Many startup firms are engaged in an uphill battle from the very beginning. Not only do they need to compete with multimillion enterprises in their field, but do so while having limited resources in virtually every way.
One of the big challenges, especially for eCommerce startups, is establishing a reputable and well-functioning customer support center to improve their brand outlook. This can be achieved in a number of ways, and almost all of them are simply not feasible for an up-and-comer. The answer, therefore, comes in the form of outsourcing and its ability to alleviate most of the challenges of establishing a call center. Here’s why startups are now starting to gravitate more towards outsourced customer support services.
1. Manpower Limitations
Your ability to keep customers satisfied comes down to a single factor; manpower. To resolve hundreds of queries and complaints effectively, you need hundreds of agents trained with call handling best practices and ready to respond to your customers. With the average startup strength at about 10 people, customer support can be an impossible task for many new companies.
This issue is easily resolved by contact centers that house hundreds of agents handling multiple projects. Contact centers can be extremely versatile as they can take on projects of varying sizes operating in different time zones. This allows call centers to utilize them as well for tasks such as call answering, online customer support as well as email marketing.
2. Lack of Training
Even for startups who have the number of people required for customer support, the next big challenge is training their staff to provide satisfactory customer service. Each customer support agent must have experience in dealing with customers and must be well versed in responding with minimal legal blowback. Furthermore, the global nature of conducting business in this day and age means that agents must also preferably be multilingual.
Finding the right agents and getting them up to speed to best represent your brand is a major obstacle for multinational companies let alone startups. That is why it is best to bypass this step and instead get a call center service provider. Not only do they have the manpower to handle nearly any customer support project, but also the necessary training to maximize CSAT and the overall customer experience.
3. Cost Concerns
All the hiring and training needed to get a customer support branch up and running can be incredibly expensive. And this is excluding all the additional expenses needed to procure equipment, software, and office space for your agents. This can be a huge financial burden for smaller companies.
Building and maintaining a customer support team has always been a costly endeavor which is why it is unfavorable for startups who are trying to utilize every penny effectively. Thankfully, the advent of modern VoIP technology has made this a lot cheaper than ten years ago, but it is still costly on a larger scale. This is yet another reason why startups are outsourcing customer support to contact centers.
4. Customer Data
An additional service that third-party call centers provide is the collection of customer feedback data. Everything from call duration to customer satisfaction score is maintained by customer support centers and they readily share this data with clients in the form of monthly or weekly reports.
This is invaluable for startups who are still in the process of designing and tweaking their services and products in their early stage of business. Knowing exactly what the customer thinks of their brand can be crucial in order to have a direction for future improvements. This can also help answer questions such as; is this product priced properly or are customers willing to purchase more of a product.
5. Business Seasonality
In any given year and for any given industry, business goes through valleys and peaks. Seasonality is something almost every company struggles with but it can be particularly impactful for small businesses. During slow business days, they must adapt and cut costs quickly.
Having customer support in such a business atmosphere can be burdensome for small businesses as off-seasons can mean laying off staff and undoing months of work. Keeping up with the seasonal shift is something third-party call centers are especially adept at. Project managers and human resources always ensure their staff shift and move to different projects. This way, startups can hire call centers on a flexible basis knowing that outsourced customer support can scale their cost up or down based on their business health.
Conclusion
Hiring a customer support call center is a surefire way for most businesses to become global, even for startups. Furthermore, it’s a great way to improve revenue without investing too much while also ensuring that you nurture a loyal customer base that will stick with your business for years to come.
With many BPO’s ready to serve, getting started couldn’t be easier. With IdeasUnlimited, you can set up your own multilingual call center team quickly and efficiently. Be sure to contact IdeasUnlimited today and level up your business by reaching customers far and wide thanks to enterprise-grade multilingual services.