Benefits of outsourcing a customer service call centre

With consumers becoming comfortable with proactive, predictive, and delightful customer service experiences that utilise machine learning, artificial intelligence, and ‘self-serve’ support, the human touch may be increasingly overlooked.

Consumer Preferences and Outsourced Contact Centre Services 

55% of customers prefer speaking to a human customer service agent, ideally on the phone. So businesses are often missing a trick by not outsourcing customer service, or upskilling their in-house teams to provide their customers with traditional human-to-human experiences. Calls to businesses are expected to exceed 169 billion annually in 2020. These calls are 1000-1500% more likely to generate a successful sale or follow-up activity than digital form submissions, which means call centres are by far the most powerful channel for generating revenue.

According to a study by Google, 61% of consumers phone a company when they’re in the early stages of the buying cycle. Consumers prefer to call instead of utilising digital channels because they’re looking to get a quick answer (59%) or talk to a real person (57%). This study also found that consumers are more likely to call a business when making a high-value purchase in verticals such as automotive, finance, or travel.

There is clearly, a commercial incentive for having an excellent contact centre. However nailing the customer experience isn’t as simple as just ‘having a customer service team’, Exceeding customer expectations with the correct customer service processes and procedures is usually the result of a carefully crafted system that drives continuous improvement based on customer feedback.

What is customer service outsourcing?

Customer service outsourcing is the process of moving some or all of your customer support operations to a third-party specialist. Businesses and the public sector in most industries outsource their contact centre services. However, it is not necessarily the right strategic move for all organisations and departments. This depends on:

• Your stage of growth
• Your customers’ preferred contact channels
• Your audience size, demographics (B2C/G2C) and/or firmographics (B2B/G2B)
• Whether the vast majority of your customers can self-serve
• Seasonality and volatility of demand

No matter how large and seemingly sophisticated they are, established businesses and organisations’ customer support operations can leave customers feeling frustrated. New research from Whistl found that being unhelpful and disinterested are the two main ways businesses’ call centres can drive some customers away.

Customers who became frustrated and parted ways with businesses. Leaving customers on hold for too long is one of the major reasons call centres drive some customers away, especially, for those customers aged over 55.

Despite consumers’ general dismay at companies’ customer support efforts, some firms are exceeding their customer expectations. This is often achieved by outsourcing call centre handling to a specialist third-party. What is the point of business process outsourcing and is it right for your company? 

What are the different types of outsourced customer support?

Depending on the abovementioned variables, your business or organisation may only require support with specific functions. So, what is the role of customer service? And what contact centre services are available for my business needs? Well, there is a range of outsourced support services for businesses to choose from, including:

Inbound call centres

An inbound call centre is where experts handle your customer’s inbound queries. Inbound call centres could address questions such as ‘where is my order?’, ‘do you have this in stock?’ and general business enquiries are made via phone calls, social media and live chat. A team of experts handles customer queries such as ‘where is my order’ and general business enquiries via phone, social media, and live chat.

Outbound Contact Centre

Unlike an inbound call centre, outbound contact services involve outward contact from a contact centre team to your customers or potential customers. From telesales to data capture, an outbound contact centre company could become an extension of your team, complementing your inbound contact centre services.

Bureau call centre

Bureau call centre services involve dedicating shared contact centre resources to businesses with infrequent demand spikes. A bureau call centre team is designed for companies with long dormancy periods or for one-off campaigns such as Groupon promotions or a government campaign about a key issue.

Overflow call handling

Ideal for businesses that experience fluctuations in demand. An overflow customer service team can handle sharp rises in call traffic during unexpectedly busy periods or pre-planned peak seasons. An overflow call-handling team is usually used in addition to your own in-house services.

Out of hours call handling

Many customers make calls outside of 'typical' business hours; this solution helps businesses capitalise on opportunities that could have been missed.

e-Commerce customer service

These services are designed for online retailers, brands and wholesalers to act as an extension of their customer service team, taking care of product and delivery queries. Outsourced e-commerce contact centre support specialists will get under the skin of your brand to become true product experts.

Telemarketing services

Telemarketing services are ideal for B2C and B2B businesses requiring certain aspects of demand generation at different customer journey stages. An outsourced telemarketing company could be tasked with the following:

• Increasing brand awareness
• Reconsideration to drive conversion
• Driving upsell/cross to improve the customer's lifetime value or for the purpose
• Research services to help the client better understand your target market

At which stage of a company’s growth is the right time to outsource customer service?

At Whistl, we researched 1,000 UK consumers’ perceptions of customer service performance in various industry sectors. We found that a poor call centre experience pushes around half of customers away, slightly more so among men and significantly more among middle-aged (less among younger customers). Therefore, it is crucial to get customer service right to ensure your customer churn rate is kept to a minimum and your competitors don’t sweep up opportunities you miss.

As highlighted in the previous sections, there is an effective contact centre outsourcing solution to suit most businesses. Based on the number of calls your business receives, if you handle less than 50 contacts per day, retaining this work in-house and expanding internally would generally make sense.

Suppose you are managing your customer service teams in-house. In that case, it could help to refer to some of the guidance and tips outlined in our research findings to retain and delight more customers regularly, and your competitors don’t sweep up opportunities you miss.

Which industries benefit most from outsourcing contact centre operations?

At Whistl, we recently conducted research on customer service and found the following:

• The financial, utilities, telecoms, and insurance industries are getting the highest volume of inbound contact queries by phone.
• Men call organisations in the Financial, Telecoms and Insurance sectors more than women
• Women call organisations in the Healthcare sector more than men

We also found that:

• TV Media/Internet/Telecoms, Financial and Retail are considered the top 3 Best sectors in terms of customer service performance, and these sectors perform better (% ‘Best’ indexed on % called) than Utilities and Insurance
• Women are more likely than men to consider that companies in the Retail sector have the best call centres.
• 63% consider service ‘Best’ if it resolves issues quickly or tries to help.

So what are the benefits of outsourcing a customer service call centre?

This article covers outsourcing customer service, what it involves, and whether it is right for you. Various types of outsourced customer support can help you at each stage of the customer journey and every step of your business growth, whichever industry sector you operate in. By delving into our research, we have identified more around consumer perceptions, market opportunities, and which sectors have the most room for improvement. Hopefully, this better informs you as to whether or not now is the right time to outsource all or some of your customer service.

Here are some examples of businesses who have benefited from outsourcing their customer service call centres with Whistl:

Micro Scooters

In the Entertainment and Leisure industry, Micro Scooters has been working with Whistl now for over 8 years. Their partnership sees Whistl Contact Centre services manage all delivery related customer contact queries. Whistl also handles overflow and out of hours customer service via a multichannel team. In 2016, Micro Scooters won Best eCommerce Customer Service at the eCommerce Awards.

Learn about Micro Scooters experience with Whistl

Noble Collection

The Noble Collection is a manufacturer, distributor, and retailer of licenced film and TV properties, They have outsourced their inbound customer services to Whistl in the form of bureau customer support, enabling them to capitalise on huge spikes in order volumes. The Noble Collection also entrust Whistl with their e-commerce warehousing and fulfilment.

Read more on our multi-service support for Noble Collection

Maria Mallaband Care Group 

Maria Mallaband Care Group boast 83 care-homes across the UK and continue to grow.  MMCG agreed contract terms with Whistl in January 2018 and were live just 1 week later. After originally signing a trial contract of 3 months, we’re proud to say our partnership continues today via a team of 40 bureau staff. This flexible model is the perfect fit for MMCG as it means that they do not underutilise staff.  

Read the full Maria Mallaband case study

Is customer service outsourcing right for your business?

When deciding whether to outsource your customer service operations, you need to measure customer satisfaction and gaps in service quality to identify opportunities. It is also essential to define your business strategy and growth aspirations. 

As detailed in this article, there is a wide range of call centre operations. The one you will most benefit from completely depends on your business model and the nature of your customers’ contact frequencies and channels.

Contact Whistl to discuss how your business can benefit from outsourced contact centre services.
Customer service will become increasingly sophisticated thanks to automation, greater personalisation and artificial intelligence. But the human touch will always be necessary. Identifying where customers will benefit most from person-to-person interaction will ensure you can deliver a service that minimises cost and maximises customer satisfaction.
With the right outsourced customer service partner, your business will benefit from broader industry knowledge and trends to innovate within all channels through which you provide customer service. 

At Whistl, we help businesses in various sectors with outsourced customer services. All of our services are tailored to the needs of your business, and with a wide range of solutions, we are well suited to give effective customer service with our outsourced contact centre.

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