What is Outsourcing?

It is a specialized service wherein a responsible provider manages an entire business operation or business function including support staffing and information technology, to improve business performance and increase shareholder value.

Consider the following research findings:

77% of Fortune 500 companies currently have efforts underway to outsource some aspect of their business support services.The top 400 growth companies declare they currently outsource several business functions.

Worldwide revenue for outsourcing will continue to grow at 15% to 20% in the foreseeable future. The user typically realizes cost savings of 10-30%.

Why Outsource?

These facts demonstrate that the outsourcing of customer service programs is growing at a fast rate. Companies are concluding that there are some activities they can do more profitably than others. Thus, as a call centre is an important ancillary activity, the most efficient decision in nearly every case is to outsource.

A professional outsource partner can give your company customer care that’s superior in terms of cost, control and quality.

Cost

• The up-front infrastructure costs involved in providing customer service whether via phone, email or live Internet chat, are enormous.
• An in-house call centre requires investment in the space and technology to handle the highest demands that are expected in the foreseeable future.
• Backup systems need to be built to deal with system down times, maintenance or repair.
• Customer care is a labor-intensive activity. Because of high turnover and tight domestic labor pools, it requires on-going investment in recruitment, training, checking and other human resources costs.
• Thus the HR department may end up spending a disproportionate amount of time seeing to the needs of what may be a relatively small part of the overall operations of your organization.
• Dramatic shifts caused by seasonal or even hourly volume changes also translate into high costs.
• An outsource partner whose only business is customer care can more efficiently allocate infrastructure and human resources, shifting and adding to them and enabling you to expand the range and scope of your customer service operations as required.
• Your organization need only pay for what resources it actually uses while retaining the ability to add capacity as needed.

Additionally, a partner with overseas-based facilities can provide your organization with the cost benefits associated with a global talent pool, without the hassle and expense of establishing a base so far from home.

Control

In an outsourced environment, the outsource partner assumes responsibility for day-to-day operations while working closely with your organization to define key objectives and long-term strategic plans. Thus you are assured that the CSRs understand your mission and corporate philosophy so they can represent you in the best possible manner to your customers.

• The partner provides regular, detailed reports on pre-established performance measures. Thus rather than losing control, you gain a clearer picture of the efficiencies or bottlenecks in the operations and are able to focus on results.
• Outsourcing enables your organization to focus attention more fully on its core businesses and competencies.

Quality

• An outsourcing partner whose core business is providing quality customer care is in the best position to give your customers the highest possible level of service.
• Representatives are available 24x7x365, at staffing levels that are infinitely flexible to meet peak demands related to season, time of the day, product launch, etc.
• Working from documentation, FAQ lists etc provided by you, they’re able to either answer questions immediately, or seamlessly transfer them to more expert second-tier help. The response time to your customer’s requests and queries is minimal.
• In addition, internationally based outsourcing partners have access to a global pool of highly trained, motivated, English-speaking workers.
• Outsource customer-service companies operating in places such as India are able to hire and retain professional, college-educated customer-care representatives at cost factors well below those of call centers operating in the US.