E-commerce customer support can be difficult at times. All those emails, calls, and various customer queries can make work in this field a living hell. When you’re lacking resources in your company in this department, there’s just so much you can do. One of the options that many businesses have at their disposal is outsourcing. The one question that lingers is whether it is worth it. There are a few ways to answer this query, but we’ll go ahead with the simplest one – pros and cons.
Pros and cons give you a broader picture, thus the decision-making process is made much easier. As with any other business decision, it can have positive and negative outcomes. It is up to you as the owner or the person in charge to decide all of its consequences. After reading this article, and getting more acquainted with the pros and cons of outsourcing E-commerce customer support, you will be able to make the best possible decision. Keep reading!
Pros
As is usually the case, it is best to start with the positive sides. That’s why we’re going to give you 5 pros of e-commerce outsourcing customer support, and one general might be to start working with professionals such as SupportYourApp as they can lead you to the advantages we have below:
Cost Savings
The majority of companies who want to outsource work do it for the cost-saving possibilities. Outsourcing is one of the most practical ways to save operational costs without compromising on the business processes. Working with outsourcing companies is much more cost-effective than having to hire new employees whenever you have more work to do. You receive instant help while the cost reduction remains in the long term.
Availability
Customer support is a service that needs to operate non-stop if it desires to have satisfied customers. When you have less staff than needed, and you can’t operate 24/7, outsourcing is the logical next step. Outsourcing providers in this domain sell their services on a 24/7 basis. If that’s what you need it is easy to understand why you should make this step.
Quicker Response Time
One thing that everyone finds as necessary when calling customer support is quick response time. If your e-commerce lacks fast response, you might find yourself hearing from unsatisfied clients all the time. Many quarries can’t wait for days or weeks. Some can’t even wait for hours or even minutes. When your customer support is not up to task it can send the wrong picture to your clients. This is why outsourcing part of your work in this field can do wonders for your customer satisfaction.
Management Processes Made Easier
When you’re in charge of a big customer service department management can quickly become too hard to handle. In the customer service department, it is sometimes hard to operate with experienced workers, and even harder with rookies. The productivity rates in this department need to be high, and this standard is hard to uphold when there’s too much work. This is why getting in touch with an outsourcing company that excels in customer support can be beneficial from the get-go both for your e-commerce business and your customers.
More Focus on Other Departments
When we talk about e-commerce, customer support is only a part of the broader picture. Having it in capable hands will allow you to have a better focus on other, more important, parts of your entire operation. When you have things divided and spread across capable partners, your overall production will most definitely receive a spike.
Cons
There isn’t a thing in this world where you can’t find a negative side. As there are pros of outsourcing customer support, there are also cons. Here, we’re going to dedicate some time to those. The cons are:
Brand Disconnection
In the world of e-commerce brands are everything. On every step, you need to make moves that are going to protect your brand. As an owner, you are probably doing this, and you have your employees aligned doing the same. When you hire an outside partner it is hard to know how much or if they respect the values of your brand at all. Brand is best seen through the eyes of the customers and not being able to influence how they’re treated might be a downside of customer support outsourcing.
Cultural Differences
The cheapest kind of sourcing happens when you outsource from overseas. This is why people do it, as we already said it is cost-effective. But, when your company is operating in the USA and you have customer service handled by people from Serbia or India, well for some that isn’t going to bode very well. Depending on the niche of your e-commerce speaking to someone who belongs to a different culture maybe isn’t going to provide all the needed help. As far as customer support goes, cultural differences can prove to be a massive obstacle to doing work.
Communication Barrier
This can be a huge step for every move you might want to make forth with outsourcing customer support. In every business, communication is the key. Where it lacks, productivity drops and revenue gets lower. When outsourcing, the language used, and compunctions channels, can get blurred at times. You can never know how every employee on the other side is versed in the language you want to use. The communication barrier can be a double wall. For one, you might have issues arranging everything to work the way you want it. Secondly, your customers might start having issues with your support. As you can see, it can be a real hassle to get over.
Minimal or No Quality Control
In every line of work, when you ensure quality products or service you know that you have an amazing foundation for the future. The downside of outsourcing customer support is that it can shake that foundation. If your customer support isn’t satisfying the customers they can soon start doubting the quality of your product or service. For you, having employees across the world makes it hard to rate the quality of their work. If low quality isn’t noticed in time it can be too late to react when enough time passes.
Bottom Line
With both pros and cons of customer support outsourcing listed above all that is left for you is to make the big decision. With it having both upsides and downsides the decision should be made with your product or service in mind. Weight pros and cons and base your decision on the side that prevails.