5 reasons to outsource your customer service

How well do you care for your customers? While customer service and customer care do go hand-in-hand, they also have slightly different meanings. To ensure your customers have a satisfactory interaction with your brand, it’s important to know the difference between the two so you can provide your customers with the best experience possible.

So, what is customer care vs customer service?

Customer care is how well your customers are taken care of while they interact with your business (Forbes, 2018). Customer service on the other hand is the direct one-on-one interaction between a consumer and a staff member (Investopedia, 2019). Attending to the needs of a customer and building an emotional connection doesn’t just happen during the face-to-face interactions of customer service. Acknowledging the difference between customer service and customer care will allow your business to succeed both in-person, online and over the phone.

Because of the slight differences between customer service and customer care, you may require different staff members to carry out each element in your business. For example, your telephone customer care may need to be 24/7. The staff members that assist in the all-day every-day care may not be the staff members that assist with face-to-face service.

While it’s great having a local customer care team, it can also become quite expensive with things like penalty and weekend rates, increasing labour costs and the list goes on. Outsourcing customer care is a cost saving alternative that provides businesses with the opportunity to care for the customers in a way they didn’t think was possible. While your local team focus on face-to-face interactions, your offshore team members can ensure your customers are receiving the care they need both online and over the phone.

The benefits of outsourcing customer service

1. 24/7 customer care

   
   With the help of offshore team members, your business has the option to offer customers around the clock support that your budget previously limited. This means you will be able to have a team member available to provide your customers with all the care they need online and over the phone 24-hours a day, 7-days a week.

2. Helps build and retain a positive reputation for your business

   Providing great customer care will build a positive reputation for your business. Leaving your customers satisfied in their interactions with your business will only bring positivity to your reputation. Positive word of mouth is priceless.

3. Increases your online presence

   We often find that time-poor clients don’t use social media because they simply don’t have the time to manage and monitor it. By outsourcing the customer care in your business, you also have the opportunity to kickstart or build on your social media presence. The impact of a strong online presence can be a real game changer.

4. Increase productivity

   Hiring an offshore customer care team will allow your local team to focus on providing the best in-person customer service possible. They will also have the time to focus on high value tasks that will help make a real difference to your bottom line. With the combination of offshore and onshore employees, you’ll find that productivity and efficiency in your business will increase dramatically.

5. Supercharge business growth

   Now that your customer care is being taken of, you should have the time to reflect on previous and present strategies to outline opportunities for improvement in your business. Gathering feedback and statistics from your outsourced customer care team will allow you to find what works best for your customers. Your offshore team can easily adapt their way of working to suit your new goals and targets so you can continue to grow and improve as a business.

Does your customer care meet the needs of your customers?

Understanding the difference between customer service and customer care will leverage your ability to provide the best customer experience possible. To learn more about the importance of customer experience and how it can impact your business, check out this blog.