Contact Center Outsourcing: Smart Scalable Customer Service

As your organization expands, delivering a consistent experience to thousands, even millions of customers, becomes increasingly difficult. That’s why many companies turn to contact center outsourcing.  

Demand for BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) services for contact centers is growing fast, with some reports suggesting the market will hit a value of $242.80 billion by 2034. It’s not just huge global companies getting involved either. Businesses of all sizes are experimenting with outsourcing to help them navigate the challenges of delivering exceptional, personalized, and convenient support at scale. 

Outsourcing doesn’t just help organizations save money (although some studies suggest companies save around $87,012 per year with BPO services). The right strategy also gives you access to specialist expertise, advanced technologies, and the agility you need to adapt to changing customer preferences. Here’s your guide to the growing benefits of outsourcing.  

What is Contact Center Outsourcing? 

Contact center outsourcing is exactly what it sounds like – you hire external teams to handle aspects of your customer service strategy, rather than trying to manage everything “in-house”. You don’t necessarily need to outsource every aspect of your CX strategy.  

Your internal teams might continue to focus on comprehensive customer success activities, while your outsourced experts deal with things like: 

• Inbound Support: Outsourced teams can handle the common inbound service queries that can’t be resolved by a standard chatbot or automated system. They can answer order questions, address billing issues, or even help with onboarding tasks.  
• Outbound calls: Your specialists might handle things like outbound lead generation, making sales calls, or issuing appointment reminders. They could even contact customers to ask them for feedback or conduct customer satisfaction surveys.  
• Tech Support: Outsourced teams are great for helping both customers and internal employees troubleshoot problems, manage setup steps, and so on. Outsourced tech support experts are common in the software, telecoms, and consumer electronics industries.  
• Omnichannel Support: Are your current teams struggling to deliver consistent service over multiple channels, from social media to email, phone calls, video conversations, and text? Your outsourced teams can handle all of those channels seamlessly.  

Outsourced teams can also help you to scale your service strategy, allowing you to hire professionals who can work around the clock (for 24/7 human support) or speak in various languages. 

Why Businesses Are Embracing Contact Center Outsourcing 

On a broad scale, contact center outsourcing gives businesses an opportunity to offer faster, more consistent service across channels and regions, without the massive overhead. You get access to trained agents who already understand your products and services, cutting-edge technology, and scalable staffing that adjusts with your business needs.  

For businesses in any industry, outsourcing introduces countless benefits, such as: 

• Cost Savings: Hiring additional in-house team members to manage increasing customer service requests and sales tasks can be expensive. Outsourcing is usually a lot cheaper, cutting the costs of renting additional office space, paying for employee benefits, and even dealing with training expenses. On average, companies save $87,000 annually with outsourcing.  
• Access to Skilled Talent: BPO partners offering contact center outsourcing services can give you access to a global pool of skilled professionals. You get access to pre-trained team members who understand how to troubleshoot problems, qualify leads, and even upsell and cross-sell to customers, to boost profits.  
• Scalability and Flexibility: The volume of queries and conversations your contact center manages can fluctuate for a range of reasons. You might receive more calls during the summer or winter months when you’re launching sales and promotions. Outsourcing means you can increase or reduce your number of employees quickly to suit demand. 
• Improved Customer Satisfaction: With dedicated teams constantly focusing on customer interactions, your response times will improve. You’ll be able to deliver more consistent, personalized support across various channels, adapt to different customer preferences quickly, and reduce wait times.  
• Advanced Technology: Some outsourced partners bring their own technology into the contact center, helping you to embrace new solutions like AI-powered monitoring tools, chatbots, automated workflows, and analytical systems.  

Why Outsource Your Contact Center? Industry-Specific Benefits 

Any business looking for a way to reduce costs, improve service quality, and enhance agility can benefit from contact center outsourcing. But in certain sectors, from tech to healthcare and beyond, the advantages of outsourcing can be particularly compelling. Here’s a closer look at how outsourcing helps companies in different industries tackle customer service challenges.  

Technology and SaaS  

Whether they’re focusing on the B2C or B2B landscape, technology companies face a lot of challenges when it comes to delivering exceptional customer support. Most tech users demand instant, support across various channels, and many businesses serve audiences on a global scale.  

Tech leaders need teams that can resolve technical queries for customers fast, in the customer’s preferred language. However, they also need to make sure that experts are always available. After all, technical issues and software problems can happen at any moment.  

Contact center outsourcing helps by giving businesses: 

• Access to Technical Experts: BPO partners focusing on the tech industry offer access to skilled professionals who understand how software systems, networks, and applications work on a deeper level. These specialists are excellent for troubleshooting issues and can even proactively connect with customers who might be affected by an outage or problem.  
• Scalable Support: Tech and SaaS companies are constantly introducing new features, patches, and upgrades for their systems. During updates and new product launches, support needs can increase suddenly. Outsourcing means you can ensure you always have the right number of team members on hand.  
• AI and Automation: Many leaders in the outsourcing market offer access to AI and automation tools that can help businesses efficiently manage and resolve common issues faster – like AI chatbots or voice bots. These tools can take the extra pressure off human teams, so they can focus on other valuable tasks. 

Retail and Ecommerce 

Retail and Ecommerce companies are constantly trying to navigate a fluctuating number of calls and requests. During holidays and sales events, demand can increase exponentially. Around Black Friday, for instance, some companies need to deal with thousands of calls, emails and messages at once. 

Hiring extra in-house team members just to handle sudden spikes isn’t exactly practical, or cost-effective. With outsourcing, companies can pivot quickly to address changes in demand, without spending a fortune (and draining their profits).  

Outsourcing gives retail and ecommerce companies an opportunity to: 

• Scale quickly: Companies can hire additional team members to manage specific channels, customer service requests, or sales strategies specifically during periods of peak demand. When call volumes start to fall, they can revert back to using just their in-house teams.
• Access Specialized Talent: Teams can hire outsourced professionals that already know everything there is to know about their ecommerce platform, their inventory management tools, and even their supply chain strategy. 
• Introduce Omnichannel Support: Want to ensure you’re reaching customers wherever they are? Outsourced professionals can handle support and sales workflows across different channels, including social media, SMS, email, phone calls, and more.  

Healthcare and Medical Companies 

Delivering exceptional service as a healthcare company isn’t easy. Just like companies in other sectors, healthcare organizations need to adapt to a growing demand for omnichannel communication, and personalized support. However, they also need to navigate strict regulatory standards, like HIPAA compliance. Simply scaling support with AI tools and automation isn’t always an option.  

After all, customers don’t just contact healthcare companies when they need to book an appointment or check on a bill – they reach out for personalized, compassionate guidance.  

Contact center outsourcing in healthcare gives companies: 

• Empathetic Support Experts: Outsourcing providers serving the healthcare industry train their agents to be efficient, intuitive, and compassionate. These professionals know how to connect with patients, partners, and even healthcare providers on a human level.
• Secure Infrastructure: BPO companies know that compliance is crucial in the healthcare sector. They maintain secure systems that comply with healthcare regulations and take additional steps to protect patient data. 
• 24/7 Support: Outsourcing also gives healthcare providers an opportunity to offer extended support hours. They can ensure patients can reach out with concerns at any time of the day, schedule appointments, and even check test results.  

Credit Unions and Financial Institutions 

Like organizations in the healthcare sector, companies in the finance industry have a lot of strict compliance guidelines to follow. Banks, credit unions, and investment companies all deal with a lot of high-stakes inquiries. They need to deliver accurate, intuitive guidance to customers, while also ensuring they keep personal and sensitive data safe.  

Making sure every customer gets a personalized level of service, while still following rules related to things like PCI compliance, can be complicated. Contact center outsourcing means companies can tap into benefits like: 

• Financial Experts: Just as outsourcing experts can be trained on technical and healthcare processes, they can also specialize in financial support. You can find experts that know how to handle everything from fraud reports to account setup and management.
• Secure, Audited Technology: Any BPO company that serves a financial institution will undoubtedly take extra steps to keep data secure. They might use PCI-compliant IVR systems for processing payments or use AI to monitor for suspicious activities on accounts. 
• Faster Support: With outsourcing, finance companies can make sure they’re always available to answer urgent customer questions. Outsourced teams can reduce wait times, improve customer satisfaction levels, and increase brand loyalty. 

Public Sector & Utilities 

Many public sector and utility companies are already investing in cutting-edge strategies to improve customer service. After all, studies show that the average utility company can handle between 2-3 million calls per year. Call and interaction volumes in the public sector can be just as high, with people constantly reaching out to teams that focus on law enforcement, emergency services, education, public transport, and more.  

During specific periods, such as outages, emergencies, or around tax season, call volumes often spike even further. Over time, it becomes incredibly difficult to manage high interaction volumes consistently, while adapting to the needs of diverse customers.  

Contact center outsourcing gives these companies a flexible team of agents that can deliver: 

• Scalable Support: During emergencies or seasonal changes, outsourcing gives organizations the freedom to scale their support based on demand. There’s no need to hire additional internal staff – your outsourcing team can stretch to suit you.
• Accessible, Multilingual Support: A lot of outsourcing partners offer access to agents that are fluent in multiple languages. Unlike AI bots that can adapt to different language preferences, these agents can also adapt to different cultural nuances. 
• Transparent Reporting: Reliable outsourced contact center service providers often support detailed reporting for accountability. They can track and store valuable data, archive communication information securely, and adapt to compliance standards. 

Transforming CX with Contact Center Outsourcing 

Contact center outsourcing isn’t just a way for companies to cut costs as they scale, and it’s not just a solution for huge, global companies anymore either. As customer expectations continue to evolve, organizations across industries are embracing outsourcing to improve customer satisfaction, agility, and operational efficiency.  

Whether you choose to outsource just one part of your customer service strategy (like multilingual service, or lead generation), or you build out your entire team with outsourced experts, the benefits can be phenomenal. However, outsourcing is just the first step. You still need to ensure you have the right tools and resources to maximize your CX strategy.   

If you’re looking for a way to elevate customer service, while also cutting costs, now could be the perfect time speak to an expert like ComputerTalk. Want to make sure you have the scalable tech you need to match your outsourcing strategy? 

Contact ComputerTalk today and find out how the right tools can empower your workforce, whether you’re hiring internally or externally.  

Request a demo today.