Good Tips for Outsourcing E-commerce Customer Service

Due to the large population of customers and consequently the queries and problems with services, businesses are now hiring third-party customer service representative providers. These outsourced eCommerce customer service representatives are frequently employed in call centers and manage all incoming and outgoing calls. Often, the same customer service representative agents are also busy handling virtual/online communication with consumers through chat or email support systems.

It has, undoubtedly, become the need of the hour for businesses to outsource their customer support for eCommerce, and this to be available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Moreover, consumers of the 21st century do not want all processes to be automated and would prefer to be able to have some degree of human contact.

Talking to a customer service representative over a telephone allows for a better experience and customer satisfaction and builds a personalized connection with the business’s team. Tending to all customers equally and providing consistently the same degree of satisfaction is not always possible for the business employees tasked with other responsibilities.

While we’ve established that outsourcing e-commerce customer support service is a key to a thriving business, let’s discuss a few tips that will be helpful when considering outsourcing.

Taking responsibility and being accountable: Handing over the customer support service department to the representatives does not revoke the responsibility to ensure you’re providing quality support service and that your customers’ needs are prioritized. It would be the company’s responsibility to ensure that all support agents are well-informed and sufficiently acquainted to deal with all complaints.

1. Be clear, systematic, and direct about what you want:

It is crucial to be open and direct with your outsourcing team and ensure there are no miscommunications. Brief them early on and hold as many official meetings as possible to ensure they know your business and what you expect from the outsourcing team. In addition, get to know your customer representatives on an individual level. Know who you’re hiring for the job.

2. Communicate payments and keep a check on your budget:

Hiring an outsourcing team that will provide customer service on behalf of your company will require adequate funding and detailed knowledge about the budget within which you can work. Communicate beforehand about what your third-party provider has in mind about the finances. Being honest from the beginning can avoid misunderstandings later on.

3. Data encryption and security:

Ensure that the team you’re hiring for your customer support service department is well aware of the essential data security elements they need to establish if they have already not done so. Businesses are spending large sums of money to ensure sensitive customer information stays encrypted and secure in an attempt to break through the system.

4. Improving response time:

First response time is the time it takes for the customer service representative to attend to the customer and largely bases the subsequent interactions with the customer. Set up an automated response until one of the team members can personally handle the complaint or query. Furthermore, ensure all representatives are well aware of the high-priority complaints and are skilled in managing them in the correct order.