What to Choose In-House vs. Outsourcing Customer Support for your Ecommerce Business
An excerpt from our latest blog article in a nutshell.
We’ve analyzed both sides’ advantages and collected all the necessary information to help you make the right decision.
In-House Customer Support Team: Benefits
#1 In-depth knowledge and understanding of your online store from the inside. If your customers are interested in questions about the assortment or operations, your internal support managers will be more likely to answer all of those issues, as they’re more familiar with your business specifics.
#2 No need in detailed customer service scripts. This benefit appears from the previous one, which is connected with the fact that your managers know your business better. An internal team could offer more personalized support without scripted interactions that may seem impersonal.
#3 Encourages interdepartmental connections. If your support team locates within the office with other departments — logistics, inventory management, finance & accounting, marketing, etc., it definitely positively impacts personal interactions, sharing ideas, helping each other, and providing your customers with high-quality support.
#4 Easy to operate. An-inhouse support team is considerably easier to manage — you could control most issues without difficulties, such as communication, recruiting, training, equipment, etc.
According to Deloitte’s 2016 Global Outsourcing Survey, 59% of companies select outsourcing as a cost-cutting tool, but it’s also worth taking a few points into account.
#5 Higher security. Handing over business information to the third-party call centers increases the security risks for your corporate data. Keep in mind that even small data breaches could generate vast damages to any ecommerce business.
Outsource Customer Support Team: Benefits
#1 Cost-effective solution. Save your business resources and don’t spend money on hiring in-house staff. Apart from wages, you could also save on other expenses — healthcare, transportation, office rent, taxes, etc.
#2 Speed up the hiring process. If your ecommerce business is seasonal, then the demand for customer support staff occasionally goes up, and you need to find it quickly. Outsourcing customer service helps you solve this problem and save your time on recruiting and staffing.
#3 Provide customer service globally. If you want to branch out and scale your business, outsourcing your customer support team can help you do this. You could even hire multilingual operators to provide customer service internationally, broadening your horizons. A specialized customer support team can also use their expertise to tailor the service across different platforms. Outsourced customer service teams also tend to provide 24/7 support.
#4 Scale your store and reach out to more customers. When ecommerce business starts expanding, it may be more complicated to manage a vast amount of customers’ requests. Outsourcing customer service team provides the resources to deal with your store’s rapid growth — you could stay focused on scaling your ecommerce business and maintaining high-quality customer service.
#5 Advanced functionality and expertise. Remote managers have the necessary equipment and expertise and process the requests faster with a 24/7 service, which is a critical factor in customer satisfaction.
You could find further information and delve into this topic in our blog article. Check out more insights and tips there.
