How to Outsource Customer Support Service Effectively for Your Ecommerce Store?

In the era of online shopping, where almost everything is found in the global village, customer care has become one of the aspects that boost satisfaction, loyalty, and, in turn, the growth of a business over time. Today, customers want everything to be quick, effective, and tailored to their needs, whether they are asking for assistance with an order, solving a problem, or inquiring about certain items. Ecommerce customer support plays a crucial role in meeting these expectations and ensuring a seamless shopping experience.

These developments raise the stakes in the organization’s structure within eCommerce as customer care service delivery becomes central. On the other hand, providing internal customer support may be challenging and costly in terms of resource investment, significantly if the business has grown operationally. This is where outsourcing customer support comes in. Outsourcing allows eCommerce companies to support customers about their needs without straining their primary functions.

In this article, we will take a closer look at the role of customer service for ecommerce ventures, the benefits of ecommerce customer support outsourcing, situations that require customer support outsourcing, the kind of support that can be outsourced, and the factors to consider when selecting a provider.

Overview: The Importance of Customer Service in Ecommerce

In the ecommerce business, customer support comes first. For an online shopper who does not have a physical store to visit, brand interaction occurs at various digital touchpoints. Whether through live chat, email, or the telephone, customers anticipate timely replies and answers to their challenges. According to research by HubSpot, the propensity to purchase from repeat business with good customer service is 93%. Further, a single negative experience from Chat support services will not only lead to a lost purchase. Still, it may also impact the likelihood of consumers purchasing from a brand again because they share poor experiences over review platforms or in other proximity.

Advantages of Custom Service Delegation

Ecommerce firms start reaping the benefits of outsource customer service as they start expanding to other geographical locations. Let us now examine some of those advantages Closely:

1. Cost Effectiveness: Cut Down Overhead Costs

For all sizes of corporations, reducing their operational costs by outsourcing customer support mainly eliminates the costs involved in hiring, training, and keeping an internal support team. As pointed out by research conducted by 20four7VA, operational costs are usually cut down by at least 60%, especially in the context of infrastructure, management and employee benefits. It makes sense to outsource ecommerce customer service team as it is cheaper than building one properly and economically.

2. Expertise Access: Leverage Specialized Skills

Usually, companies that provide outsourcing ecommerce customer support have been and still are the call centres themselves, so it is natural that they come with many experienced professionals. They have best practices for the industry, the latest technology, and agents trained to deal with diverse customer concerns, rendering quality service effectively. This means that customer service provider professionals, like those interacting with and retaining customers, will be available to your company.

3. Scalability: Handle Increased Demand Efficiently

An increase in demand for ecommerce customer support will also come hand in hand with the growth of your Online store. Outsourcing enables you to scale up (or down) fast whenever required without the stress of recruiting or laying off staff. This ensures that you keep up the high service standards even during the highest sale periods, when introducing new products to the market, or when running offers. The outsourced teams will make it easy to cope with the additional workload that has to be managed. 

Outsourcing of Customer Support: The Right Time to Make the Move

Shifting all customer service support to a third-party customer service provider is only a tactical step, and different particular stages or reasons should be expressed in order for this issue to be considered. Some of these stages are as follows:

The Upward Trend in Customer Inquiries

As your business grows, the volume of customer queries may increase to a point where your existing in-house team cannot handle the issues raised.

Internal constraints: If your organization lacks the requisite number of individuals, support structures, or skills to provide customer service, an alternative form of service provision would be to outsource customer service.

Core Competencies

When certain Ecommerce Store Management functions, like product development or sales and marketing, need to be emphasized in the business, it makes sense to outsource the customer service function to achieve that objective.

Contradictory Service Standards

In cases where the internal team cannot adhere to the standards of meeting, for example, response to customer queries in a consistent, timely manner, outsourcing customer support can make it possible to keep customers happy by providing outstanding service at all times.

Varieties of Customer Support Services

If customer service is being outsourced, it is imperative to determine the suitable types of support for the organization’s customer service. Here are several such significant types:

1. Chat Support: On-Demand Assistance

The accessibility of live assistance is one of the reasons why chat support services have risen and become one of the trending support channels in e-commerce. It is helpful to hire chat support to answer customers’ questions in the shortest time possible, assisting customers during the purchase process and resolving simple queries in real time. This also maximizes resource utilization, as agents do not concentrate on one inquiry at a time.

2. Email Support: Elaborate Assisting on Complicated Problems

Email support works best when resolving customer issues that are highly difficult and require extensive elaboration or necessary after-sales action. This means customers can raise any concern to any specific email address, and a customer agent will not mind the time taken as he or she will give well-researched and thorough answers to the customers’ inquiries. For example, email support works best for returns, refinements, or the technical aspects of a product.

3. Phone Support: A Power of Human Speech in Cases of Extreme Urgency

Even in the age of technological advancement in communication, making calls to a customer service provider is still a relevant channel, more so in matters that require urgent or sensitive attention. By speaking with a live agent, the customer can experience a warm and friendly environment that helps to alleviate any fears or worries regarding the duration that the problem will take to solve. In some instances, adding a third party to the call is very advisable, and they should promptly provide socially competent and emotion-enabling staff to your clients.

Key Considerations When Outsourcing

There are several factors to remember before looking for a way to outsource ecommerce customer service into your business.

Quality of Service

Check that the customer service provided by the outsourcing ecommerce customer service is its prime goal. Research the partners and check reviews from previous clients to gauge their training standards and customer satisfaction levels.

Cultural Fit

Make sure the customer service provider is aligned with your branding voice, mission and values. This is more so in cases where agents could be located in diverse places.

Technology Integration

The service provider would need to integrate smoothly into existing technologies like CRM services, help-desk applications, and e-commerce sites and not be a standalone system in operations. This would facilitate effective communication and reporting.

Language and Communication Skills

Consider the geographical expanse of your clientele, and make sure that your outsourced workforce can provide language support as well as interact in the required languages.

Security and Compliance

Customer data is very sensitive to a customer so make sure that your outsourcing company adheres to tough data protection standards such as the GDPR in order to keep your customers data safe.

Parting Words

For a business in ecommerce, outsourcing customer support is quite literally the next step in their evolution. It poses no danger of ‘letting the cat out of the bag’ when cost-effective options are available, and specialist skill requirements can be fulfilled while at the same time scaling the business up with demand. Businesses engaged in ecommerce can rise to the occasion and surpass customers’ expectations without overstretching their in-house teams. Be it real-time chat services, a torrent of filled Emails, or simply having the customers talk on the phone with real people. Outsourcing turns out to be a practical and cost-effective way to improve customer service and enable the desired growth in business.

FAQs

1. What’s the best time to outsource customer service?

The optimal time to outsource ecommerce customer service is when your business is thriving and you’re also receiving a lot of customer requests that your existing team cannot cope with efficiently.

2. How much can I save by outsourcing customer support?

Outsourcing can lower operating expenses by as much as 60 per cent, but this may vary based on the services provided and the service provider.

3. Is it possible to ensure that service quality is not compromised through outsourcing?

Of course, many of the outsourcing ecommerce customer service include detailed reporting and other performance measures so that you can keep track of the quality of the customer interactions.

4. From which customer services can the companies take use of outsourcing?

Outsourcing is especially effective when dealing with clients via chat, making and receiving calls, responding back to emails, managing social networks or even resolving customer inquiries via remote technical assistance. Outsourcing can be done for additional services which include but are not limited to multilingual capabilities and supporting customers round the clock as your business case may be.

5. How do I make sure the outsourced team fits within my brand?

It is vital to complete the proper integration of the outsourced customer service personnel, which also includes extensive training about the voice of your brand, its values, and its culture. Most of the outsourcing ecommerce customer support firms provide customized training and quality control services enabling you to work side by side and supervise the communication with clients to maintain the required level of brand fidelity.