A whopping 95% of consumers believe that customer support plays a vital role in their loyalty to brands.
To provide clients more value and gain their trust, businesses are increasingly invested in this service.
In this article, you’ll discover the benefits of partnering with customer service outsourcing companies and how they can bring your business more returning clients and higher profits.
Let’s dive in!
Customer service outsourcing is the practice of transferring all client-facing communication to a third-party service provider.
The outside agency is equipped with trained agents who are typically responsible for handling your business’ incoming phone calls, emails, social media messages and other common forms of customer support requests.
Their job is to help your customers get quick and efficient responses to their questions and solutions to their problems.
They are able to serve your customers 24/7 while allowing you to focus on your vision, core business processes and larger sales drivers.
These are the leading agencies on the market that provide outsourced customer support services:
Go Answer is a New York-based customer service outsourcing company that specializes in answering services and contact center services.
The agency has HIPAA trained and bilingual agents offering 24/7/365 coverage to small, mid-sized and large businesses across various industries like hospitality, government, education and medical.
Their key services include:
Pricing:
Go Answer offers several pricing packages based on the call volume, ranging from 100 minutes to 10,000 minutes.
Plans start at $50/month, however, you need to ask for a custom quote on their website.
TeleDirect is a California-based agency assisting businesses with inbound and outbound services, available 24/7/365 even during weekends and holidays.
The company’s agents are HIPAA compliant and fluent in several languages including Spanish.
They partner with small businesses and Fortune 500 companies across various industries, from healthcare and telecommunications to retail and legal.
The key services they provide are:
Pricing:
TeleDirect’s pricing is custom, so you need to contact the company for a quote.
Located in Massachusetts, Peak Support provides inbound and outbound support services for U.S. and European brands across industries like retail, technology and gaming.
The agency employs highly trained industry agents whose job is to optimize your support processes to make certain your clients get exceptional service.
The agents provide customer support via:
Pricing:
Peak Support offers custom quotes and the agency typically charges a flat monthly fee or an hourly fee, depending on the clients’ preferences.
Aidey is a Philippines-based business process outsourcing company serving startups, eCommerce and SaaS companies.
They offer 24/7/365 customer support services with native English agents, helping businesses manage their operations through flexible solutions.
The agency can help you with:
Pricing:
Aidey’s pricing starts from $1,499, depending on the volume of services you need.
Five Star Call Centers is a South Dakota-based agency that offers customer service outsourcing services to businesses that need inbound and outbound calling solutions.
The agency employs friendly, responsive and informative agents who customize each campaign based on the unique client needs.
Their inbound services include:
The outbound services they offer are:
Five Star Call Centers does not require a long-term contract.
Pricing:
The agency offers custom pricing, so you need to request a free quote on their website.
SAS is an outsourcing customer service provider located in Pennsylvania. The agency offers live operator solutions, including:
They employ bilingual representatives who serve clients across various sectors like real estate, medical, property management and attorneys.
Pricing:
SAS’ pricing is based on the number of minutes dedicated to client support. Their plans are:
Signius Communications is an Illinois-based call center service provider that works with both small businesses and Fortune 500 companies across various industries, including healthcare, education, utility and government.
The agency offers fully customized answering services with 24/7/365 coverage.
Some of the solutions they cover include:
Pricing:
Signius Communications has three pricing plans:
Headquartered in Florida, XACT provides contact center services and next-generation telecommunications for organizations around the globe.
Their solutions empower customer experience to help businesses achieve success.
Some of their services are:
The agency serves clients across industries, from education and publishing to dental and medical.
Pricing:
XACT pricing is custom, so you need to request a free quote on their website.
Liveops is an Arizona-based virtual call center that has over 20 years of experience in helping businesses with their customer service and sales needs.
They have served more than 400 organizations across different sectors, including telecom, healthcare, retail and government.
Their service offerings include:
Pricing:
Liveops offers custom pricing plans. Request a quote by getting in touch with the company through their website.
Headquartered in Texas, Working Solutions is an on-demand contact center whose clients include mid-sized businesses and Fortune 500 companies across different sectors like retail, healthcare and travel.
Their solutions are designed to maximize growth opportunities and ensure business continuity.
The agency provides customer care service via:
Pricing:
Working Solutions offers custom pricing plans, so you need to contact the company for a quote.
In a nutshell, the difference between customer service and a call center lies in how they handle client communication.
A call center is a department that uses the telephone as a channel to connect with customers.
Trained representatives receive or make calls to answer the clients’ questions, help them resolve issues related to the company’s products or services and even generate sales.
Their job is to deal with the calls those organizations receive and resolve problems in a timely manner.
Customer service, on the other hand, is a department that serves as an extension of the organization’s support. It provides clients with assistance before, during and after using their products or services.
However, unlike call center representatives, customer service experts help resolve customer queries using different mediums, including telephone but also email, social media, live chat and more.
Although call centers play a meaningful role in the customer support strategy, they are typically used for sales purposes only.
Customer service is a broader term, and beyond sales, it deals with increasing client loyalty and retention as well as improving brand reputation.
Depending on the business type and size, different customer support mediums work better for different companies.
These are the most common solutions for outsourcing customer support services:
According to Zendesk, over 50% of clients across all age groups use the phone to resolve issues with a company.
Phone support is not only the oldest form of customer service, but also one of the most popular choices among businesses to manage their client relationships because:
Assisting customers via the phone allows companies to engage in a conversation, which creates a sense of intimacy. This creates a deeper bond and contributes to establishing meaningful relationships.
Phone customer service is used across a wide range of industries, particularly in the public sector like:
With 49%, email is the second most popular medium customers use to resolve issues, according to Zendesk.
While it may be much easier to discuss a problem via the phone, some customers prefer to interact with brands in writing, by sending emails.
With email support, some clients not only feel more comfortable carrying out conversations, but by using this medium they can also:
However, while email is one of the preferred customer support channels, a new study by SuperOffice shows that 62% of organizations ignore their clients’ emails.
SuperOffice closely analyzed these companies and concluded that they did not have correctly established processes to handle support requests.
This is a bad practice that pushes clients away. In fact, the same study reveals that most companies that failed to meet their clients’ expectations lost millions of dollars.
Partnering with customer service outsourcing companies can make all the difference, since they have the expertise and experience to carry out your email customer conversations properly.
These experts will ensure customer satisfaction. Your company will establish meaningful relationships with your clients by:
Apart from this, customer service outsourcing companies will facilitate access to your contact information, making your email address clearly visible on your website and other digital platforms.
According to HubSpot:
“Speed is everything in today’s buyers, and patience wears out in 10 minutes.”
In other words, you have as much as 10 minutes to respond to your customer service inquiries.
Just like all other customer support mediums, live chat has its unique benefits, including speed.
It gives customers who don’t prefer calls instant access to a company’s representative, allowing quick issue resolution.
This is why this medium has the highest consumer satisfaction rate, at 92%. (Zendesk)
Apart from client satisfaction, live chat is one of the best support mediums for converting leads.
Potential buyers can ask different questions and make easy purchases based on your company representative’s feedback.
Live chat is a great asset that your company can make use of to keep clients satisfied.
However, while this medium makes it easy for customers to reach support and for companies to provide feedback, getting more requests than they can handle can be overwhelming.
When outsourcing customer service, your organization will get access to professional help where experts can cope with more inquiries and provide rapid resolution.
That way, you can do the work more efficiently without worrying about the time you cannot allocate to client communication.
Social media support is provided on social platforms like Instagram, Facebook or Twitter through:
This type of support is effective because customers can get in touch with brands easily and quickly through the platforms they use daily.
Data supports this fact, and according to Facebook, 69% of U.S. users claim that they feel more confident about brands if they can message them on the channel.
Also, organizations should take advantage of social media support and form groups where they provide answers to all of their clients’ questions publicly.
That way, they can potentially decrease the number of similar questions and save time.
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The drawback of using social media as a client support channel is that posts are available to almost everyone. So, companies need to ensure that they deal with negative feedback with honesty and diplomacy.
Especially now, when people are spending more time online due to the COVID crisis, companies need to optimize their communications and provide comprehensive customer experiences.
Customer service outsourcing companies can help you take a proactive approach and provide your customers with the maximum value of your service.
The cost of outsourced customer support services will depend on several factors, including:
Customer service outsourcing companies typically charge clients by the hour and, on average, you can expect firms located in various regions in the world to ask for:
While basic call answering services may range between a few cents to one dollar per minute, usually brands end up paying about $1300-$2,500 each month.
The cost may be higher if the company requires additional services like:
From cost optimization to higher revenue, these are the key benefits of outsourcing customer service:
Hiring and onboarding customer support agents can be a long and costly process.
According to Glassdoor, the average US employer spends about $4,000 to hire a new worker.
The full price of setting an in-house customer service team also includes:
By outsourcing customer service, businesses can save a significant amount of money.
Customer service outsourcing companies not only have fully trained experts, but they also have the equipment needed to handle client communication.
In addition, the cost of hiring a third-party company is significantly lower than paying a fixed salary to a team of in-house agents.
This practice allows you to save resources and optimize costs.
The beauty of outsourced customer support services is that you can keep your focus on running your business and doing profitable activities rather than responding to calls or emails.
Customer support agents can help you reduce workload and free up time for you and your employees, to focus on internal operations and larger sales drivers without sacrificing customer satisfaction.
This partnership will contribute to higher work efficiency and productivity and will ultimately result in increased sales.
Another benefit of outsourcing customer service is that professional client support companies come equipped with cutting-edge technologies.
We are talking about expensive tools like Hootsuite for social media management or Vanilla, a software that allows you to set up your own community forum, whose prices reach $689/month.
These tools are needed for improving your business operations and handling your customer communications with ease.
In addition, these companies also have dynamic processes and they know how to keep up with new customer demands as well as solve issues in a timely manner.
Their agents have years of experience, so they can be more efficient at their job than you.
Apart from the professionalism that your clients will get thanks to your outsourcing customer service team, there are a few more facts that contribute to satisfaction and loyalty.
On the one hand, there is the multilingual service.
Customer service outsourcing companies have a team of bilingual experts who are proficient in the most commonly spoken languages like Spanish and Chinese.
If your customer base speaks another language, these professional companies can help you overcome the communication barriers, allowing your clients to feel more confident about your company.
On the other hand, outsourced customer support services can provide you with better coverage.
While you may be able to serve your clients at a particular time, these agencies typically work 24/7, as their team members are coming from different time zones.
With this increased accessibility, your customers will be able to reach you at any time, which will leave a positive impression of your company.
According to HubSpot, 68% of consumers will pay more for products and services from a business that offers excellent customer support.
Great customer service allows businesses to create meaningful relationships with their clients, built on trust and appreciation.
Many clients focus on how brands treat them, and very often they find this as more important than the product quality and pricing.
In other words, excellent customer support can make all the difference.
When done right, customer service can bring your company more returning clients and higher profits.
Customer service outsourcing companies can help you meet the growing expectations of your clients and provide them with more efficient problem resolutions.
Selecting the best outsourced customer support services partner for your business can be a tricky process.
However, the following factors can help you make the right choice and pick an agency that can meet your business needs:
Ask prospective customer service outsourcing companies the following questions:
Customer service is all about making certain your clients are satisfied with your products and services as well as the way you handle the communication with them.
But how can you measure the performance of your outsourced customer support services team? How can you tell if they are doing a good job assisting your clients?
The answer is quality assurance.
Quality assurance (QA) is a process that ensures your outsourcing customer service partner delivers the highest standards of client support.
You can check the performance of your agency by focusing on the following QA metrics:
The QA process can help you evaluate the work of your partner but also improve your customer service to increase client satisfaction.
Customer service outsourcing companies can help you manage your client communication more effectively and efficiently.
The most common types of outsourced customer support services are:
These professional agencies may charge you between $10 and $40 per hour, depending on their location.
The benefits of outsourcing customer service are:
To choose the best agency partner for your business needs, consider the following factors:
To evaluate the performance of your outsourcing customer service agency, consider quality assurance and focus on key metrics like customer satisfaction score.