What must be the best reason companies are outsourcing their customer service is the cut on costs. Call Center Outsourcing allows companies to manage their call centers from different locations. These call centers are usually situated in other countries, like India and the Philippines, where workers’ salaries are much lower.

Other than saving from the lower cost of salaries, companies will also save from time spent training employees to do the job. With a call center, the customer service provider will do the selection process of its workers, from interviewing to screening, hiring, and training. This scheme can help the company to focus on other aspects, such as product improvement.

But what really is the impact when customer service is outsourced. Here are the pros and cons.

PROS:

Round-the-Clock Customer Service

A company can now be assured of 24-hours customer support because, in most call centers, work shifting is the usual system. Some employees work at night and the others during day time. This may be impossible to do in the US or other First World countries without spending much money.

This is convenient for customers because they do not have to squeeze some time from their busy schedules to call. They can call anytime they want.

Overflow Calls Can Be Handled

When there is a sudden increase in incoming customer calls, you have the outsourced customer service call center to handle the calls. Today, it is not excellent customer service to say, “We will call you back later.” Clients will always look for competent, friendly, and speedy customer service.

CONS:

Communication Barriers

With a call center based overseas, it is not uncommon to have communication barriers. Your clients may not clearly understand what the call center agent says because of pronunciation, diction, and other slang terms.

Lower Product Knowledge

The call center agent may not have even touched the product he is talking about to your client. This may lead to customer dissatisfaction when the client does not get the information he wants.

Bottom Line:

While there are many advantages to a company going for outsourced customer service, the disadvantages seem to be on the client’s side. These should be handled well because customer dissatisfaction can lead to the loss of clients. More interaction between the company and the outsourced call center should be more frequent to patch up the differences.

It is imperative that the company should feed all information about its products, policies, and other things. At the same time, the customer service provider should empower call center agents with the right knowledge and skills to deal with the company’s clients.…