[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Customer support outsourcing experiences?
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Ask HN: Customer support outsourcing experiences?
Hey all. _If I just launched a consumer product and need to
outsource some customer support, do you have any words of wisdom
for how I should do it?_ I'm pretty interested in general wisdom
on this topic, but a few notes on my specific use case: * All
text-based, no phone support. We use Zendesk, installed
SDK's/widgets for receiving tickets and email for follow-up. * US-
based, English-speaking user base. * Most tickets aren't simple
account lockouts and the like. Users engage pretty substantially
with the product. We need dedicated reps, not an on-call service
with a runbook. * We have on-staff reps, and we've been using a
consultancy that our parent company uses for other projects to
augment the staff. We're looking for more of the same going forward
--some FTE's, some contractors--but the current consultancy is very
expensive. We have plenty of budget, but we're not totally cost-
insensitive. Will pay for quality and to avoid user frustration.
Google presents no shortage of options. (and ads!) But this would
be a really expensive and embarrassing move to get wrong, so any
advice on how to choose or experience with players in the space
would be helpful. Green account for obvious reasons. Thanks,
friends.
Author : throw611
Score : 10 points
Date : 2021-12-03 18:51 UTC (4 hours ago)
| histriosum wrote:
| My random thoughts come from the other side of the table -- my
| current gig is in a weird corner of the contact center
| outsourcing market, and we do some customer service for folks on
| a dedicated agent basis.
|
| 1) Be super clear internally with your goals for the outsourcing.
| Most customers end up with a split environment, as you are
| describing -- essentially duplicating pieces of the customer
| service management infrastructure between their internal team and
| the outsourced team. This adds complexity and cost, all things
| being equal, so you need to be clear on what the goals of the
| outsourcing are. This should include an analysis of what you are
| willing to pay for the outsourcing.
|
| 2) You're going to want to put quite a bit of effort into, and
| maintain control of, the training materials that you want the
| outsource vendor to use to train their employees. From your
| description, it sounds as though you MAY be trying to hand-wave
| that part of the problem away by supposing that any outsourced
| agents will be trained up to be subject matter experts on your
| product organically. Don't fall into that trap -- contact centers
| (even internal ones) are high turnover, and training needs to be
| clear, consistent, and quantifiable.
|
| 3) Have a plan in place that you can also share with your vendor
| as to how to perform quality-assurance on your outsourced agent
| based; ideally you would use the same criteria to objectively
| measure your internal staff as well, but I have yet to encounter
| a client who was willing/able to do that..
|
| 4) Have a full understanding of all the infrastructure that the
| outsource vendor is going to need access to, and be able to give
| the vendor enough control over that infrastructure to manage
| their agent base effectively. Don't make them ask you for a new
| agent account when they hire someone, or to remove an account
| when someone leaves or is let go.
|
| Overall..
|
| In my personal experience, the success or failure of these types
| of outsourcing endeavors come down to how objectively the client
| is willing to look at the entire scope of the problem, and
| whether they've clearly defined their goals. Clients who are just
| too busy to worry about customer service and are looking to just
| stop thinking about it and have the vendor "handle" it are
| usually unhappy. Clients who expect subject matter experts to be
| trained up on their product (and then continue to stay in the job
| for a long period of time) but who are looking to pay bottom
| dollar are typically unhappy.
|
| YMMV. Best of luck in your search!
| deedubaya wrote:
| I haven't experienced outsourced cs that was effective beyond
| searching your support docs and relaying obvious answers.
|
| That being said, if that's the majority of your support burden,
| it may well be worth it.
|
| It's a competitive advantage having the same people building a
| product also supporting it (in the early days)
| gary_0 wrote:
| > It's a competitive advantage
|
| I've worked for a small company whose competitors were superior
| in every regard, except that all our customers could call us
| any time during business hours and almost immediately talk to
| someone who would legitimately try to help and have some idea
| of how the product worked internally. I suspect it was one of
| the few advantages keeping them in business.
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