How Customer Experience Outsourcing Could Benefit Your Business

Customer experience is at the heart of modern business success. Companies constantly seek ways to improve satisfaction, foster loyalty, and drive revenue, but delivering an exceptional customer experience is no small task. From managing customer touchpoints to implementing advanced tools and strategies, achieving the desired results requires significant expertise and resources.

For many businesses, the solution lies in customer experience outsourcing. By partnering with specialized providers, companies can tap into expertise, streamline operations, and provide 24/7 customer support—without overburdening their internal teams.

As a matter of fact, customer experience outsourcing can boost efficiency by up to 25% and give your organization more time to focus on core business functions. 

What is Customer Experience Outsourcing?

Customer experience outsourcing involves delegating certain aspects of customer experience management to third-party providers. These providers manage interactions across various channels, including customer support, social media, live chat, email, and technical support.

Customer experience outsourcing does not just refer to outsourcing different channels, it also refers to outsourcing the management of your entire customer experience program to a trusted provider who can provide you with software, services, and reporting. 

Benefits of Customer Experience Outsourcing

Outsourcing customer experience can offer transformative benefits for businesses of all sizes. Here are some of the key advantages:

• Cost Savings: Outsourcing eliminates the need for in-house hiring, training, and infrastructure, reducing operational costs. Many outsourcing providers also operate in regions with lower labor costs, further driving savings.
• Access to Expertise and Technology: Customer experience outsourcing partners bring specialized knowledge, cutting-edge tools, and best practices that might not be available in-house. They stay updated on industry trends, ensuring your customers get top-tier support.
• Scalability and Flexibility: Whether it’s seasonal demand or rapid business growth, outsourcing allows you to scale your operations quickly and efficiently. Providers can adjust team sizes and resources to meet your needs.
• 24/7 Availability: Many CX outsourcing providers operate around the clock, ensuring your customers can receive support anytime, anywhere.
• Focus on Core Operations: By outsourcing customer experience tasks, your internal team can dedicate more time to strategic business goals and innovation.

Challenges of Outsourcing Customer Experience

While customer experience outsourcing offers significant advantages, it’s not without challenges. Organizations interested in customer experience outsourcing need to be aware of potential pitfalls and address them proactively. Here are some of the main challenges of customer experience management outsourcing:

• Loss of Brand Voice: Outsourcing can sometimes lead to inconsistencies in how your brand communicates with customers, which might impact customer trust.
• Communication Barriers: Language and cultural differences can pose challenges, especially when working with offshore providers.
• Quality Control: Maintaining high standards in customer interactions can be difficult without robust monitoring and feedback systems.
• Data Security and Privacy: Sharing customer data with third parties can increase the risk of breaches or non-compliance with regulations like GDPR or CCPA.

To mitigate these challenges, your business should invest time in selecting the right customer experience outsourcing partner, ensuring alignment with their values, and establishing clear performance metrics.

How to Choose the Right Customer Experience Outsourcing Partner

Selecting the right customer experience outsourcing partner is an important step in your customer experience strategy. Here are some key factors to consider:

• Industry experience
• Technology and tools
• Cultural Fit
• Scalability

Industry Experience

When choosing a CX partner, you want a partner who understands your industry and has a proven track record of delivering excellent results in your sector. You can narrow down vendors by reading customer experience improvement stories that highlight improvements in business performance as a direct result of CX improvement.

Pearl-Plaza’s team of CX experts has over 50 years of advisory and research experience across multiple industries. The Pearl-Plaza team excels at program management, so you spend less time managing experiences and more time improving them.

Technology and Tools

It is important to choose a partner that uses advanced technology and tools that can also be customized to your specific needs. You can examine which vendors have the best CX technology by reading reviews and third-party evaluations. 

Pearl-Plaza’s platform has been named a leader in Gartner, IDC, and Forrester evaluative reports and is the highest rated by users, according to Gartner Peer Insights. In a recent Survey by G2, Pearl-Plaza performed better than Qualtrics in every category.

Cultural Fit

When selecting a customer experience management outsourcing partner, it is important to ensure that they understand your brand’s core values and maintain the same voice you embody in your current customer interactions. 

This step ensures that the experiences delivered to your customers remain consistent and reflect the essence of your brand. By collaborating with a partner who understands and upholds your principles, you can create a seamless and cohesive experience that reinforces trust and loyalty among your clientele.

Scalability

Choose a provider capable of scaling resources to meet your business’s evolving customer experience needs.

When selecting a customer experience outsourcing partner, it is important to choose one that has the capability to scale resources effectively to accommodate the changing demands of your business’s customer experience program. 

Pearl-Plaza’s platform is easily scalable and customizable to match the evolving needs of your business. Regardless of your business currently falls on the customer experience maturity model, Pearl-Plaza can meet you where you are and help you scale accordingly. 

Choosing the Right Customer Experience Outsourcing Approach

When it comes to customer experience outsourcing, businesses have a range of options to choose from. Some organizations may prefer fully entrusting their CX operations to an external partner and leveraging a full-service solution’s expertise and comprehensive support. 

Others may opt for greater autonomy and select a self-service solution that gives them control over their CX strategy while relying on a vendor for technology and minimal support.

Understanding the distinction between these two approaches—full-service and self-service—is essential for businesses looking to make informed decisions about customer experience outsourcing and their overall CX management strategy.

What Is a Full-Service Customer Experience Solution?

A full-service CX solution refers to a CX partnership in which the company providing the platform manages all aspects of the technology (programming, analysis, change management, etc.).

This relationship between the organization and the CX vendor is services-driven, and a brand that purchases this type of solution can expect to have a dedicated team of experienced CX and technology experts to check in with regularly and help the brand with every aspect of its CX program. 

A full-service CX vendor will help your team define strategy, implement the technology, train team members, craft surveys, import other customer data, design reporting dashboards, and beyond.  

What Is a Self-Service Customer Experience Solution?

A self-service CX vendor refers to a situation in which a person or persons within the purchasing organization are responsible for all aspects of the ongoing technology usage.

A brand purchasing a self-service CX solution can expect to have full control and autonomy in their CX initiatives. There is often a dedicated implementation team, but post implementation, there is more likely to be a helpline or contact the brand can reach out to in case of an error or if they’re in need of help.

Of course, there is a gray area between the two categories. A CX vendor that emphasizes true partnership will emphasize that customer experience is not one size fits all and will therefore offer a blend of self-service and support-driven options to fit your needs. For example, a vendor may offer DIY survey tools alongside strategic insight sessions. 

How to Determine Which Is Right for You

A full-service program can be a great choice if you’re short on resources or want to utilize customer experience management outsourcing. With a full-service program, you can fill in any gaps in resources or skill sets with the considerable expertise your full-service CX vendor has on staff. Your dedicated team will know your business, goals, and program.

A full-service CX solution will also help you to drive more long-term strategy for your program. Check-ins will help you to stay accountable to goals, and your vendor will be able to advise you on any challenges, as well as connect you with other CX professionals in your industry. 

On the other hand, a self-service program may be a better option if you have the expertise and resources to accomplish your CX goals in-house. With a self-service program, you can make changes to surveys or other initiatives in the middle of the night if you want to. 

Additionally, self-service programs can be more cost-effective in the long run, since you won’t be paying for the vendor’s management services.

Best Practices for Successful Customer Experience Outsourcing

Customer experience outsourcing is a large investment. The partner you choose to entrust your CX program with will have a direct impact on business performance. In order to ensure you choose the right partner and make the most out of your investment, follow these best practices: 

• Set clear goals and KPIs
• Maintain regular communication 
• Invest in training
• Monitor performance
• Foster collaboration

Set Clear Goals and KPIs

Establishing clear objectives and customer experience metrics is essential for a successful outsourcing partnership. Clearly communicate what success looks like for your CX initiatives, whether it’s improving customer satisfaction scores, reducing response times, or increasing retention rates. These benchmarks will guide your partner’s efforts and ensure alignment with your business goals.

Maintain Regular Communication

Frequent and open communication is the foundation of a strong customer experience outsourcing relationship. Schedule regular check-ins and performance reviews to stay aligned with your partner. These touchpoints allow you to address any challenges, share updates, and ensure that your CX strategy remains on track.

Invest in Training

Equip your customer experience outsourcing partner’s team with the knowledge they need to represent your brand effectively. Comprehensive training on your products, services, and brand values ensures consistency in customer interactions and helps the team align with your business ethos. A well-trained team can significantly enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Monitor Performance

Effectively utilizing a customer experience dashboard will help you track the performance of your CX program and of your customer experience outsourcing provider. 

With Pearl-Plaza as your CX partner, you can create customer experience dashboards and reports that can be shared throughout the organization to help stakeholders understand the current state of customer experience, evaluate the business impact of certain initiatives, and plan for the future.

Foster Collaboration

In order to develop the most successful partnership with your customer experience outsourcing provider, view them as an extension of your internal team. Foster a collaborative relationship by encouraging open communication, brainstorming solutions together, and sharing feedback. A strong partnership built on mutual trust and teamwork will lead to better customer and business results.

Take Pearl-Plaza’s Quiz and Get Started

Ultimately, the decision on the extent of your customer experience outsourcing efforts depends on a variety of factors, including the size of your organization, your budget, and your technical expertise. 

Take the Pearl-Plaza quiz below to get started and find out whether a self-service or full-service customer experience outsourcing solution is best for you!

References 

MyOutDesk. 35 Outsourcing Statistics For 2024 | MyOutDesk. (https://www.myoutdesk.com/blog/outsourcing-statistics/). Accessed 12/6/2024.