Customer support is the backbone of any successful business, but managing it in-house can become overwhelming as your company grows.
Between handling increasing customer inquiries, maintaining quality service, and staying on top of other business priorities, it’s easy for cracks to start showing. Outsourcing your customer support could be the perfect solution, allowing you to focus on your core operations while ensuring your customers receive the exceptional care they deserve.
But how do you know when it’s the right time to take the leap? In this blog, we’ll explore 8 key signs that indicate it’s time to consider outsourcing your customer support. From struggling with scalability to dealing with rising costs, these indicators will help you decide if partnering with an experienced outsourced contact centre provider like Dawleys is the next step for your business.
1. Your response times are increasing
No one likes being stuck on hold, listening to the same recorded messages and music, when all you want is to speak to an advisor. As consumers, we’ve all experienced this frustration. But as a business owner, poor customer service response times don’t just irritate customers - they can seriously eat into your profits.
One of the biggest advantages of outsourcing is gaining access to a dedicated, specialised contact centre. With flexible resources at your fingertips, you can scale your support team up or down as your business needs change.
For example, outsourcing customer support can offer the ability to increase headcount around seasonal offers and sales events like Black Friday when call volumes could be higher. Bringing in expert resource also allows access to specialist tools and technology, like live chat features that you may not be able to offer in-house, and providing a near-instant response.
2. Customer satisfaction levels are low
If you’ve noticed a drop-off in customer satisfaction rates or even worse, poor online reviews, you might have concluded your in-house customer service (or lack of it!) is to blame.
Sometimes resetting and refocusing your efforts on the core activities within your business and allowing a third-party like Dawleys with the resources and expertise to run your contact centre can help. Outsourcing customer support to a specialised partner can level up your customer satisfaction rates - a reputable provider will have not only the adequate resources to get to your customers’ needs in a timely manner, but also bring industry best practice and the latest tools.
3. Responses vary depending on the agent offering support
If your in-house customer support team has been something of an afterthought, it’s likely that your customers are getting varying quality when it comes to the response.
Agents within an in-house contact centre often have lower levels of training than an outsourced specialist, and may not have the experience either. Using a highly trained workforce, such as Dawleys, means you get a consistent level of service, end-to-end, no matter the agent dealing with the case. It’s possible to outsource the entire process, handling inbound and outbound calls, or even taking the entire customer journey off your hands - so you can focus on what your business does best.
4. Seasonal pressures on your team
Seasonal peaks can put immense pressure on your customer service team. There are times of the year when the phones don’t stop ringing and inboxes overflow with customer enquiries - and then there are quieter periods where activity slows to a crawl. Managing these fluctuations can make resourcing a constant challenge.
By outsourcing your customer support to a trusted contact centre like Dawleys, you can ensure your team is never overwhelmed during busy times. This approach allows you to maintain availability during high-demand periods without overburdening your in-house staff. With scalable solutions, you can adjust your contact centre operations to match seasonal demand, all without the full-time overheads of an internal team.
5. You don’t have enough expert handlers
You know your business inside and out - but do your contact centre staff? Delivering exceptional customer service requires deep knowledge of your company and its values. That’s where outsourcing can make all the difference.
At Dawleys, customer care and contact centre services are our business. We take the time to truly understand your organisation, ensuring we represent your brand to the highest standard. Reputable outsourced contact centres, like ours, work as an extension of your team, fostering a true partnership to handle everything from following up on sales to addressing customer queries and feedback with professionalism and care.
Building and maintaining a fully staffed, in-house contact centre with highly trained experts can be time-consuming, costly, and inefficient... especially during quieter periods when enquiries are minimal. Outsourcing your customer support gives you access to a flexible, expert team without the need for a long-term commitment to in-house staffing. It’s a cost-effective solution that delivers high-quality service and peace of mind.
6. You need to meet your customers online
Customers looking for support don’t just want to call your business to talk about their issues and queries. People using your business will expect not just to be able to call at their own convenience with a question or problem, they want to take advantage of communication across multiple channels.
Live chat features are an ideal way for customers to give support or raise tickets, as are email and contact forms - but businesses often don’t have the in-house infrastructure to support this.
Increasingly, customers will contact businesses via social media too, and expect a nimble, quick response - which a customer service outsource team can be better able to provide.
7. The technology isn’t up to it
Staying current with the latest tech trends and innovations is costly and resource-sapping, and may not be directly related to your day-to-day business.
Outsourced customer support providers can offer the very latest tools, platforms and advanced technology to support your employees and service users.
Live chat functions are one huge area of growth - but building out such platforms is specialist work, and it’s unlikely that most businesses are able to tie up resource for long periods of time in these projects. Additionally, contact service outsource partners can use analytics tools in order to identify trends and common queries, meaning these insights can be fed back to the business and operational efficiency improved over time. Access to this kind of data-driven approach is a good reason to consider outsourcing your contact centre.
8. You want to expand into new markets
Let’s say your business is in a big phase of growth, and the time is right to set up overseas. Perhaps the business is able to reach new customers in other markets, resulting in expansion.
In order to capitalise on this and increase company profits, your customer service support would have to keep pace - and often the subtleties and customs of a new or emerging market can make this challenging.
That’s where outsourcing comes in - the ability to flex and scale with the growth of your business, and provide support to your new customer base.
Consider that your new market will have its own culture, that outsourced customer contact centres could tap into, ensuring trained, fully versed and knowledgeable staff could navigate.
If nothing else, the volume of enquiries, orders and administrative tasks will increase, meaning that extra headcount will prove costly if kept completely in-house.
Ready to take the next step? Let us help you transform your business today. Contact us now!