As a company that creates and sells lifetime technical support software, companies always ask us to outsource their support. Sometimes our customers ask us because the answer is the key to using Freshdesk in technical support. Sometimes friends, friends, and businessmen ask us why outsourced technical support is still a topic of discussion in some circles. And sometimes they ask us why we are here, and we just need to have an opinion.
But I think it is essential for all companies, from growing companies to large companies, to know exactly why they should or should not outsource their technical support processes. And, more importantly, what kind of problems should they expect to solve. There are advantages and disadvantages to outsourcing, and you should consider them before deciding to outsource. Here's a direct comparison between outsourcing your technical support and your internal maintenance:
First Round: Total Cost Of Ownership
When you outsource, it means that you are paying someone to hire support representatives, train them, get resources, and do whatever it takes. Of course, you pay for calls to go overseas, but in the end, with less stringent VOIP and telecommunications regulations, outsourcing your technical support is often less expensive than doing it yourself.
When it comes to the total cost of ownership for your technical support process, outsourcing can collect the first blood without sweating. If the value of people increases the greatest success of their technical support, the outsourcing of the equipment to a low-cost center in the world can save many in the end-of-year report.
Second Round: Increase Or Decrease The Scale
There comes the point in the life of every tech support worker when you realize you have more tickets than the team can chew. Or that many agents are dealing with lines that don't ring as often as necessary. Now, with these scenarios, the solution is to expand or shrink your support team accordingly. This usually means that you need to find the right people to add or remove from technical support and find them quickly.
Now, if you have outsourced technical support, you have the option of choosing a supplier that can scale or impact anywhere. The provider is the one who needs to expand or divide the support team. They are the problem, not you. You are eliminated from the decision and save a lot of stress, time, and money. And if you don't outsource it, well ... you have an idea.
There are ways to develop your technical support in-house without developing the team, so blind outsourcing or leaving the burden to your supplier may not be the best idea.
Third Round - Quality Control
There is a reason why companies always prefer to create their support team, and that's a good thing: when you outsource your technical support, you have no control over the quality of the support.
When you outsource technical support, you mainly take responsibility for ensuring that your customers get complete and correct answers to their questions. You have no control over the superiority of agents to guarantee customer satisfaction. All of your customers' requests can be answered, but have they been answered accurately and completely? You have no idea.
Outsourcing takes that power away from you. You can only lead and hope for the best.
Round four: be "in touch"
When it comes to staying in touch with customers, you have to admit that outsourcing does not put you in a position to receive direct customer feedback. It has all the numbers and the numbers that show that the contractors are doing everything in their power to satisfy their customers, but they don't have access to the basic facts; they don't have a direct view of their customers. And if you set up your internal support team, you will interact directly with your customers and have a good idea of what drives your customer.
Verdict: If you want to resubmit technical support feedback on your product and business process, do it yourself.
Fifth Round - The Rule Book
Okay, that becomes a little more subjective. Can you solve all your technical support problems with a troubleshooting manual?
The problem with outsourcing is that these call center agents are not your employees. They have no practical experience in product development and are probably not technical experts in their field. This means that they will need to undergo extensive training before they can start assisting their customers. And this training is usually done by developing a detailed problem-solving manual detailing everything that can go wrong, how it can be fixed, and outsourcing it.
As long as most support requests are within the limits of this manual, outsourcing should work as well (if not better) than your employees. However, if your requests for assistance involve more technical knowledge, a lot of tacit knowledge, and the ability to quickly request information from the product team, outsourcing the resource is a surefire means of disaster.
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