Outsourcing customer services is an increasingly common way to cut costs – as businesses look at efficiencies throughout their organisation. But there are many more reasons than cost savings as to why a business should consider partnering with a business process outsourcer.
Below we look at the top five reasons why outsourced customer or technical support could bring more business benefits than you might have thought.
1. Cost efficiencies
Delivering cost efficiencies is often the number one driver for moving to an outsourced customer service partner. By working with an outsource service provider who takes on responsibility for recruitment, training and retention, you can reduce people costs and also drive efficiencies in your own business, freeing up time to focus on core business issues.
An outsource provider can also offer a range of locations for your resource - either onshore or offshore - which could deliver further cost reductions.
2. Flexibility, scalability and agility
Businesses need to be able to react quickly. Often teams need to be flexed or scaled rapidly to meet demand, or resource moved into other areas of the business, particularly as businesses respond to economic downturns or higher material costs caused by inflation.
An outsourced service provider offers the ability to rapidly scale your team, or reduce headcount if you need, giving businesses the flexibility and agility to respond to external factors.
3. Enable greater tech capability and competitive advantage, without the stress of implementation
In an era of ‘digital transformation’ businesses face multiple pressures to develop technology that solves their problems. Customer service operations are inundated with technologies that claim to drive improvements – but finding the time and resource to invest in discovery and implementation can distract from the core business. There is also the capital outlay that purchasing new tech or software requires.
Partnering with an outsourced customer service partner who is already using a tried and tested solution streamlines the process and removes concerns about implementation, staff training or other set up considerations.
An experienced outsource provider also has the practical knowledge to advise on the best use of tech capabilities, such as robotic process automation (RPA), analytics, or cloud-based solutions (to name just a few) so you can benefit from their learnings.
4. Deliver positive impact to meet your ESG goals
Working with responsible outsourcing providers helps business meet ESG and CSR goals while driving other business benefits. Impact Sourcing is a growing trend in outsourced customer support and provides highly trained resources in developing or disadvantaged locations. Employees are trained in workplace and technical skills, gain opportunities to build careers and earn money to support their families and invest in education and healthcare.
5. Focus on core business priorities without worrying about customer service performance
Growing a business is hard, and customer service is often not a core skill set – building that expertise can take a lot of time and focus. You can find out more about this in our earlier blog ‘Are non-core processes preventing your business from growing’.
Putting your customer service or technical support in the hands of a highly experienced outsourced partner means you can focus on delivering the core functions of your business.
The right partner should deliver efficiencies by using their experience and expertise to drive down costs to your business, all whilst improving service levels to your end customers. See how we do this at ADEC Arise, read our case study on how we’ve delivered NPS improvements and reduced costs for Vodafone.
