In this competitive e-commerce landscape, you need to make good decisions. Before you hire a cheap outsourced customer service company, be aware of the issues these companies cause.
In this fiercely competitive e-commerce landscape, you need to make informed decisions. And one of those crucial decisions is about how to handle your customer service and whether to outsource it. Outsourcing customer service without sacrificing quality is totally possible. But before you make a choice on an outsourced customer service company (especially one that sounds super cost effective!), let's shed light on some of the unseen pitfalls in our industry.
Many of the competitors in the outsourced customer service space entice you with their seemingly cost-effective solutions (i.e. “as low as $8/hour”, etc.). But dig a little deeper, and you'll uncover some serious flaws:
Both of the above result in low-quality service and high turnover of agents. This lack of continuity and expertise can be disastrous for your brand image and customer relationships.
When you get that cold email offering amazing customer service that drives revenue at such low rates, don’t get excited. Dig into the model, ask about their metrics, and you’ll realize this will turn into a revenue killer rather than a revenue driver for your business.
All customer service providers have remote teams, typically in Philippines. That can work extremely well, but only if you have a model for your entire team that scales well and continues to provide quality at cost effective rates.
Here’s what happens with most providers though...
This slowly kills the quality of their service (i.e. inexperienced agents that are also underpaid quit more often), while also leading to price increases (at least on new incoming clients) for a worse quality service.
Don’t be fooled by “we manage customer service for 500+ ecommerce brands” either. When you have this flawed model, it produces worse and worse results as the company grows. The increased need for US oversight means even more costs, leading to further compromises on the quality of agents. It's a vicious cycle that never solves itself.
In short, if a company has a overseas workforce managed by a US based management team, it's a red flag that should be dug into prior to assuming it's working as well as they say it does.
At HelpFlow, our model is better. Yes, we’re biased, but here’s how it works. Notice how simple this is in contrast to what you saw above:
In the end, you get what you pay for. But when you understand what you’re getting with cheap customer service providers, you’ll think twice about paying for it at all.
If you're looking for customer service that truly supports your growth without compromising on quality, reach out to us. Even if we don’t work together, you’ll get a ton of value from the process since we’ve worked with so many stores and have been running customer service teams in this space for nearly a decade.
HelpFlow can drive sales by having our team of human agents available on live chat 24/7 to predict and save abandons before they happen, proactively reach out and engage with visitors via SMS and email after they abandon, and by answering visitor questions live on your website to convert visitors.
Learn MoreHelpFlow can drive sales by having our team of human agents available on live chat 24/7 to predict and save abandons before they happen, proactively reach out and engage with visitors via SMS and email after they abandon, and by answering visitor questions live on your website to convert visitors.
Learn More