Is Customer Service Outsourcing The Solution?

Is customer service outsourcing the solution to lessen support costs without sacrificing customer satisfaction? Many company owners are faced with the predicament whether to outsource customer services in the midst of rapid increase in the customer base. Customer service outsourcing is now a trend in business process outsourcing or BPO. Calls are routed to people that specialize in handling large volumes of queries. When companies become extremely large or come upon volumes of inquiries that they can’t handle, customer service outsourcing becomes a smart option. This aims to save money because companies have to invest capital, hire more employees, and purchase new call center space or customer relationship management software due to increased call volumes. Call center outsourcing can benefit companies in many instances. Those businesses that have very straightforward and definite transactions and support can benefit from this resource. However, there are several types of businesses that outsourcing cannot handle. There are products with multifaceted and complicated sales cycles and customer support issues that needs careful and broad troubleshooting. There are also other issues related with customer service outsourcing. Generally, employees who are handling the calls are from overseas countries. One common reason for offshore outsourcing is that employees from foreign countries are much cheaper to employ than those from home. These employees are willing to work longer hours or days for lower wages and the amount of money being saved is very enticing for a lot of companies. Some consumers don’t like outsourcing because it is taking away from domestic jobs and they don’t like dealing with the potential language barrier. They find it very frustrating to talk with someone who is unfamiliar with both the product and the language. Another concern of customers and company owners are those employees hired who are not loyal to the company, have little knowledge of the products and little concern for the customers. Customers who call these outsourced customer service employees learn that the person on the other end of the line is reading from a script and do not exert effort in showing empathy in making the customer feel more at ease or relaxed about his frustrations. Although there are major cost benefits in the customer service outsourcing, especially to offshore call centers, customer satisfaction is the most important thing to consider. It is important to recognize positive and negative issues associated with business process outsourcing. It is also important for companies to weigh their costs and the benefits of outsourcing. Customers and their needs must be the major consideration.