Call center outsourcing services help many businesses by reducing costs, streamlining operations, and delivering consistently excellent service. In this article, we look at how customer service outsourcing can positively impact your supply chain
1. Reduces Costs
Outsourcing is often more cost-effective than maintaining your own team. This is particularly true when you outsource to countries where the cost of living is lower.
You also don’t have to worry about housing, training, equipping, and maintaining a team going forward. Instead of hiring excess capacity to make up for potential staff shortages, leave days, and so on, you simply hire the consultants you need. The outsourcer has to do the rest.
You can then redirect these savings to other areas of your supply chain, such as improving inventory management or transportation.
2. Better Focus on Core Competencies
You’re in the supply chain business, so you’re outstanding at getting products from point A to point B in the most cost-effective manner. Outsourcing generic functions like customer support allows you to focus more on your core business.
You can, therefore, allow your employees to be outstanding at tasks that affect your bottom line, like procurement, production, and distribution. This limited focus will enable them to properly assess areas for improvement and give them time to drum up more business.
3. Easy Scalability
Need to scale up for a busy holiday season quickly? It’s not so easy when you can only draw on your local talent pool. At home, you have to compete with other companies for the best personnel and then undergo the lengthy recruitment and onboarding process.
With outsourcing, you can more easily scale your operations up or down because the team you hire focuses on customer service. You should identify your busy periods early in the year and work these into your contract, but your outsourcer will also have some wiggle room.
So, if your business suddenly takes off, you can easily upscale operations without compromising customer service.
4. Access to 24/7 Support
Running an in-house team during regular business hours is challenging. Keeping it going 24/7 can be extremely difficult. Most customer support outsourcers offer 24/7 support, meaning they’ve already overcome the challenges. Your customers get the support they want at a time convenient to you.
5. Access to Multilingual Support
Whether you operate in more than one country or not, offering multilingual support can help you differentiate yourself. Your consultants must speak the languages that your clients do. Not only does this make your customers feel more comfortable, but it also shows them that you value them, and it reduces the possibility of misunderstandings.
6. Access to Technology and Expertise
Running a call center today entails a lot more than having phones and computers. You need
Outsourcing providers often have access to advanced customer service technologies and specialized expertise that you might not have in-house. They also focus on ways to streamline their business model and improve service.
7. Better Quality Control
Reputable firms use robust CRM systems that allow you to draw reports and statistics on various areas of interaction. Established companies will let you to listen in on calls or recordings at random to ensure your customers are getting the best possible service.
8. Data Analytics
Trained service professionals can help you gather useful insights into consumer behavior, preferences, and trends. You can then use this information to optimize your supply chain processes, such as demand forecasting, inventory management, and product development.
9. A Better Customer Experience
Your provider’s business is to deliver outstanding customer service and nothing else. Therefore, they ensure that they streamline the process. They’ll answer the calls more quickly, be adept at dealing with all types of clients, and know where to find the answers they need quickly.
They may also employ technology like chatbots to allow customers more self-help options to streamline their interactions further.
10. Risk Mitigation
Outsourcing can help mitigate risks associated with staffing issues, employee turnover, and compliance challenges. Your partner manages these issues, allowing you to focus on your core supply chain activities.
11. Enhanced Flexibility
Most reputable companies offer flexibility in terms of service level agreements (SLAs) and the types of services you can access. You can tailor the service to meet your needs. You may want help with calls and social media queries, but will handle emails in-house.
Alternatively, you might want the company to cold-call potential clients and bring in new business. These are all possibilities with the right partner.
Conclusion
Handing over your customer support function to another company can be a frightening prospect. But, if you perform copious research and carefully choose a reputable partner, it can transform your business.
Customer service outsourcing is an option to consider if you want to reduce costs and focus more on your core business.
Article and permission to publish here provided by Yanis Temby. Originally written for Supply Chain Game Changer and published on October 30, 2023.
Cover image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay