Understanding Customer Empowerment in Help Desk Outsourcing

Customer empowerment is a natural continuation of a customer-focused approach that businesses worldwide implement. Creating a fantastic customer experience, giving buyers tools to make informed decisions in relation to your business, and helping them in understanding your values and mission better – are all at the heart of customer empowerment.

So, let’s get to the bottom of it, and understand what customer empowerment means. Besides, in this article we’ll focus on customer empowerment in the context of customer service outsourcing, exploring its benefits and business value.

So what is Customer Empowerment?

Customer empowerment is the process of giving customers tools, resources, and information they need to make decisions and interact with your business.

Celebrating customer success, creating a user-centered customer journey, and showing the impact your company makes in a community help you deepen brand-user connections, increase customer retention, and create loyalty.

Customer Empowerment for Businesses

What do businesses get to gain from customer empowerment?

Customer empowerment ensures customer satisfaction in regard to how modern consumers perceive businesses. In turn, customer satisfaction is a key driver of business success. It’s simple – happy customers pay more!

According to a study by Forbes, companies with high levels of customer satisfaction enjoy a 5.7% increase in revenue growth compared to those with lower levels of satisfaction. Sprout Social, found that 86% of consumers believe that openness, honesty, and authenticity from businesses are more important than ever.

At the forefront of the new consumer expectations are access to transparent information, direct communication, and sharing brand experiences with a dedicated community.

Sounds like a new customer-business approach is due!

Customer Empowerment in Help Desk Outsourcing

As you can tell, customer empowerment has a lot to do with business-customer communication skills. Customer service is at the center of this communication. Providing top-notch customer service goes beyond just answering tickets or fixing technical issues. It's also about making customers feel valued, looked after, and appreciated.

Customer empowerment in offshore outsourcing also involves giving customers more control and agency over their interactions with customer service representatives. This can include self-service options such as online chatbots or knowledge bases, giving customers a wide array of channels to receive support, online and in-person feedback. We’ll explore some other practices in how outsourced call centers can help you implement a great customer empowerment strategy.

For now, let’s explore the pros and cons of outsourcing your customer service for the purpose of customer empowerment.

A few points to be excited about when outsourcing:

Unique expertise

Having easy access to a team of professionals proficient in many world languages is a unique opportunity, enabled by the digital age. Little to no cultural differences or language barriers, as well as high-level training and specialized expertise, are just among the few possibilities an outsourced agent team can provide.

Scaling according to demand

The need for a full team increases or decreases. We get it – sometimes, the demand is extra high, like right after a new version release. But at times, it can be quite low too. Recognizing these patterns and adapting to them is easy with on-demand support agents.

Cost savings

One of the main reasons to outsource customer support is, surely, cost-efficiency. Hiring and training a support team can be a bothersome and expensive task. An outsourcing company takes that off your shoulders with trained specialists, perfect for your business.

It’s only fair to name a couple of cons, too.

Maintaining control

What we often hear from our clients and partners has to do with fear of having less control over how tickets are handled.

Finding a vendor

Businesses also struggle to find a suitable vendor, which matches the business in culture and communication style.

Though fair concerns, many of these have become obsolete. Most outsourcing companies today offer syncs, daily or weekly meetings, regular reports on team performance and customer satisfaction. Successful planning, risk management, and communication have always been at the heart of B2B interactions.

An excellent customer service strategy always pays off! According to a study by American Express, 70% of customers will spend more money with companies that provide great customer service.

Best practices for Customer Empowerment in Customer Service Outsourcing

We hope you are feeling just as excited about the creative ways in which help desk outsourcing can bring customer empowerment and business value to your company. Let’s discuss a few possible routes for transformation.

Self-Service tools

Using technology to enhance the experience is among the first and easiest steps toward being more mindful of customer needs. Consider developing concise FAQ pages, opting in for a customer service chatbot, or an in-depth knowledge base. This will create an extra layer of support for customers looking to resolve simpler issues, or a helping hand for those interested in figuring it out themselves.

Multichannel customer service

The truth is, some of your customers prefer talking on the phone, and others would do anything to stay behind a well-made web chat instead. Catering to buyers’ preferences by providing outsourced multichannel support by email, chat, phone, and social media is a staple in the help desk industry.

Agent training

There are a few qualities that a professional customer service representative should be trained in. Among the most important ones are proactive listening, simple and clear communication, as well as a cohesive brand tone.

Community creation

Gamification and community creation are a hit in numerous industries worldwide. Encouraging customers to engage with your brand, to provide feedback, to share their achievements and progress are sure to create loyalty and dedication to your brand. Any major phone brand is a perfect example of this. Just think about it, dedicated fans of Apple, Motorola, or Xiaomi could argue for hours about how convenient their phone is compared to others.

Reports and data sharing

If your brand allows it, consider creating engaging reports or sharing some of the interesting data you have with your customers. A great example of this is Spotify roundups, in which the company gives information back to its users through creative, shareable reports about their yearly in-app activity.

In Conclusion

Customer empowerment is among the many tools that increase service quality. Even the best practices are simply guidelines and ideas for tweaking and tuning your business approach toward your goals.

It’s always best to analyze which objectives work for your specific business needs. A customer support outsource partner can hale you with that.

If you are still unsure about the possibilities or applications of customer empowerment in customer service outsourcing, EverHelp got your back! Our professional teams will get you started on this journey.

We help your customers have positive experiences, plan the strategy together, or find ways to strengthen your relationships with buyers.

Get your quote now!