6 Tips for a Better Experience When You Outsource Your Customer Service

Customer service is important to customer retention. According to surveys of consumers, at least 86% say they take their business to a different company if the customer service they receive is bad. They admit they are also willing to pay up to 25% more for a better experience in this area. It has been estimated that United States businesses lose about $41 billion every year to unpleasant customer service experiences. More over, nearly 78% of all consumers admit they have bailed on a transaction because the customer service experience they had was not good. In light of all of these data, you may be looking to outsource customer service for your business. Here are some tips to make the experience better.

1. Look at your current situation. Hiring an outsource customer service firm may be the best thing you can do to grow your customer base and improve your bottom line. Think about how much of your employees time is spent on customer service. Do you have more customers calling in than you are able to help effectively and efficiently? Is the feedback you are getting from your workers and your customers and clients says that you are no longer handling it all as well as you could? If you find your people are taking time away from their full time jobs to step in and help with customer service issues, it may be time to bring in an customer service outsourcing company.
2. Look at what your needs actually are. Different companies, even in the same industries, have different needs when it comes to the customer service support they want to provide. There are different services that they can provide. These range from just taking messages to handling live chat sessions with customers, interacting with clients and customers on social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Be careful about hiring an outsource customer service firm that can handle your needs.
3. Talk to a few customer service outsourcing companies. When people interact with your company, whether it is on the phone, via a chat session or on Twitter or Facebook, that person with whom they interact becomes the face of your company. If the experience they have with that person is bad, it will hurt your reputation. When people have bad experiences with a company or business, they are not often shy about telling their friends and family. Take that into serious consideration when you are looking to hire outsource customer service firm.
4. Always read over the entire contract. This really should go without saying for any of the vendors you use. When you are looking to hire an outsourced company to handle your customer service, you need to do you r due diligence and read through everything in the contract. There may be fees if you want to reduce the services you get from the company. It is a really good idea to have a qualified lawyer look over any contracts you sign just to make sure. You have to able to cancel your contract if you are not getting the help you need, or if you do not need as much as you thought you would.
5. Make sure you understand the billing. Reputable companies who work in this area will have no problem giving you a detailed assessment and quote of all the costs that you will have using them. This itemized document should have all of the charges and any fees that will be charged. Look out for hidden fees and charges that you may be stuck with. It always pays to pay good attention to these things.
6. Make sure the company you hire does work through social media. While people like to talk to customer service workers, they also like to get the help they need through a chat session, on their Twitter account and through Facebook. Using these channels shows how much you care about customer service, therefore you need to hire a company that work though these channels.

It takes a much greater amount of time and effort to get a new customer than to keep an existing one happy and coming back so good customer service is essential to your business.

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