E-commerce stores and platforms are growing faster than ever.
Due to the convenience and accessibility of e-commerce, research has readily predicted that the number of digital shoppers would increase for the year 2020. However, unprecedented events have lead to an even higher volume of purchases, pushing consumers to turn online for almost every good and service imaginable.
This has left businesses in a mad scramble to beef up both their customer support hours, production and shipping capabilities. But, when you’re part of a small to mid-size enterprise (SME), meeting all of those goals is no easy task.
That’s why you need to outsource one of them. Luckily, like e-commerce, outsourced customer support services are a growing industry, and we’re going to show you how and why you should use them.
The importance of customer support
Nothing has made the importance of e-commerce stores more apparent than the most recent events of 2020 that have kept countless consumers home bound, and in the age of the “informed consumer”, the act of online window shopping has created a new kind of online buyer.
They now scour the internet for every bit of information they can find before purchasing your product or service. First, they find out which products best suit their needs, then which stores to buy them from. Even with the majority of information on hand, they’ll likely still contact support to confirm their research.
See, online shopping – as commonplace as it is – still poses a lot of doubt and risk for consumers.
Without seeing a physical store or feeling a product in real life to know its quality, genuine, human customer service and reviews are the only way they have to ensure the legitimacy of an SME.
With this in mind, we’re sure you can spare a little time to make sure your customer support is perfect. Remember, you’re asking these folks to share their payment information based on no more than some images and text on their screens.
The benefits of effective customer support
Easing individual concerns and establishing trust with your clientele will work in your favor.
Excellent customer service is personalized for every visitor that gets in touch. It’s direct, responsive, and phrased in a way that’s easily understood by the intended recipient.
Speaking with an empathic customer support agent results in positive customer experience and can open doors for your business. It’s been well-documented that positive customer experience can get consumers through that final stretch towards buying your product. But that’s not the end-all-be-all of customer service.
It’s also known to turn your customers into brand advocates, get them to spend more at your online (and physical) stores, and to become brand loyalists who’ll refer more customers to you in the future.
Considering how crucial it can be for the future of your SME, customer support demands more of your time than simply checking Facebook messages in between work breaks. And if you honestly don’t have the time? You should consider outsourcing.
Reasons you should outsource support for your e-commerce store
There are more than a few compelling reasons why outsourcing might be the next best move for your business. Among them:
You’re spending too much time managing your customer support team.
This is assuming, of course, that you even have a dedicated customer support team. For smaller businesses and start-ups, a “support team” might usually be composed of one person or “whichever core member is free at that moment.”
As demands for your products grow, this quickly becomes an unsustainable practice. Various members trying to balance customer inquiries with their own work can eventually lead to oversight. And nothing ruins an e-commerce business’s reputation more than a missed order or deadline.
Not to mention, customers don’t really think too much about operating hours when it comes to e-commerce stores. They expect to be able to reach your customer support team early in the day and late into the evening. If you outsource support and cover those off hours, not only will you keep your customers happier, you’ll also make sure your in-house team is well-rested and in prime form for your workday.
Staffing in-house is time-consuming and costly.
Even if you decide to scale your human resources now, various conditions might make interviewing candidates and on-boarding them difficult, if not physically impossible.
There’s the option to hire individual freelancers, but for the inexperienced, transitioning your entire customer support process to a remote system isn’t as easy as setting up a Trello board.
The additional training and creation of training modules add to your workload, too. The solution? Hire a full service outsourcer. They will handle all these tasks for you and more.
Volumes are increasing.
With more and more consumers turning to e-commerce stores and online orders piling on, there is no better time to scale and expand your business model.
Bringing in an outsourced team dedicated to customer support lets you serve customers quickly, and leaves you free to do what you do best- planning and implementing new sales and strategies to grow your business.
It’s this kind of forward-thinking that can help you rise above the competition.
Volumes are decreasing.
Yes, outsourcing can also be something to consider when business is slower. If volumes decrease significantly, you can outsource support, technical support, and even billing to save on cost.
What about short term decreases? Yes, outsourcing works for those too. As is the case with most outsourced work, you decide the duration of your contract. If you just need a few extra hands for a busy holiday, hiring outsourced staff for that period is much cheaper than hiring in-house staff. This is especially true if you don’t expect the same amount of demand afterwards.
There’s also the bonus that positive customer experiences now can lead to less customer support needs later on.
When consumers trust the quality and assurance of your brand, they might skip the additional inquiries and go straight to purchase, saving you time and cost.
Your options for outsourcing companies
By its very definition, outsourcing means tapping a third-party – ideally, one that specializes in customer service – to manage every inquiry that comes your business’ way.
But in this scenario, too, you need to take the time to find the most trustworthy partner.
Your search can lead you to offshore companies that come with history in the industry at a lower cost. It could lead you to local companies like Concert8 with a full suite of support services and entire teams included in their packages. You might even find chatbots to lighten the load of your human staff!
How to find the right outsourcing company
The only thing that needs to be emphasized is that budget alone doesn’t determine the outsourcing company that fits your e-commerce store. Before you approach them for a quote, you need to ask yourself what your needs are at the moment.
Have you made sure they can follow your brand guidelines and voice? Do just you need to hire someone to mitigate holiday orders quickly? Or do you need a team you can trust 100%, even with little supervision on your part, so you can prepare to meet your long-term goals?
Whatever your goals, you can find outsourcing companies the same way customers find your products.
Search for them on Google or a social media platform. Compare company prices, services, and reviews. Contact their customer support, so you can get a demo of how they might work and how quickly they respond, and find the right outsourcing company with the same discerning eye of an informed online shopper.