HOW TO USE CUSTOMER SERVICE TO EXPAND YOUR CUSTOMER BASE WHILE MAINTAINING STRONG BRAND LOYALTY
It’s no secret that growing brands are often pulled into two directions:
- Attracting new customers
- Keeping current customers happy and satisfied
In order for your business to grow, you must expand your offering of excellent services and products to attract new customers, but you must also keep in mind attending to the needs and concerns of long-standing customers. That way, your brand can not only continue to maintain its reputation of building strong relationships with customers, but also keep them coming back.
From a financial standpoint, however, these two goals may be in conflict. You want your development team to spend their time, energy, creativity, and money working on new leads and innovating product lines—so how can you balance this with maintaining strong relationships with your current customer base?
The answer could be partnering with an outsourced customer support call center.
THE COST OF OUTSOURCED CUSTOMER SERVICE VS. IN-HOUSE CUSTOMER SUPPORT
Whether it’s in-house or outsourced, the ultimate cost of customer service will depend on a variety of factors, including:
- Desired customer experience
- The number of employees engaged in the process
- The communication methods used (voice, email, chat, and social media interactions)
- Hours of operation of service desk
- Type of cost model
- Complexity of customer requests
Smaller companies in particular have some trepidation about engaging with an outside provider to maintain both customer experience and relationships. Most of these organizations already have incredible customer retention, so there can be some understandable anxiety in seeking outside support for maintaining these relationships.
In reality, providing poor customer service—a common problem of in-house solutions— may be much more costly than investing in outsourced customer service. Why is that? Let’s take a look at the two:
In-House Customer Service Cost
The Hidden Cost of Keeping Customer Service In-House
In theory, in-house customer support seems like a strong solution. You can maintain oversight of all customer service calls, and provide brand-specific training for the customer service agents you hire. If hiring and training a few additional full-time support agents were the only support costs of ensuring brand loyalty, it would be a necessary expense.
However, in-house contact centers end up costing much more due to all the factors involved in creating a good customer service experience— ultimately, in-house solutions can have the opposite effect and actually erode brand loyalty.
Why? Getting in-house customer support up and running takes time and money. As you’re learning the ins and outs of a new industry, it’s likely that response times will be slow as new customer service representatives become brand experts. Therefore, every dropped call, unaddressed issue, or frustrated customer erodes brand integrity. Before long, companies plagued by these issues can be labeled “unresponsive.” Bad customer service and unhappy customers can be the kiss of death in our digital and highly-connected global world.
Outsourced Customer Service Cost
Upfront Investment, Long-Term Cost-Savings
The average cost of an outsourced customer support company will vary depending on the pricing model you choose. Typically, outsourced solutions may be contracted by the minute, hour, or the price model that is best suited to support your business needs. While this may seem like a sizable upfront investment, it will ultimately be paid back in large dividends.
When you outsource contact center needs to experienced customer service providers, you are also outsourcing many of the headaches that come along with it:
- Hiring and training effective staff and management
- Purchasing and maintaining the omnichannel technology that allows your customers to reach you via call, messaging, or live chat
- Having to figure out HR and payroll complexities from hourly workers
- Logging and recording information of every call due to legal necessities
- Creating office space to house agents
Overall, the average cost of outsourced customer service pays for itself in the end! Not only do you eliminate these headaches, you also have many other items covered within the cost of outsourcing, including:
- Agent replacement and training
- Ongoing training of agents
- Some telco charges
- Software purchasing
- Workforce management
- Audits and performance monitoring
- Licensing and certification
- Analytical tools
An outsourced solution will also allow you to collect and mine valuable metrics about call volume and buying patterns. And if a freak thunderstorm cuts the power, you can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that a redundant facility will ensure you don’t miss a single customer inquiry.
Contact Customer Direct
If you’re looking for help implementing a culture of service to let your customers know they come first, our experts can help. For over twenty years, the support team at Customer Direct have been leaders in creating positive experiences on behalf of prominent brands in the ecommerce.
Providing excellent customer satisfaction at every touchpoint on their journey is our passion and our business. Contact us today for a cost-effective solution.
