Customer Service
Customer service outsourcing trends for 2023
In the age where switching brands is easy for the customer, the quality of your customer service can save or sink the company. According to a survey, 60% of respondents said they would become a brand’s loyal customers if the business treated them better.
Excellent customer service is one of the important pillars of a business’s success. Businesses understand this, yet only 58% of them are satisfied with the quality of customer service they provide.
This article will explain the current challenges and customer service outsourcing trends.
Why is customer service challenging?
Customer service is an active role that requires attention to detail, robust communication, and patience to resolve complex problems. The team must do the following things efficiently –
- Understand the customers’ needs, goals, and expectations.
- Use the service manual to answer difficult questions from impatient customers.
- Deny the demands that are outside the company’s capability, such as a discount, and still handle the conversation satisfactorily.
- Listen to and empathise, apologise for any issues, and provide a resolution to any irate customers.
- Serve several customers regularly through calls, live chat, or emails.
Due to these challenges, customer service is overwhelming, and the teams often work under stress. Businesses must upgrade to newer technology to support their customer service team. An efficient way to access cutting-edge technology and talent for your customer support is to outsource it.
Customer service outsourcing trends
By outsourcing customer service, businesses can reduce operating costs and time and achieve greater staffing flexibility. The customer service trends to look for in 2023 are –
Focus on the quality
Companies focus on high-quality customer service, requiring skilled employees and advanced technology. Since this is expensive in most countries, businesses are outsourcing for better pricing, expertise, and customised solutions.
At the same time, 88% of the companies in a survey said that cost reduction was a primary objective for outsourcing.
Business continuity
Strategic outsourcing with an overseas partner can increase commitment and trust to help reach the objectives easily. This helps in business continuity during times of disruption.
Outsourcing gives greater flexibility in work if the company starts or pauses any projects. It helps complete the work before a deadline and increases collaborative initiatives.Access to niche talent
It may be difficult or expensive to find the right talent in your geographic location. Surveys show that 75% of companies have a hard time finding the right talent in the US. It is time-consuming and inefficient to upskill in-house teams but easy to outsource and access the talent from another geographic location.
Adoption of modern technologies
Companies want to adopt newer technologies faster through outsourcing. These technologies help in automating processes, increasing efficiency, and simplifying operations.
Technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), robotic process automation (RPA), the internet of things (IoT), machine learning (ML), and cloud computing are easy to access through outsourcing.
Research shows that the market for RPA and AI will grow by 38.2% and 38.1% by 2030. While it is difficult to develop and leverage these capabilities in-house, it is easy to outsource.
The need for better cybersecurity
Research shows that 82% of companies faced a cyberattack in 2022. With evolving nature and frequency of cyber threats, it is difficult to handle them in-house. Businesses handle sensitive customer information and are choosing to hire a managed service provider (MSP).
Connected services for a better customer experience
According to a survey, 94% of respondents say that customer service is critical for driving brand value. Customers and agents need to connect with other parts of the organisation, including sales, operations, logistics, accounts, and e-commerce.
Having a standalone customer service team that takes hours or days to fetch information from another department is no longer an option.
Growth in customer self-service and proactive service
Sustainable customer service models enable accessible self-service options as a medium for a better experience. Companies are investing in self-service channels through knowledge databases and AI-based chatbots.
Proactive service uses technology to identify instances where a user needs assistance and leverages in-app messaging to reach out proactively. This is a big cost-saver and adds to a better customer experience.
For organisations on the digital transformation journey, agility is key in responding to a rapidly changing technology and business landscape. Now more than ever, it is crucial to deliver and exceed on organisational expectations with a robust digital mindset backed by innovation. Enabling businesses to sense, learn, respond, and evolve like a living organism, will be imperative for business excellence going forward. A comprehensive, yet modular suite of services is doing exactly that. Equipping organisations with intuitive decision-making automatically at scale, actionable insights based on real-time solutions, anytime/anywhere experience, and in-depth data visibility across functions leading to hyper-productivity, Live Enterprise is building connected organisations that are innovating collaboratively for the future.
How can Infosys BPM help?
These customer service trends not only require hyper-personalisation but also new talent and technologies, which are difficult to nurture in-house.
Infosys BPM understands a company’s client-specific expectations and addresses them using a single holistic omnichannel experience. The objectives include cost savings, better service through technology, and a metrics-driven approach.
Read more about customer service outsourcing solutions at Infosys BPM.
