Outsourcing in recent years has shifted its focus to help businesses connect with their customers in various ways that help maximize their revenue. There are so many services offered that the multitude of overlapping names can often diminish their actual meaning and function to the layman.
The two services we are concerned with most are customer service and technical support. They are both services that are most in-demand and influence the consumer base directly. We will lay out what their role is and how they benefit the various processes of business organizations.
The benefits of outsourcing
We all know how outsourcing and offshore BPO industries have made their name, helping overseas businesses prosper immensely. There are a growing number of services offered by BPO agencies worldwide, but those that target customers solely have grown and come a long way to being the only service that, when outsourced, shows the best results.
It is all because BPO agencies have effective staffing and training methods that make their staff an efficient workforce ready to take on scores of customers. It is also well known that outsourcing can help businesses reduce their operational costs exponentially and slingshot their growth to unprecedented levels.
We will now address two of the most commonly sought services in outsourcing, technical support, and customer service, as we break each of these down and ascertain their uniqueness in the real world.
Technical Support Explained
The term “technical support” can also be translated as tech support or IT support. This aftersales customer service is the backbone of software and hardware industries as they look after the technical nature of the products and services involved. Technical support teams are given special training to handle all levels of issues and problems that customers might face.
Their necessity drives brand recognition in the majority of all cases since having good technical support is what customers seek in IT firms. Apps and websites may also need technical support staff to tackle issues faced by their user base, and all this adds up to the importance this service holds.
Technical support serves several functions that focus on critical areas. As a result, it helps tackle all areas where specialized assistance is a requirement. The special needs depend upon the complexity of the product and service placed alongside the consumer base involved.
Technical support for products focuses solely on helping consumers find their way around complex hardware. They are specially trained to know the product themselves first before starting their mission on assisting consumers to troubleshoot issues and help them with problems they may face.
Specific services or apps also require technical support solely due to their complex nature. Consumers can’t often find their way around apps, and this is when they reach out for technical assistance that can show them the way around tricky corners.
Technical support has four tiers of service that allocates their expertise according to the complexity of the problems they tackle. Each tier delves deeper into troubleshooting issues, and the training they require also intensifies.
- The first level requires customers to seek out troubleshooting through FAQs or information already provided on websites.
- Tier 2 requires trained staff members to help consumers with fundamental issues that might be too complex for basic FAQs but simple enough for tech support staff to handle easily.
- The next tier tackles product and software issues requiring technical staff support and is often through remote assistance.
- The final level is when products, services, or apps have problems that need third-party resolutions and these issues are outside the reach of these parent companies.
Automated technical support is when bots help customers with technical issues. This form of support is done with the help of chatbots programmed to reply according to customers’ needs. The automated tech support was tested and developed over the years and has passed its beta testing stage. However, there is more information on chatbots and their effectiveness in a new topic we’ve covered that you could refer to if you wish to learn more.
What is Customer Service
In contrast to the broad functionality of tech support services, customer service plays a much more significant role. Tech support is an integral part of customer service but isn’t used interchangeably.
Customer service is the entire process of a business that handles customers and keeps them engaged indefinitely. The main goal of customer service was to create, maintain and retain customers for business through several teams that facilitate the processes in earnest.
Customer service is spread out throughout several business processes that deal with customers. It can start from an entry-level salesperson that guides customers to the products or services best suited for them.
Customer Prospecting
In order to drive sales and generate profits, a business must reach out to customers and acquire them. Customers determine the overall growth of a company, and to ensure the constant inflow of customers, enterprises need to employ staff and task them with customer prospecting. Prospecting customers can include marketing to individuals or gathering data on demography a business can target to get the best results.
Customer Acquisition
Customer acquisition, or sales, is the primary process that generates profits. Customer service boils down to sales, and almost all other stages are designed to acquire new customers. A company may hire a sales team that actively seeks out customers, guides them through the buying process, and facilitates sales
Aftersales Services
Customer service is sometimes mistaken for aftersales-related services like customer support or tech support when these all are a part of it. These are what you’d call aftersales services, and they are aimed at holding on to customers by helping them out with the products or services they have just bought. Customers need to have a positive image of your company, and employing aftersales services ensures that the plan is implemented.
Customer Retention
Customer service is aimed at generating more sales, and that is done through effective customer retention. Customer retention programs usually target existing customers to actively interact with them to build a strong brand image in their minds. This process enforces customers consistently to choose the company in question and effectively ensures steady revenue.
Customer Experience Management
Ensuring the overall experience of customers plays an integral role in the growth of a business. Being an additional aftersales service, customer experience management teams routinely seek out existing customers to interact with them to gather important data about the products and services in question. This process helps companies recognize their strengths and weaknesses and makes customers feel more involved, thus reinforcing brand loyalty.
Customer service is a vast process, and it involves both employees and customers collaborating accordingly to produce results that significantly affect the trajectory of the business. This is a process that is routinely outsourced due to the effectiveness and expertise of BPOs to handle them accordingly.
Assessing what you need for your business
Outsourcing customer service and, as an extension, technical support in its entirety has helped countless businesses boost their revenue and growth substantially. It has been such a recurring ordeal that BPOs have established all aspects of customer service as their forte.
Companies looking to cut in on the action need only to get in touch with professional BPOs, and they’ll be provided with an overview of exactly what they need in accordance with their future plans.
