Offshore call centers are becoming increasingly popular as a cost-effective way to enhance customer service and streamline communication channels. With advancements in technology, businesses of all sizes are leveraging these offshore customer service solutions to offload tasks and improve overall operations.
If you are looking to improve your customer service while staying within budget, learn all about offshore call center outsourcing in this guide, including its pros and cons, the industries that benefit from it, and the best practices.
Table of Contents
- What Is an Offshore Call Center?
- Offshore Call Center Outsourcing Best Practices
- Offshore Call Center and Customer Service Advantages
- Offshore Call Center Disadvantages
- What Are the Different Offshoring Customer Service Types?
- The Industries That Customer Service Offshore Firms Support
- Key Points on Offshore Call Center: Its Benefits and Importance
- Offshore Call Center FAQs
What Is an Offshore Call Center?
An offshore call center is an outsourced contact center and client care service provider that is located in a foreign country outside of where your office is stationed. These well-equipped third-party international customer management firms deliver multilingual support in different fields of specialization.
Offshore call center outsourcing is the right solution for you if you:
- Run large-scale operations that tend to weigh down your in-house teams
- Have a lower budget allocation for business process outsourcing (BPO) solutions
- Need to employ more services at reasonably inexpensive fees
- Do not require geographical proximity to supervise your BPO provider
- Are a global brand catering to non-English speaking countries in diverse time zones and with distinct cultures
Offshore Call Center Outsourcing Best Practices
- Get A Dedicated Customer Relationship Management Tool (CRM)
- Instate A Performance Monitoring System
- Define Internal Communication Channels
Ensure your outsourced contact center has all the necessary platforms, software, and equipment to provide the highest quality support to your customers. Here is what you need prepared for them to perform their work adequately:
1. Get A Dedicated Customer Relationship Management Tool (CRM)
Integrate a CRM platform into your contact center’s processes for a more orderly and streamlined workflow.
Moreover, it is vital to provide your client support agency with a set of thorough standard operating procedures or a call center SOP that they can strictly follow. Demonstrate structured business processes and your preferred workflows in vivid detail.
2. Instate A Performance Monitoring System
Contact centers that are off-premises will need a performance tracking system to guarantee consistency and accountability of all agents on the job. This helps ensure that they practice all the proper approaches to client support and sales so your business operations remain well-fueled.
3. Define Internal Communication Channels
Your offshore customer care representatives need efficient, seamless, and well-maintained communication solutions among themselves.
Giving them access to sufficient means of communication will ease their work. These will enable them to readily respond to phone calls or online requests, without a glitch or duplicating helpdesk tickets. Otherwise, service ticket duplicates may only hamper the workflow and can be a costly mistake in the process.
Offshore Call Center and Customer Service Advantages
Here are the top ways in which offshoring customer service can contribute to and improve your company:
1. Cost Savings
Your in-house departments take up a substantial chunk of your funds—from administrative and recruitment costs, and physical workspace, to equipment, facilities, utilities and their regular maintenance.
Minimize your overhead and dodge these pricey expenses by employing offshore customer services. They can drastically help control your expenditure, free up capital for other investments, and widen your bottom line.
2. Reliable 24/7 Support
An offshore call center offers professional phone answering services which provide customer support beyond regular business hours. Offshore customer service representatives are available on an around-the-clock basis. They can cater to your customers in varying time zones.
The flexible nature of customer service offshore allows you to communicate with your audiences 24/7, helping you meet your business goals.
3. High-Quality Services
Another benefit of offshore call center outsourcing is getting a qualified team of agents with specialized skills.
For instance, an offshoring customer service company will have a team of trained agents in the field, if you operate healthcare services. Similarly, an offshore call center that supports an organization in the finance industry will have experts in payment transactions, banking, insurance, and accounting, among others.
4. Easy Monitoring and Availability of Analytics
Get detailed reports on the quality of calls. Gathering analytics is another essential feature of offshore contact centers. These are measured against real-time metrics so you can have insights into your outsourced client support’s performance.
Information collected from calls recording and monitoring sets the standard for which areas need more coaching and which business processes need further development.
Offshore Call Center Disadvantages
Offshore call centers have some potential disadvantages, including:
1. Language Barriers
When companies outsource their customer service to offshore call centers, agents may not speak the same language as their customers, leading to potential miscommunications and frustrations. Language barriers can result in decreased customer satisfaction and even damage a company's reputation.
2. Cultural Differences
Offshore call center agents may not be familiar with the cultural norms and expectations of the customers they are serving. This can result in misunderstandings or dissatisfaction. For example, a customer in one country may expect a very friendly and personal approach to customer service, while in another country, a more formal approach may be preferred.
3. Time Zone Differences
Depending on the location of the offshore call center, there may be significant time differences between the company's home country and the offshore call center location. This can make it challenging to provide timely customer service to customers in the home country, particularly if the call center is not open during the customer's usual business hours.
What Are the Different Offshoring Customer Service Types?
Help scale your enterprise exponentially by delegating tasks to an offshore call center agency. Listed here are the services you can outsource to customer service offshore:
- High-Volume Inbound and Outbound Call Solutions
- Back-Office Functions
- Technical Support
- Sales and Marketing
- Customer Lead Generation
1. High-Volume Inbound and Outbound Call Solutions
Since client support firms utilize multiple communication channels, you can leverage these for either inbound or outbound calling services. Depending on the workload and your outsourcing strategies, you can also opt to assign both incoming and outgoing calls to your dedicated contact center.
2. Back-Office Functions
Back-office transactions include research, chat and email support, social media management, and transcription.
3. Technical Support
Technical support services involve maintaining computer systems. They assist with software diagnosis and provide steps for resolving and troubleshooting system problems. IT support staff speaks with clients over the phone to walk them through a series of actions to set up mobile, landline, and other network systems.
4. Sales and Marketing
Offshoring customer service is one of the most viable solutions to achieving or exceeding your sales target through customized and consistent sales pitches. A qualified contact center has the right marketing tools and resources to perform the job competently.
5. Customer Lead Generation
Lead generation involves reaching out to prospective customers for future purchases. It generates demand and promotes your product or service offering through targeted campaigns. The call patterns and significant sales call reports to make it easier for you to track metrics, glean insights, and determine the sales pitches that work so you can analyze where you can improve.
The Industries That Customer Service Offshore Firms Support
- Tech Firms
- SaaS Companies
- Fintech
- Online Education
- eCommerce, Retail and Wholesale
- Airline Companies
- Health and Wellness
Call centers provide services to different business types across varied industries. These are the top business sectors that can get the most advantage out of hiring offshoring customer services:
1. Tech Firms
Electronic and tech engineers are most capable of handling and fixing hardware and software issues. An outsourced team of IT experts interacts directly with consumers to help resolve tech-related concerns, hence, helping enhance your transactions and services.
2. SaaS Companies
A SaaS enterprise is highly scalable, and outsourcing your customer support is critical in expanding the business. Your SaaS support team has the potential to grow with you and your clients.
3. Financial Technologies
Financial tools, platforms, and applications are an integral part of people’s daily lives, with millions of users across the globe. Finance services firms can collaborate with fintech app development companies to fully leverage these technologies to elevate customer experiences.
4. Online Education
Running an EdTech enterprise requires you to be habitually available for urgent matters. Since you support many customer types, such as educators, students, and other online learners, getting skilled EdTech assistants is paramount.
5. eCommerce, Retail, and Wholesale
Online selling platforms have changed the way consumers shop. eCommerce business is continuously busy, and offshoring customer service support can radically keep up with this game-changing industry.
Customer care can assist with purchases and after-sale processes. eCommerce agents are also knowledgeable about your shopping policies, terms, and conditions, so they can competently provide answers to consumer queries. They have access to shipping details and can proficiently create reports on delays or return requests.
6. Airline Companies
Checking flight details and statuses is one call away for customers, with an airline support representative quickly responding to their needs. They can easily dial your customer service offshore to verify information, rebook flights, or cancel their tickets. Confirming mileage balances is also convenient for frequent flyers.
7. Health and Wellness Businesses
Customers typically use healthcare support lines to confirm a doctor’s appointment and make or change their schedule. Also, medical emergencies can arise at any time of the day. You can use an offshore call center to attend to these urgent calls immediately, even during off-hours. Healthcare associates and operators can reroute emergency requests to medical experts or arrange a fast and high-quality response from an on-call physician.
Key Points on Offshore Call Center: Its Benefits and Importance
At the peak of this digital age and its continuously spectacular evolution, an offshore call center humanizes your interactions and business relationships with audiences.
While offshore customer service support helps your enterprise catch up with the digitalization strategies of businesses, it sustains meaningful connections, too. Top-notch customer services offshore are designed to establish trust and strengthen communication with consumers.
So, is it the right solution for you? The answer will depend on the size and demands of your organization. However, it is vital to keep in mind that outsourcing certain time-consuming office functions that exhaust your workforce is an ideal scenario for your company.
Offshore Call Center FAQs
1. What is the difference between onshore and offshore call centers?
The main difference between onshore and offshore call centers is their location and the location of their agents. Onshore call centers are located within the same country as the company or organization they serve, while offshore call centers are located outside the company's home country. While onshore call centers offer more familiarity with language and culture, offshore call centers may provide cost savings and access to a wider pool of talent.
2. Is offshore call center outsourcing a good idea?
Depending on your needs and expectations, offshore call center outsourcing might be the right or wrong choice for you. While onshore call centers offer more familiarity with language and culture, offshore call centers may provide cost savings and access to a wider pool of talent. If you’re looking to cut back on costs, then offshore call centers are the way to go.
