As a company that builds and sells technical support software for a living, businesses ask us all the time whether they should be outsourcing their support. Sometimes our customers ask us, because the answer is key to their using Trinovation for their tech support. Sometimes buddies, friends and entrepreneurs ask us, because outsourced tech support is still a hot topic of discussion in certain circles. And sometimes we’re asked because we are here and we just need to have an opinion.
But I think it’s important for every business, right from growing businesses all the way up to large enterprises, to know exactly why they should or shouldn’t outsource their technical support processes. And, more importantly, what kind of problems they should expect to be solving. There are pros and cons of outsourcing and one must consider those before taking the outsourcing decision. So here’s a head-to-head comparison between outsourcing your technical support, and keeping it in-house:
Round One – Total Cost of Ownership
When you outsource, it basically means you pay someone to hire support reps, train them, get resources and do everything that goes with it. Sure, you’re paying for calls to be routed overseas but in the end, with VOIP and less stringent telecom regulations, outsourcing your technical support is often cheaper than doing it yourself.
When it comes to the TCO of your technical support process, outsourcing manages to draw first blood without breaking a sweat. If the people cost adds up to the biggest hit in your tech support, outsourcing the team to a low-cost centre half way across the globe might actually save you big numbers in the year-end report.
Verdict: If you have a people-centric technical support cell, outsourcing to a low-cost center might be a good idea.
Round Two – Scaling up (or down)
There comes a time in every technical support agent’s life when you realise you have more tickets coming in than the team can chew. Or that there are just too many agents manning lines that don’t ring as often as justified. Now, with these scenarios, the solution is to expand your support team or downsize it accordingly. That generally means you need to find the right people to add to or remove from your technical support help desk, and you need to find them quick.
Now, if you’d outsourced your technical support, you have the option to choose a vendor who can scale up, or take the shock for you on the fly. The vendor is the one who has to expand the support team or break it down. They’re the ones with the problem, not you. You’re removed from the decision and have been saved a lot of stress, time and money. And if you hadn’t outsourced it, well…you get the picture.
Of course, there are ways you can scale up your technical support in-house without scaling up the team, so blindly outsourcing it or leaving the onus on your vendor may not be the best idea.
Verdict: If adding more people to your tech support process is the only way to scale up, outsourcing can be a big, big relief.
Round Three – Quality Control
There’s a reason companies still prefer to build their own support team and oh boy, it’s a good one – when you outsource your technical support, you have no control over the quality of the support.
When you outsource technical support, you’re basically handing over the responsibility of making sure that your customers are getting correct, complete answers to their questions. You don’t have any control over whether the agents are going the extra mile to ensure that your customers are satisfied. All of your customer’s queries might be answered, but have they been answered accurately and completely? You have no idea.
Outsourcing kind of takes that power right out of your hands. You can only direct and hope for the best.
Verdict: If you’d like to build your brand on the basis of your technical support, keep it in-house.