As retailers contend with an uncertain economy, rising costs, and shifting consumer sentiment, having a high-quality and efficient contact center has never been more important.
Contact centers are your frontline; how you perform there brings significant consequences. Great customer experience (CX) can lead to sales, repeat business, improved satisfaction, and greater loyalty, while negative ones can turn customers off a brand for good.
Deciding whether to manage a captive, company-owned contact center or partner with a CX outsourcer is a critical cornerstone of retailers’ CX strategy. Putting your CX in expert hands – whether its offshoring, onshoring, or nearshoring – can free your employees up to focus on what they do best.
Here are four benefits a strong CX outsourcing partner brings to retailers.
1. A global pool of top-tier talent
Contact center associates have a lot on their plates: they need to deliver quick and easy resolutions, be empathetic when necessary, and diffuse tense situations when customers enter an interaction frustrated.
Associates representing retail brands need to possess problem-solving skills, excel in people management, adapt to changing customer demographics, and have high emotional intelligence. This is especially true because, as more simple tasks are relegated to AI, human associates are left handling more nuanced interactions.
Finding contact center employees with the right skillset (who also remain on-brand and embrace your corporate culture) can be difficult for brands to do efficiently. It’s especially hard for companies to find support in the languages they need, so many end up choosing CX locations based on language alone – even when they’re not the best locations for their overall needs.
An expert CX outsourcing partner can help. AI-powered tools like real-time translation, accent softening, and noise cancellation allow brands to deliver exceptional CX regardless of where in the world associates and customer are located. A good partner will have these tools ready to deploy.
By working with an expert, you can tap into a global talent pool of highly skilled associates that are ready to hit the ground running – at a lower cost to serve. With hiring, onboarding, and training taken care of, you’re free to focus on your core competencies.
When major U.S.-based retailer that sells home fitness equipment struggled to keep up with demand surges leading up to the holiday season, TTEC ramped a team of 50 associates in the Philippines within a few weeks.
Our associates received specialized training in the client’s key contact channels: chat, email, and voice. We managed hiring, development, training, and coaching. Soon after launching the pilot, our team was meeting or exceeding CSAT of the client’s other customer support teams – at 60% lower cost than other teams – and the pilot eventually grew to 200.
2. Improved operational efficiencies
In the always-on world of retail, customers expect to reach brands 24/7. That means companies must offer support at any time, on any channel, in any language. Failure to do so can frustrate customers and associates alike, damage brand reputation, and hurt loyalty.
An outsourcing partner brings advantages here, too. The right partner can ramp (up or down) quickly and efficiently depending on your needs, saving time and money. This is especially helpful during peak times like the holiday shopping season.
A good partner also will take time to dive deeply into your customer journey and contact center operations to identify what’s working, what’s not, and what can be streamlined.
With customer-facing tools like chatbots and other self-service, and back-end solutions like AI-powered knowledgebases and intelligent fraud automation, outsourcers know how to uncover efficiencies without sacrificing CX along the way.
When tasks are completed faster and more efficiently, KPIs improve and costs drop.
3. Faster, more effective training
When supporting customers, speed and efficiency are the names of the game. An outsourcer can train associates faster and more effectively than in-house teams can.
A good partner will implement cutting-edge technology to help. AI-powered training can be delivered on demand and lets associates practice their skills with real-world scenarios and receive instant feedback. The right training gets associates up to speed quickly.
Once employees are up and running, use AI tools to continually optimize their performance. AI can give associates and team leads access to real-time performance data, so they can instantly see how and where they can improve. That data can identify coaching opportunities and inform training going forward.
A CX partner will bring the industry best practices and proven solutions your brand needs to optimize training.
4. Expertise that eliminates guesswork
For many retailers, customer service often serves a secondary function because brands are so focused on their products. But CX has become a key differentiator, and brands that don’t prioritize seamless experiences risk losing customers to those that do.
One hurdle is that companies often lack expertise in-house and must resort to trial and error, which can waste valuable time and resources.
A CX partner eliminates the guesswork by bringing proven solutions and best practices. A partner that specializes in contact center operations knows how to dive into a customer journey, uncover efficiencies, ramp associates quickly, deploy technology seamlessly, and integrate systems.
When your CX is in hands of an expert partner, the ROI of outsourcing becomes clear. Why spend time guessing what might work when a partner can eliminate that uncertainty and start driving results fast?
Choose the right partner for your brand
A good partner can take your CX to the next level, but choosing the right one is key. Make sure to find a partner that will balance people and technology in the way that makes the best sense for your brand.
A true partner will take the time to learn the ins and outs of your company: what you want to achieve, what success looks like, which metrics matter to you, where roadblocks exist, and who your customers are.
For more on choosing the right partner, check out our strategy guide.
