With the average customer service agent in the UK starting from £21,000 per year, there is a business case to outsource your customer service channels to another provider. There are a number of call centres in Wales and across the UK, but also using other countries with English speakers such as India and South Africa.
Beyond just taking phone calls, customer services can extend to answering text messages, live chat, emails, letters and more.
We consider the business argument for using an outsourced centre over hiring an entire customer service team for your business.
Cost Savings
“The biggest advantage of using an outsourced customer service provider is the cost savings,” explains Daniel Park, CEO of InTouchNow.
“Whilst companies have to take time recruiting and training new customer service agents, we have hundreds of advisors who are ready to go and overall the cost savings to the organisation are more than 60%.”
“There is a lot of flexibility when using an external provider because you typically pay for the number of hours or days that an agent is used for and the number of staff you require, so you have this opportunity to scale up or down during busy and quiet periods.”
Technological Edge
“Outsourced providers come with a technological edge,” Park continues. “We are using bespoke customer service platforms which integrate with any client and it is included in the cost.”
“By comparison, a company has to find a CRM that might work for them that does data, reporting, feedback and is compliant – but we have this all built already.”
“It could mean that we can document all calls or activities faster and more efficiently than they can – and save them a lot of time in the process.”
Industry Knowledge
“Some agents come with industry knowledge, with ours being in the medical field – again an advantage of hiring someone completely new. Some of our staff have dealt with medical enquiries for over a decade.”
“This may not always be the case. You may have to find or train customer agents to understand various terminologies.”
Less Administration Costs
Michael Bush of Accountant For explains that “Outsourcing to one provider is a huge time-saver for accountants and the administration that comes with it.”
“By paying just one provider, one invoice, it saves us having to manage and pay multiple staff, set them up with PAYE, NI and pensions and offer employee benefits. Beyond just their salaries, there are a lot of associated costs with having full-time or part-time staff and these are real savings.”
Monitoring Is Important
Monitoring an outsourced customer service team is essential. When using different people not in your organisation, you need to ensure that they can pass on the tone and professional that you would like and have real knowledge about the products and the business. There are certain companies such as Amazon and EE that are known for holding high standards with their customer services, so maintaining this is key.
This can be achieved through regular reporting, spot checks, listening in on calls, requesting feedback from real customers and more. Despite being outsourced elsewhere domestically or abroad in India, there could be a case for running training sessions and getting to know your outsourced agents to better your proposition.
