Outsourcing customer service to third-party providers has emerged as an efficient and cost-effective approach among Shopify businesses. Outsourcing support activities like customer calls, complaints, and other issues to contractors helps small businesses access the expertise and experience of professionals, without breaking the bank.
The outsourcing of customer services helps companies concentrate on key business areas. For example, business owners can devote more time to competitor research and the development of new products or brand promotion. This not only saves time but also results in high customer satisfaction rates. Higher customer satisfaction, in turn, results in higher retention rates and sales.
Benefits of Outsourcing Customer Service for Shopify Businesses
Outsourcing customer service for Shopify businesses offers numerous benefits that significantly impact a company’s overall performance. These benefits include:
1. Cost Reduction and Optimization
According to a recent Deloitte report, cost reduction is the primary reason why 59% of businesses opt for outsourcing customer service functions. Shopify businesses are able to save significantly when they hire an in-house support team. When they outsource, they reduce employment costs, rental overhead, and expenses related to equipment.
2. Availability of Expert Skills and Knowledge
According to the same Deloitte report, 53% of businesses surveyed choose to outsource to mitigate skill and capacity issues they may have in the core team. Outsourcing customer service helps Shopify businesses acquire the services of expert and skilled professionals. This specialization means that customer queries can be addressed in a more efficient and timely manner.
3. Scalability and Flexibility in Managing Customer Support
Outsourcing customer services gives Shopify businesses flexibility to increase or decrease their customer support as required. This need for flexibility could be due to seasonal fluctuations or special occasions where the demand for customer support may increase.
Since the parties that Shopify businesses outsource to can easily hire additional resources to accommodate the increased volumes, the customers receive timely help. On the other hand, during periods of low activity, companies can reduce the amount of outsourced services they require, thus managing costs effectively.
Challenges for Shopify Businesses to Consider When Outsourcing Customer Service
While Shopify customer service outsourcing has a lot of benefits, there are also a few challenges that Shopify businesses have to consider and mitigate for. These challenges include:
1. Maintaining Brand Consistency and Customer Satisfaction
The major issue that often comes with outsourcing the customer services is that the outsourced team will not offer the same level of brand identity or customer satisfaction as the in-house team. This can be quite a challenge when there is need to ensure that the company values, culture and voice are incorporated in a team that is not part of the business.
To address this, we recommend a thorough training program for the outsourced team to share elaborate guidelines on the brand and its tone.
2. Communication and Language Barrier Issues
Communication plays a crucial role in customer service and hence should be done in the most effective way possible. Contracting teams in different areas or countries might create language barrier issues, which can be a major problem in outsourcing.
Shopify businesses must ensure that the outsourcing partners have the required language skills and comprehension of the cultural nuances of the targeted consumers. Formal training and constant feedback sessions can also help to enhance the team’s communication skills.
3. Security and Data Safety Concerns
Working with an outsourcing services provider means that customers’ data can potentially be accessed by third parties, which leads to certain data security risks. Such risks include data breaches, hacking, and unauthorized access to and distribution of customer data.
Shopify businesses can overcome this challenge by implementing proper data security protocols, carrying out frequent data audits, and confirming that your outsourcing partner has an excellent record in data security. It is crucial to make sure that the organization you outsource to meets certain standards of data protection and complies with the current regulatory frameworks like GDPR or CCPA.
Best Practices for Outsourcing Customer Service on Shopify
Customer service outsourcing has become the new normal for many companies, especially those operating their businesses on Shopify. To ensure successful Shopify customer service outsourcing, follow these best practices:
1. Vet Outsourcing Partners Thoroughly
Some factors to consider include the past experience, expertise, client testimonials and other references if any. Evaluate their technological expertise and scalability as well as their compliance with existing security standards.
2. Establish Clear Communication Channels
For instance, use Slack or Microsoft Teams to support communication and provide timely updates. Meet regularly, foster transparency, and give feedback to stay in sync and resolve problems proactively.
3. Provide Comprehensive Training
Onboard the team you’re outsourcing to as you would an in-house team. Provide them with scripts, brand identity and guide, FAQs as well as access to your company manual so they can understand your product.
4. Implement Quality Assurance and Monitoring
Regularly monitor and evaluate the performance of the outsourced team using QA reviews and customer feedback. Use tools like Zendesk or Freshdesk for ticketing and tracking interactions. Review call recordings, chat transcripts, and email responses to ensure consistency and quality.
5. Foster a Collaborative Culture
Promote cooperation between in-house and outsource staff to establish a unified strategy of customer services. Encourage and foster communication and collaboration to create a healthy working environment between the two teams.
Effective Strategies for Managing Outsourced Customer Service Teams
Managing outsourced customer service teams effectively requires strategic planning and implementation of best practices. Here are some key strategies to ensure success:
1. Set Clear Performance Metrics and KPIs
Set up metrics like response time, issue closure rate, or customer satisfaction rates with which one could evaluate the effectiveness of the outsourced team. Closely monitor KPIs with tools like Zendesk or Freshdesk to ensure that they are well aligned to achieving the intended business objectives.
2. Regular Performance Reviews and Feedback Sessions
Closely monitor the outsourced team and conduct performance evaluations to ensure compliance with the contractual KPIs. Give constructive feedback while also recognizing achievements within the team to motivate them. Identify problem areas as well.
3. Encourage Collaboration and Integration with In-House Teams
Encourage collaboration between teams by integrating the outsourced team with your in-house staff. Leverage collaborative tools and software to improve communication clarity and timing. This will improve inter-team dynamics which is good for team building.
4. Continuous Improvement Through Feedback Loops
Create feedback loops within the organizational structure to generate insights from both customers and the team you outsourced to. Continuously analyze the feedback you are gathering to get valuable insights that can help you improve your customer service delivery and increase customer satisfaction.
Tools and Technologies for Streamlining Outsourced Customer Service
Here are some essential tools that can streamline operations and enhance the customer service experience for Shopify businesses and their clients:
1. CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software
Customer relationship management software such as Microsoft’s Salesforce or HubSpot enables an organization to track all the interactions with the customer, visualize the history of services provided to a particular customer or even store key information about the consumer.
This guarantees that every person in the outsourced team receives any information needed in order to give focused and quality support.
2. Helpdesk ticketing systems
Using Zendesk and Freshdesk, customers’ requests can be ticketed and tagged and handled with the necessary urgency. These platforms help mainly in prioritizing, or routing and managing the customer requests or inquiries, facilitating an efficient resolution of the customer’s query.
3. Live chat and chatbot solutions
This may involve using live chat applications such as the Intercom or chatbot solutions which can engage customers in live chat immediately. The application directs the simple queries to the Chatbots to reduce the extent of interaction with the human agents over simple queries thereby increasing the response time and customer satisfaction.
4. Knowledge base and self-service portals
Creating a secondary knowledge base with Confluence or Helpjuice enables customers to resolve simple issues without consulting other sources. Customer issues can be addressed through self-service portals that allow the customers to solve problems without submitting tickets to support departments, thus decreasing the load on the outsourced team.
Conclusion
Shopify business owners should outsource customer service because it’s the cost-effective approach for growing businesses. Outsourcing customer services also provides access to seasoned talent, and offers flexibility with regards to scale. Nevertheless, questions concerning brand identity, communication barriers, and data security must be answered to avoid compromising the success of the business.
Utilizing effective management strategies for outsourced teams alongside accurate tools, Shopify store owners can provide the best customer service to maximize customer satisfaction and engagement.
For any Shopify store owner who wishes to improve customer relations through outsourcing, proper planning, clear communication and constant evaluation and reiteration are critical. If you are interested in outsourcing customer services, check out Wing. We can help you hire an assistant for your customer service team or a full team. For more information, get in touch with us today!
