Your customer journey should not end once you have closed a deal. The goal should always be to nurture your customer relationships by continuously winning them over and keeping them loyal to your brand.
One way of doing this is by providing your customers with a reliable and highly capable technical support team. As your business expands, your customer base also grows. This means that more customers will be acquiring technical assistance from your organization.
In many cases, businesses usually do not have enough manpower and resources to cater to their customers’ technical support needs. A lot of thriving companies these days are opting for technical support outsourcing to aid their daily operations.
Technical support outsourcing – overview
Technical support outsourcing involves hiring an external provider to handle and manage your technical support processes.
This means your outsourced technical support agents will be in charge of helping your customers solve technology or software-related issues with your products or services.
You can choose to outsource your customers’ life cycle, from pre to post-sales. Examples of the most common technical support outsourcing services are:
- Account management
- Installations and repair
- Software activations
- Troubleshooting
- Warranty support
Traditionally, companies procure technical support outsourcing services as a strategic practice.
At present, modern businesses contract out their technical support to reduce their overall costs and streamline their processes.
Moreover, this helps them offer more reliable customer support while working with outsourced tech support experts.
Technical support outsourcing can be done through onshoring, nearshoring, and offshoring. Over the years, foreign companies have opted to offshore technical support services to developing nations like the Philippines and India.
Technical support outsourcing benefits
Technical support outsourcing offers the following advantages to organizations:
Cost-saving
One of the primary benefits of outsourcing, in general, is it enables you to save massively on costs.
This is especially true when offshoring to developing countries like the Philippines. Offshoring technical support to reputable BPO providers in the country — for example, OP360 — enables you to save up to 70% of your overall costs.
24/7 technical support
Because of today’s tech advancements and the internet, customers can reach out to your business anytime and anywhere. Outsourcing your technical support enables your customers to have immediate access to your technical support 24/7.
Technical support expertise
Outsourcing providers like OP360 invest in training and honing agents’ technical support skills, knowledge, and capabilities. Further, technical support agents employed by OP360 usually already have experience in working with clients in various industries.
Technical support outsourcing risks
Just like any form of outsourcing, technical support outsourcing also has its downsides that you should be aware of:
Poor quality of work
When you outsource technical support, you will be passing on the responsibility to your outsourced representatives. You will not have control over the quality of work that will be performed by your service provider.
However, choosing the right outsourcing provider guarantees that you will get hold of tech support specialists who are properly trained and professional.
Limited technical knowledge
Your outsourced personnel are not your in-house employees. They will not have in-depth knowledge about your products and services, including how your processes work.
Make sure to give your outsourcing partner a complete set of guidelines, which includes a comprehensive outline of all your tech specifications.
Lack of direct rapport with customers
Contracting out your technical support processes lessens your direct interaction with your customers. Sometimes gathering important information from your customers may seem to be too far-fetched.
This is why you must maintain consistent communication with your outsourced technical support team.
Technical support outsourcing: 4 steps to make it right
Now that you are already familiar with the pros and cons of technical support outsourcing, here are four steps to make your venture a success:
Step 1. Lay out your needs
Before outsourcing, the very first thing you need to do is identify your type of needs. Ask yourself the following:
- How many tech support agents do you need to outsource?
- What is your outsourcing budget?
- How many customer interactions are you handling on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis?
- Do you need technical support agents who can speak a different language?
Step 2. Choose the right outsourcing provider
In choosing which outsourcing company suits your business needs, you need to do a thorough background check.
You can check your chosen outsourcing provider’s credibility in several ways – client reviews, testimonials, awards, certifications, and trust seals.
Step 3. Set up your troubleshooting manual
Once you’ve identified all your needs and have chosen a credible outsourcing provider, the next step is to create your troubleshooting manual. It will serve as your outsourced team’s reference as they attend to your customers.
Your troubleshooting manual should incorporate the following:
- Your frequently asked questions (FAQs)
- Detailed information about your products and services
- Your internal processes
- Other relevant information and resources
Step 4. Collect feedback and be open to adjustments
You should always be open to suggestions and inputs as you work with your outsourcing provider. Work closely with your outsourced team to help you smoothen out your tech support processes.
This way, you can improve your technical support and provide the best services to your patrons.
