wish to search for one that provides each. The service provider can grow with you if you happen to determine to expand your organization’s offerings. 

But if you happen to know that you simply solely require an inbound call center with no outbound services, you possibly can seek for one which can support that requirement.  

2. Dedicated and/or shared support agents

Ideally, your service provider would offer each dedicated and shared agents. 

What’s the difference? 

Dedicated agents are assigned solely to your account and don’t cope with multiple clients concurrently. They offer your corporation their complete attention and are best if it’s good to provide technical support. 

In contrast, shared agents divide their time between different clients and are best suited if your organization has more general customer support needs. 

Your organization could select either to go for a blended model, which chances are you’ll find cheaper without compromising on the specialized attention of dedicated agents. 

3. Availability of obligatory technology

Getting access to latest technologies is one in all the important thing reasons firms select outsourcing. 

These technologies will help streamline customer communication, optimize the client journey, and increase customer retention. 

Some common offerings include: 

While that is certainly not, an exhaustive list and your corporation may not require every software listed above. 

At the identical time, in case your service provider is provided and experienced in these, it should enable you grow your corporation and sustain with changing technological customer demands. 

If your corporation deals with sensitive information reminiscent of customer healthcare, it’s good to make sure the service provider is HIPAA-certified, so your customer’s data is all the time protected. 

4. Reporting capabilities

Since call center agents deal directly along with your customers, your organization’s repute may be greatly influenced by how well the agents can manage customer expectations.  

For this, chances are you’ll wish to use specific KPIs and metrics reminiscent of Customer Satisfaction Rating (CSAT), Average Handle Time (AHT), and First Call Resolution (FCR), amongst others, to make sure you’re providing a certain level of support to your customers. 

5. Call center agent availability

A vital thing to ask your call center service provider is how often an agent might be available. 

As an illustration, if an Indian service provider generally has agents available only in the course of the day for them, that may not suit your American business as you would like a minimum of one customer support representative to reply customer calls when it’s daytime for you. 

Ideally, you need to go for a provider that provides 24/7 coverage so you possibly can grow your corporation without worrying about whether you’re providing adequate customer support. 

6. Minimum monthly call volume

Many call centers have minimum call volume requirements, which might not be feasible for a small business. 

Then again, if your corporation primarily relies on customer phone calls, such a call center can be an economical solution. 

So it’s best to have an idea about your call volume and whether signing an outsourcing agreement with a provider that incorporates a monthly minimum call volume is helpful for you by way of the pricing structure. 

7. Business continuity plan

An absence of business continuity may cause you to lose your existing customers and negatively affect customer loyalty in the long term. 

While a certain quantity of downtime is inevitable in any business, your outsourcing provider should have a plan to cope with power outages, natural disasters, cyber-attacks, etc. 

Let’s say your organization is outsourcing to locations where power outages are common, reminiscent of South Africa. Your BPO partner must have the option to offer technical support through a reliable, cloud-based backup solution to cope with such issues.

8. Multilingual customer support

If your corporation has a global customer base or is on the lookout for potential customers in a brand new area, you’ll have to offer customer support in multiple languages. 

For this, you possibly can select a service provider that covers all of the areas and languages you must offer support. 

Most firms could have this highlighted on their website, but you possibly can all the time ask in the event that they support the language you’re on the lookout for. One other tip: ask whether this multilingual answering service will cost extra. 

Let’s now have a look at the differing types of call centers and where their expertise lies.

5 sorts of call centers

Some customer support BPOs give attention to being an inbound call center, handling customer issues as they arrive along. Others act as outbound call centers accountable for market research, lead generation, telemarketing, and sales. 

Nowadays, call centers should not limited to easily handling an inbound or outbound call but can cover multiple communication channels to support your entire customer journey. 

There are five sorts of call centers, namely: 

1. Virtual call centers

Virtual call centers distribute calls to distant and in-house agents to create a more diversified team. As an illustration, you possibly can keep in-house agents to take care of a general customer inquiry while distant agents handle more time-intensive calls. 

Even before the pandemic, virtual call centers were growing in popularity as they allowed firms to access talent from all around the globe while agents could work from anywhere. 

Since agents work from anywhere, firms can even provide customer support in numerous time zones, languages, and shifts. 

2. Inbound call centers

When customers call a call center looking for to confer with a customer support representative, that’s an inbound call. These call center agents handle customer needs reminiscent of queries, miscommunication, and other service needs. 

Here, agents should be prepared for nearly any kind of call – time-consuming, short, offended, nice, complicated, and easy. 

Inbound call centers can use technology reminiscent of an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) or Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to streamline incoming calls. 

Read our detailed article on Inbound Call Centers for more.

3. Outbound call centers

Outbound call centers help construct strong customer relationships through a follow-up call after the client has made a purchase order. It’s because agents are providing proactive assistance and getting ahead of the issue. 

As an illustration, if a customer has a doubt regarding a feature, they could check your FAQ section but may not call your customer support team for clarification. 

If an agent calls them asking you for feedback, nevertheless, the identical customer is likely to be more forthcoming about any issues or doubts they’ve. 

Try our article on The Clear Guide to Outbound Call Centers for more.

4. Automated call centers

Automated call centers use automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to streamline all customer communication along with your company. 

These call centers use automated voice recordings to interact with customers with basic queries. 

These call centers are sparsely populated and customarily cope with more basic customer queries. In addition they offer customers the choice to confer with a customer support representative in the course of the call. 

5. Omnichannel contact centers

Omnichannel call centers are quickly gaining popularity for the sheer amount of customer care services they supply. 

Here, customers can reach out to a call center agent using various communication channels reminiscent of calls, email, text messages, social media, or live chat through your website. 

In consequence, every customer interaction is noted and attended to, resulting in a positive customer experience and improving your customer satisfaction scores. 

Since these call centers allow the client to hunt help through the medium they’re most comfortable with and not only through a phone call, you’ll often find it known as a contact center. 

Final thoughts 

BPO services and call center outsourcing generally is a cost-effective way of providing customer support in multiple languages and across time zones. 

Outsourcing customer support can be a unbelievable option to grow your corporation in latest markets while making the most of the service provider’s established presence there.

Nonetheless, to make sure you get one of the best bang to your buck, thoroughly research different service providers to choose the one which most closely fits your corporation needs.