Five tips on how to outsource customer service the right way

Considering outsourcing your customer service? Here are five tips to help you get it right.

If you are a small business owner, an entrepreneur managing a medium-scale enterprise, or the business owner of a large company, it may be confusing when to outsource. It’s important that you keep up with the latest trends and methods for handling customer service calls.

While customer service is important it is equally important to focus on your business’ core capabilities and growing you company. And just like other aspects of the business, customer service these days could also be outsourced. 

What is customer service outsourcing?

Customer service outsourcing refers to delegating customer service tasks to a third-party company known as call centers or business process outsourcing (BPO) companies. Call centers in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brazil are some of the top BPOs that many businesses prefer to work with. 

In the last decade, this type of support outsourcing has grown in leaps and bounds, becoming a bona fide industry on its own. There are two primary reasons for its effectiveness.

1) It saves you time and money

The most apparent benefit of outsourcing is that you save a lot of money. When you decide to do all the work yourself, you’ll need to shell out for upfront hardware or equipment needs, not to mention provide salary and benefits to full-time in-house customer service representatives (CSR). 

2) You’ll find the best customer service representatives

Another reason you need to outsource your customer service is the fact that there are many talented people who want to be hired as customer service representatives or call center agents to provide their services to companies.

You don’t need to be the one to look for them since BPOs already hire them. All you need to do is find suitable ones to serve your business as a team.

The right ways to outsource customer service

Outsourcing is one of the best ways to manage your business and get better results, such as better customer satisfaction or net promoter score tools.

If you want to provide excellent services to a wider audience, both domestically and globally, you could consider entering the BPO arena and collaborating with experts. 

Here are some tips on how to outsource customer service the right way.

1) Learn the different tools and equipment

Equipment refers to telecommunications hardware, while tools pertain to call handling apps and software programs.

Try to research about these information technology details to know the best ones for your business, as these are the things to be used when facilitating customer calls to help improve your customer service process.

Many call centers already have all of their equipment set up in one location, but they might be using varied technologies. Learning what they use could help you start a more personalized outsourcing experience to benefit your customers. 

2) Know the different techniques and services

It would help if you also learned the different techniques of the BPO trade, such as handling inbound and outbound calls, and the various ways of being effective in both.

Often, BPOs would train their CSRs regarding the proper handling of customer calls prior to making them go live for your company. Make sure that the agents handling your account are going to be effective representatives of your business. 

In addition, there arecall centers that could handle multiple departments. This service might be something you want to consider if you plan on getting more than one type of customer service for a large-scale type of business.

3) Check their reviews and offers

Aside from being familiar with the necessary equipment and techniques, you can start searching for the best companies that could handle your business and see which ones suit your business best.

Check online reviews of companies since this data will give you an idea of how the company works, the quality of the services, and how people regard their reliability. 

In addition, the best companies will offer different packages to give you distinct advantages. They will offer discounts and varied free information, such as how to handle calls. 

You can ask outsourcing experts about such offers from the most popular companies, or they could provide details about newer or up-and-coming companies that may offer competitive packages.

4) Ask how the company improves your metrics

Outsourcing is a simple process that allows an organization to reduce the amount of time it takes to maintain its good metrics. An organization can outsource the work it needs to do on its metrics systems to third-party vendors that specialize in managing such systems. 

The vendors that provide such services will handle the tasks that an organization needs to perform on its own, including developing the appropriate metrics data that will be submitted to the proper reporting systems.

For these reasons, it’s a good idea to ask how the BPO company could help maintain and improve your call metrics that affect customer service, including the following:

  • Customer satisfaction
  • Hold times
  • Call volume
  • Callbacks

5) Compare outsourcing company types 

There are three types of outsourcing you should also know: full service, partial service, and contract outsourcing. The kind of outsourcing that you would want to deal with depends mainly on your specific business requirements. 

Full service outsourcing will be beneficial when you are ready to start a project right away. In contrast, partial service outsourcing is ideal for projects that still require some amount of planning and implementation.

Full service outsourcing is good if you are new to the outsourcing business and don’t have much experience. The other types are suitable for those who are more experienced in this field.

When you’re unsure of how to choose the best outsourcing company, request for a proposal from several companies you’re eyeing. Their information will give you an idea of their costing and procedures. You can also tap a research firm to find the most suited outsourcing company that will fit your business needs. They could give you a comparison chart to help you choose the best company. 

Could customer service outsourcing be right for you?

Outsourcing your customer service is one of the best ways to stay on top of your metrics without spending too many resources or overhead costs. It’s easy to get started once you learn how to outsource customer service the right way.

Taking time to know these tips could lead you to find the right outsourcing company, as you also learn how to provide customer service the right way for your business.