Before you choose the right outsourcing partner for your company you will also need to fully understand who you will be working with and the benefits you can receive from choosing them and the way they handle information and software security.

So, in this article we will learn two new key factors to research before choosing the right partner and how to manage this service once you’ve got a signed contract.

4. Additional Services

Many outsourcing companies offer a range of benefits alongside customer service. They can provide you a wide range of services like call recordings which can help you to obtain feedback about how the company is handling your customer’s issues and service quality.  They can also provide real data about your customer’s perception of your company. In the long run, such add-ons can be beneficial to improve customer service, but not all providers offer them.

You may want to look for an all-in-all service provider, as it may be more convenient in the longer term. However, if you find an outsourced team focusing only on customer support, you can always complement it with external tools.

5. Security

You should be aware of all the possible risks related to sensitive customer data you might be sharing with a third-party, so before hiring external help you should review your own internal security, figure out any weak points, and restrict access to certain information. You should ensure that no external party can reach your client’s credit card details, health records, without your approval.

We highly advise that you consult your legal team before signing any contract,  so you will clearly understand all the terms and have everything clear about your new partner, the functions they will be handling and the way to measure their real productivity.

How to manage and have better control over your outsourcing partner?

Customer experience is the major factor for your business growth. Almost 70% of the customers leave companies after just one bad interaction. So remember that you shouldn’t leave your customer support team without supervision and guidelines.

The first thing to do is to hire internal or in-house managers to establish and maintain a connection with your outsourcing partner. These agents should inform both parties about the current customer support situation, resolve all the routine issues and keep quality control.

Training

The training process is extremely important to make sure that your outsourcing partner’s agents are as productive as possible. During the training process it is key that you share all your knowledge and provide external employees with manuals, training videos, FAQs, etc. They should know your company as well as you do.

You will also need to establish brand tone guidelines so your customers will be treated in the way they are used to and even better.  

You can specify what the agents need to say and which phrases they need to avoid, to create good customer relations, it is also beneficial to test the agents using hypothetical scenarios. Try to cover the widest range possible, from a new client’s call to a specific issue or query.

Maintain Constant Communication

A good communication between your outsourcing partner and your company’s managers is essential from the beginning. You will need to promote a two-way communication with your outsourcing team to create a real partnership, and accomplish the company’s goals.

Communicating with your outsourcing partner will be the way to learn about the current situation, about your customer’s needs and will be the way to find weak spots that require additional work or even gather some insights that might be useful for your internal team.

To make this more convenient and easy, invest in tools of communication like Zoom or Skype to have an easy, more personal access to your outsourcing partner team of agents.

Quality Control

Quality control is vital to fully see the benefits of having an outsourcing partner. Quality assurance metrics will help you evaluate the performance of your outsourced service and support team.

These are some metrics that could help you keep a good quality control strategy:

• Average Speed of Answering – The time it takes to answer an incoming call
• Customer Satisfaction Score – Measures your customers level of satisfaction with the support or attention provided
• Customer Effort Score – Tracks customer experience during the call
• First-Call Resolution – It evaluates the agents ability to solve client’s issues and queries
• Average Handle Time – The amount of time your customer spend on the line

All these data will provide valuable insights on the service quality levels and how to increase customer service productivity and improve clients’ satisfaction.

Outsourcing customer service and support can help you scale up your business, lower expenses and overall improve the quality of your customer service and support.

When looking for your ideal outsourcing partner, you should consider the company’s experience, skills, geographical location, and the availability of some added services that can help to improve workflow, but be aware, because these extras can cost extra money to, so make sure to have every aspect clear from the get go.

Always keep in mind that you will need to keep close attention to your outsourcing partner, provide mindful training and constant supervision so they can effectively represent your brand and achieve high customer satisfaction. So, take the chance, research and make your business grow with a little help from some friends!

The post Outsourcing Customer Service Benefits – Part II first appeared on World Connection.

If you are looking for new solutions and you are curious about how to outsource customer service, what to look for when choosing the right partner and how to take full advantage of their work? Just keep on reading to learn more.

Top 4 Benefits of Customer Service Outsourcing

Almost 59% off all companies outsource services just to cut their expenses.  Cost savings might be the primary motivation, but there are many factors speaking in favor of outsourcing customer support services.

Lower Costs

Outsource companies usually have a per hour rate, so you can scale your expenses according to your actual needs, so there will be no need to pay fixed salaries.

Increased Coverage

Outsourcing can be a really useful support system when additional help is needed, during high seasons having an extra team of agents helping can make a big difference in the quality of the attention and support. You can also quickly increase the geographical reach of your company by hiring bilingual or multilingual support teams.

Scaling Up

When your company is rapidly growing, you may not have the time to control all aspects of your business. A strategic move is to hire an outsourcing partner to take care of the customer service and support to maintain the high-quality service while you focus your energy on the long-term goals for your company.

Speed Things Up

Many customers’ queries are typical, so you can rely on the outsourced team to run them independently. This will speed things up and give you the time necessary to focus on business tasks.

What services can you outsource?

There are different ways to provide customer service, the key is to try and cover most communication channels.

You can outsource all customer support services:

• Calls
• Emails
• Social media interactions
• Other online approaches

Which services to outsource will depend on each company’s goals and needs. In some cases, it might be enough to outsource customer service call handling, but if you are interested in creating a more complex customer interaction, you should also consider emails and online chats, this will help you provide your customers all the communication channels needed to be in touch with your company.

What do you need to know before you choose to outsource?

• Before searching for external help, you should develop a customer service strategy, this will be vital to fully take advantage of this new strategy.
• You need to find a way to satisfy your business and customers’ needs.   
• And there are several factors you should consider when researching for the ideal outsourcing partner:

1. Specialization

When you start your research for the right outsourcing partner, you will notice the market is big, so you will need to find the companies that are specialized in solving what you need to be solved. Some companies may specialize in repetitive requests, while others can be proficient in solving in-depth situations. 

You will also need to take into account language skills and proficiency, the key is to find a possible partner that will satisfy your customers’ needs.

If an outsourcing company claims to cover the entire spectrum of services, they might lack quality control.  Another key factor is to stop looking for the cheapest option because this company might not have much experience or the required skills.

Always rely on customers’ reviews of the company, research their website for additional benefits, and make a test call to experience their service.

2. KPIs

You need to have a clear understanding of all the factors necessary to show the effectiveness of a customer service outsourcing partner.

You can request statistics from the companies you are evaluating and analyze their average handle time, first contact resolution, as well as other metrics that can shed light on their productivity levels.

It is also important to know how this company monitors its quality, how many calls they take into account, and how transparent their rating system is. The absence of adequate quality control indicators may reflect low responsibility and bad service.

3. Location

Another important thing to consider is the geographical location of your possible outsourcing partner, which can determine a lot of factors, from price rate, communication issues and a broader time frame to provide customer service and support.

Pending on the outsourcing company’s location you can expect different price rates and service quality, this is why research is important and necessary before you choose the right partner.  This is a major point going for BPOs based in Latin America like Guatemala, due to geographic location and closeness to the US, commonly having English as a second language, lower cost of living and culturally providers of service with a smile.

In the next article we will go through two additional factors to take into account before signing a deal with an outsourcing service partner, we will also learn how to manage and measure the productivity of the outsourcing partner to fully understand the essentials of outsourcing customer service. 

The post Outsourcing Customer Service Benefits – Part I first appeared on World Connection.

When you can cut expenses and let an external company take care of the work more efficiently, why not go for it?! Those are 2 of the many reasons to outsource customer service, but there are more. An outsourced team can give you the ability to scale up or down quickly if you need more support during seasonal peaks or if you’re just starting out, working with an experienced team of customer support professionals makes sense, to start with the right foot.

Outsourcing customer service can benefit your company in a lot of ways,  if you need to expand your business, an outsourcing  partner can help cover your customer service on weekends or even 24/7, they can help fill the gaps to provide the best customer service to your clients.

The key to success is to do it right and guarantee realistic results. 

Here are 6 steps you should follow to outsource customer service:

1. Set Clear Goals

You will need to approach your goals setting from two fronts: what you need and what you want from the outsourcing company.

Start with you. Why are you outsourcing?

You need to be clear on the main and secondary reason you are hiring an outsourcing partner, if you want to lower costs, then you should set a number (how much you want to save) before researching and entering a negotiation. If you are interested in having more time and staff to take action in other areas of the company you need to make sure that their roles are well covered by the outsourced team. Have clear goals and seek that all top levels of the company agree on them.

Then, you should know exactly what you want from them. What are the support team’s main goals? Provide technical support to existing clients, increase customer retention or increase the quality of the service provided, for example.

What services will be included in the agreement?

Every time you are establishing goals you should consult with your legal department for any potential legal and security issues related to hiring an outsourcing partner. In some cases companies are restricted by confidentiality policies on sharing client info and data with a third party.

2. Keep your Customers in Mind 

Always keep your customers in mind when looking for the right strategy and outsourcing partner. Because no one knows your customers as well as you do. You know how they like to interact, what social media channels they most commonly use and their contact preferences.

All these details matter when outsourcing customer service. Knowing your buyer persona and your previous experiences with your customers will guide you on what services to hire and who to partner with. 

The outsourced support team must work like you, solve like you and sound like you in every communication with your clients, whether it’s written or via phone call.

Know your company’s voice and work with your outsourcing partner to help them understand your language and talk like you.

And it is always best to go beyond customer support and think about customer experience.

3. Find The Right Partner

When researching for outsourcing companies, you will notice there are plenty of options out there, but they aren’t all equal. Take your time to do your research and Interview multiple managed service providers to find the best fit to your company’s needs.

If you are looking to provide customer service to your clients around the world, seek a multilingual 24/7 customer service team. Focus on the best customer service agents with the right skills and training.

Research your possible partner’s capacity to handle high-volume queries and in-depth conversations, all of these depending on your needs.

Choose a partner that can manage an all-channel approach; phone calls, online chat, email, social selling, etc. Always examine your candidates’ track record and talk if possible talk to some of their previous clients.

Cheap is not always the best option.  Go for quality so you can retain more customers.

4. Train for Success

One of the most common reasons to outsource customer service is to save on in-house staff training costs, which can be a heavy weight on your budget.

Outsourcing companies already have highly trained agents with the required experience and skills to handle different situations.

Work with your provider during training to ensure they understand your culture, your customers and the quality standards as an organization.

5. Measure, Measure, Measure the Results

When you are already working with your chosen partner, you must measure your customer service team performance. There are many key indicators, like ticket volume, average response time, average resolution time, net promoter scores and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) scores, that can help you know where you need to make some adjustments and where the team is doing great. Constantly evaluate the team’s performance to assure they are on the right track.

Just because you outsource your customer service does not mean you should forget about it, it is a great source of real feedback on your company’s products or services. You need to be in control and get results, without micromanaging the process.

6. Open Communication

The only way this outsourcing experience will get results is if you manage to set an excellent two-way communication.

Keep your partner aware of what is on your mind and what your company is seeking, always keep them on the loop and provide updated information, also let them know where they need to improve, if there is  more training needed for the agents and to obtain valuable feedback from the customers.

You should always be informed and on the loop about every detail regarding your business, so look for transparency in the communication between you and your partner to really achieve the already set goals.

Customers are the ultimate judges of the customer service provided, so listen to them and work on a strategy to ensure the success of the transition to an outsourced customer service.  

Following these 6 steps can help you improve your customer service experience, and get you even more excited about finding ways for your company to grow!

The post 6 Steps To Customer Service Harmony first appeared on World Connection.

Leadership Voice:

Andy Salisbury
Vice President, World Connection

Work-from-Home programs (aka, remote-agent workforce, among other names) had been steadily increasing in popularity and acceptance in recent years. The COVID-19 pandemic has only increased this exponentially. Before, it was a way to decrease overhead and open your pool of agent candidates to skill sets no longer limited to one geography. Today, it has become a necessity in this age of shutdowns and socially distanced offices.

Work-from-Home (WFH) always came with obstacles to overcome: compliance with security standards created for in-person settings (e.g., PCI DSS), balky technologies and overtaxed Internet bandwidth, and an employee workforce no longer personally supervised (or, perhaps, motivated). Many clients had long been skeptical of the efficacy and productivity of WFH agents but, in 2020, had to grudgingly accept the new abnormal.

Forced by the pandemic to quickly transition the workforce to a home setting, many call centers (inhouse and outsourced) were left to prioritize these obstacles as best they could. Technology solutions were pieced together to provide access (e.g., BYOD), while network bandwidth was stretched to or beyond its limits. Good solutions for real-time, network performance monitoring existed but were, in many cases, pushed down the road, as getting up and running was the immediate priority. Compliance was second. End-to-end solutions could wait. The employee workforce was usually a distant third, to be addressed with a soon-to-come, top-down solution that, often, was not in sight.

The early days of the pandemic shutdowns were often a nightmare for clients, vendors, and customers alike. Those who had existing WFH platforms and experience had a huge advantage over those new to the game. Those who threw quick solutions at each obstacle often found themselves with a mishmash of mismatched technologies or processes that could cost more to fix than they had to set up. 

But those who were able to plan for all obstacles found their footing on a sustainable path and were able to differentiate themselves.

World Connection’s solution was to invest in a suite of software products that would cover all areas of protection, performance, productivity:

• A remote-access authentication component, also capable of providing real-time network performance data

• Activity monitoring software to capture employee screen activity and network usage

• An employee workspace-monitoring system to maintain a PCI environment and increase overall productivity

 

Access authentication software is a given for a well-maintained network, as is a network-performance component. Activity monitoring software has also become routine, especially in larger companies, or now, those with remote or WFH workforces. These cover the protection and performance aspects of the obstacles. It was the employee-workspace monitoring component that tied everything together with a novel approach to compliance and employee productivity and assuaging client concerns of the WFH approach. World Connection was an early adopter (and investor) in the product, seeing it as the game changer for clients uncertain over WFH.

Equipped with cameras and built-in AI programming, this system monitors at-home agents’ environments for PCI compliance, taking a photo every 60 seconds (or a timing of our choosing). AI parameters can be set to monitor for high-risk activities, keywords, or websites and alert us to their presence. Once flagged, supervisors can immediately chat with the agent and the system automatically stores all photos and chats. Able to scan for and detect the presence of a cell phone, pen or pencil, other people in the room, or the wrong person at the desk (via facial recognition), this system gives supervisors “in the room” access. Now management can see not only what is on the screen, but what the employee is doing, what else is on the desk, and what distractions might be in the room. Supervisors or leaders cannot dedicate their entire day to just monitoring. This employee work space monitoring solution spots the offending activities and alerts supervisors, making the best use of their time while being far more effective.

This solution also proved to increase productivity, by allowing the agents to have morning huddles with their supervisors, ask questions through the built-in chat feature, and simply confirm that they are at their desks doing their jobs, and not watching TV or viewing Facebook or YouTube on their phones. One of our first clients we protected with our solution, Quicken, found that productivity increased by over 10% in the first month of utilization.

It is through the use of our three-component suite of software products that World Connection was able to overcome the hurdles of WFH —protection, performance, and productivity. It provides the peace of mind to clients in all aspects of their business — not only over IT security and network/tech performance, but also the security of the physical space to ensure compliance. It even overcomes client apprehension over agent performance from a productivity perspective, eliminating their fears of the loafing agent watching TV.

It’s the overarching coverage of our comprehensive suite that has encouraged clients to grow their WFH programs with us, even as they anticipate a post-COVID atmosphere.

The post Protection, Performance, and Productivity with WFH first appeared on World Connection.