What is e-commerce customer service outsourcing?
Hiring a third-party provider to manage a company’s webshop inquiries and communications with customers are referred to as e-commerce customer service outsourcing. Email, social media, instant messaging/live chat, and phone are all common inbound channels for technical and marketing communications.
A growing number of e-commerce and retail businesses are turning to this type of outsourcing to cut costs, increase revenue, reduce workloads, and create customer “superfans.”
Customer service (CS) for retail and E-commerce can be outsourced to a call center or contact center, which employs trained agents to answer incoming calls.
Customer service is the cornerstone of any e-commerce business because customers rely on it for requests, complaints, and even before making a purchase! Companies can work more efficiently if they have reliable customer relationship management support. One of the simplest ways to set your customer service apart from the competition in a sea of competitors is to make your customers truly happy.
It’s natural for business owners to be wary of entrusting their customer success solutions to a third party. Of course, some advantages and disadvantages must be carefully considered first.
It’s critical to realize that outsourcing customer service isn’t about cutting corners; rather, it’s about doing your best to meet clients’ expectations on time while increasing the efficiency and profitability of your company.
It’s fantastic to have an influx of new clients and renewed brand interest. When voicemails go unanswered, emails go unanswered, and live chat inquiries go unanswered, you’re missing out on opportunities to leverage on-demand service and expand your brand.
All e-commerce businesses, particularly high-growth and enterprise brands, must eventually decide whether or not it is a good idea to outsource their customer service.
What are the best times to outsource e-commerce customer service?
Choosing to outsource your store’s technical support or social media customer service is a personal decision based on the needs and resources of each company. Consider the following four scenarios in which transferring to a third party might be a good idea:
If you are a startup company.
Assume your company is already up and running. You have a small team and prefer to focus on the core market operations rather than devoting a significant amount of time and resources to your customer service operation. For the time being, adopting a working business model to handle this particular responsibility would be beneficial. Consider using a contract model to deal with your contact us page and phone calls.
The networks you use and the languages your customers speak often determine the complexity of your e-commerce customer service experience. Subcontracting customer service to overcome language barriers, maximize revenue, and minimize customer neglect is a good idea if your customers come from different countries or if you use a variety of networks.
When you need multilingual customer service.
Your clientele could be located all over the world. If you want to provide an exceptional customer experience, you’ll need agents who can communicate in your customers’ native language (CX).
It makes sense to collaborate with a firm that can have joint members if you receive questions in multiple languages with a low volume of each. These collaborative teams work on multiple tasks at the same time, 24/7, resulting in lower project costs that are passed on to you, the client.
Working with a joint team also allows you to cover a wide range of languages, 24 hours a day, across multiple time zones, for the same price as hiring a single in-house agent.
If you need multi-channel customer support.
Each platform is treated as if it were a separate discipline. Social media sites are not the same as phone calls, and text messages are not the same as live chat.
Each channel requires a unique set of capabilities and infrastructure. If you want to add a new platform to your company’s omnichannel customer service offering, you should hire an agency that is familiar with the new channel and has top-notch experts and digital tools.
If you urgently need professional personnel
When you work with a dependable partner with a lot of experience recruiting agents and managing customer success, you can rest assured that they know exactly what to look for in each new hire.
Ecommerce businesses could theoretically build their in-house support center with all rights reserved, but the majority prefer to outsource this task to professional partners.
Why? Because this straightforward structure has numerous benefits. Let’s look at five of these benefits in more detail.
Benefits of outsourcing your e-commerce customer service
Create a positive image
When the outsourcing company has good customer service training and resources, it can lead to high levels of customer loyalty, which helps you manage your brand. It will safeguard the company’s reputation and prevent it from being tarnished by negative publicity associated with poor customer service, such as delayed responses.
Improve customer satisfaction
The outsourcing firm will be able to provide your business with better support and customer relationship management skills, enhancing the brand’s reputation and commitment to customer satisfaction. Being seen as a company that prioritizes customer service will help you grow and increase the number of positive customer reviews, which act as free peer-to-peer advertising. It will also aid in the improvement of customer satisfaction KPIs such as the net promoter score (NPS) and the customer effort score (CES) (CES).
Related article: How to Handle Customer Complaints The Right Way
Make your organization more profitable
Outsourcing also improves your brand’s profitability and effectiveness. When you hire a third party to handle customer service, you free up time to focus on other aspects of your business that add value, such as sales, lead generation, market research, web content development, and public relations.
Outsourcing companies have extensive experience and training, as well as a proven track record in the industry. They will quickly develop programs that will increase revenue while reducing costs. Hiring a customer service firm is a great way to ensure high efficiency while freeing up time and energy to focus on growing your business.
Save money and increase revenue
Subcontracting customer support roles can help your company save money. As you subcontract customer service roles, you can now focus on other aspects that will benefit your brand financially. Having an excellent customer service system can increase customer loyalty and revenue.
Some businesses save even more money and get a better return on investment (ROI) by outsourcing other business processes such as recruitment, engineering, sales, promotions, order fulfillment, web analytics, SEO, information technology, and manufacturing.
Cater to international customers
When it comes to selling your products and services to foreign markets, call center outsourcing is still the best option. Because you’ve contracted your customer service to the region where the marked demography is, you won’t have to deal with the problems that come with working across time zones.
For example, if you want to market your goods and services in Asia, you can use one of the Philippines’ largest outsourcing firms’ call center services. Responding to customer inquiries in real-time and providing customers with immediate access to customer service representatives can go a long way toward making customers happy.
Tips For Outsourcing Your e-commerce Customer Service
Tip 1 – Ensure the vendor is flexible
Customer service flexibility refers to the ability to adapt to changing circumstances. Customers have a wide range of expectations, and versatility entails being able to effectively manage the complexities of each unique customer experience.
If you’re looking for a provider for an E-commerce use case, make sure you find one that can help you improve all phases of customer experience. Choose a vendor that can handle everything from phone support to computer program software to CS analytics and offers a wide range of technology integrations. Quick and flexible vendors enable retailers to quickly adapt to changing customer expectations and scale as they expand.
Tip 2 – No lock periods
Inflexibility is indicated by lock periods. If a contact center still uses 30- or 90-day lock periods, they’re ignoring a key challenge in today’s customer service: volume forecasting. It’s never been more important to be adaptable. A customer service solution that uses lock periods is likely to be inflexible in other areas as well. Exercise extreme caution and double-check that your vendor is up to date on the latest e-commerce CX trends.
Tip 3 – Understand the vendor’s training and hiring practices
In any industry, providing excellent customer service is a strategic advantage that will give you a competitive advantage. It’s an important player in the game of customer retention and satisfaction.
Consider the following scenario. Which approach do you think would make a customer happier and more likely to stick around if they had a pressing question and called a customer service agent: a standardized email response or a well-researched and tailored response from a support team that truly cares about their success? The latter, without a doubt.
Training your support team properly and effectively is just as important (if not more so) than training your marketing or sales teams. Contact center services are what keep your customers coming back for more and encourage feedback and referrals from friends and family. When it comes to contracting your CS, it’s critical to be extremely picky.
Do you even have time to properly handle the customer service aspect of things? Or do you want someone to guide you and take some of the weight off your shoulders? To get a free quote on outsourcing customer service, contact us today.