Why customer service outsourcing is a good idea

What are good reasons and arguments for outsourcing something as important as customer service? We get the question Why outsource customer service more often so we have written a short blog about it. What it can do for your customer service, we'd love to tell you. Questions or customer service outsourcing? Just get in touch. We'd love to take a look. By the way, did you know that worldwide 62% of companies (partially) outsource their customer service? Read that blog here.

Growing but also certainly start-up companies will at some point ask themselves the question whether they themselves are and remain able to set up customer service effectively, efficiently but above all professionally and in line with customer expectations. A question to which, of course, the answer depends on a host of situational variables. It is and always will be a sensitive thing customer service and organisations tend not to outsource such a thing so quickly. Why exactly might you want to outsource customer service? In this blog, we look partly at the underlying strategy and partly at the practical and operational benefits.

Why outsource customer service?

Growing but also certainly start-up companies will at some point ask themselves the question whether they themselves are and remain able to set up customer service effectively, efficiently but above all professionally and in line with customer expectations. A question to which, of course, the answer depends on a host of situational variables. It is and always will be a sensitive thing customer service and organisations tend not to outsource something like this so quickly. So why exactly might you want to outsource customer service? In this blog, we look partly at the underlying strategy and partly at the practical and operational benefits.

Strategy: Why consider customer service outsourcing at all?

Customer service is one of the few places where you probably still have 1-to-1 direct contact with your customers. An external company doesn't know your customers or your products so why would you entrust something so sensitive to an external company? Why outsource customer service when you might even risk it? The answer is as stupid as it is simple: "It depends"... An answer you might be able to do a little more with: An external company specialises in handling customer contacts effectively, efficiently and professionally. As a company, you are probably very good at making certain products, providing certain services or selling a wide range of products tailored to your customer. That is what you are good at and what makes you successful. Customer service is something that comes with that but is not your core business. An external company has made that its core business. They do nothing but handle customer contacts effectively, efficiently and professionally. Therefore, if you want to provide very good customer service but may not be quite able to do so yourself because your focus is on your products/services then it may actually be a very good idea to consider customer service outsourcing. In summary, an external company is better at it because customer service is their core business. This is possible even at low volumes!

Some practical reasons why customer service outsourcing can be a good idea:

As described, the main benefit is focus. Focus on customer service brings a number of advantages. For one, you can take advantage of economies of scale. An external agency should have everything you need for good customer service. Things that you as a webshop, SME or even multinational probably do not have directly. Think of things like software, hardware and people. Also not unimportant: experience. Every customer service challenge that most companies face has probably been solved by an external agency a number of times. You get the knowledge and experience of an external agency more or less for free. That does make a lot of difference.

Putting a critical business process outside the door in this way must add something otherwise it is a detriment. A good external partner can not only unburden you (basics in order: just good customer service) but can also add value in optimising customer service and the underlying processes. Lots of experience with customer service ensures that you can also quickly see what could be improved.

What about the cost?

So isn't outsourcing customer contact more expensive, and why outsource customer contact if it is more expensive? It is usually assumed that outsourcing customer service is generally more expensive than doing it yourself. However, this is a misconception. A professional external customer contact partner can realise significant economies of scale that benefit customers. Besides simply working more effectively and efficiently, making better use of hours, the costs of peripheral issues are often lower than if you have to do it yourself. Think of systems, workstations, etc. This begs the question: to what extent can the experience of an external party be quantified in euros? The question that naturally comes up when asking why outsource customer service! Read more about costs here.

Why outsource customer service:

1. Experience and focus

A facility contact centre does nothing more than handle customer contacts and advise on what can be done better in them. This focus and specialisation means that an external partner can often handle customer contacts much more efficiently and effectively. An external partner generally has the people, systems and experience to solve virtually all customer service issues. Why outsource customer service? Because an external agency brings together the economies of scale of multiple customer service departments and you reap the benefits.

2. Lower and fully transparent costs

When asking "why outsource customer service?", costs obviously play an important role. The problem is often that internal costs are difficult to compare with the costs of an external partner. What costs do you include when calculating those costs? Workstation? Rent? Travel costs? Absenteeism? Coffee? All costs that are indirectly related to the deployment of people and therefore also count in your customer service costs. This is often forgotten. If you compare the cost of an hour or a call or even a minute, outsourcing is often really cheaper. The economies of scale mentioned in point 1 play an important role in this. However, the challenge is to compare actual internal costs with external costs. Indeed, the latter are complete where the former are often incomplete.

3. Flexibility

An external partner, if all goes well, gives you a great deal of flexibility. Things like longer opening hours, scaling up or down, multilingualism and other channels. An external partner has often already set things up and you can use them. Internally, it is often difficult to organise opening hours in the evening or to scale up when it gets (unexpectedly) busier. With a (good) external partner, this is often easy.

All the benefits of outsourcing?

We have written a comprehensive blog on the benefits of customer service outsourcing. Why outsource customer service if you don't have the benefits clear. In this blog, we have neatly listed the benefits. Read the blog here.