Customer engagement platform
Digital-first, omnichannel platform built for enterprises
Digital-first, omnichannel platform built for enterprises
Agent efficiency, automation, and operational insights
Self-service support, education, and collaboration
Content management, publishing, and governance
Create a space for customers to get answers, connect with peers, and share new ideas
Connect with customers on SMS, Messenger, WhatsApp, & more
Chat with customers in real-time or anytime on your website
Start the conversation with automation, increase agent efficiency, triage, & more
Protect your brand & drive loyalty across social media and review site
Orchestrate social campaigns that drive business results
Understand social trends from customers, the market, and competitors
Find, curate, and share the best social media content
Deflect inquiries to messaging channels and self-service communities
Automate conversations with our intuitive drag-and-drop platform
Supercharge agents with AI tools & intuitive workflows
Build brand awareness with a user-generated knowledge hub
Drive higher conversion rates and more revenue
Secure solutions to keep customer information safe
Cutting-edge tech to innovate and inform your customers
Deep insights to keep a pulse on customer demands
Real-time capabilities to stay connected with consumers
An integrated platform to nurture the customer journey
Our in-house experts in social media and community management for Khoros customers
More than onboarding and implementation, this is where our partnership begins
Increase satisfaction and improve product adoption with complimentary training.
CX Confessions, the definitive podcast for digital CX leaders
Guides, tipsheets, ebooks, on-demand webinars, & more
Integrations to connect with your customers, wherever they are
Technical overviews and links to developer documentation
Join us for webinars and in-person events
Insights, tips, news, and more from our team to yours
Case studies with successful customers to see how they did it
Connect with 70K+ customer engagement professionals
A customer experience podcast with Khoros Customers
Check out our social content and follow us on every major platform
20+ years experience, built from Spredfast and Lithium
Meet the team that leads the team
Press releases and other announcements
Data integrations for better customer experience
We’re hiring — come build the future of customer experience
Need anything? We’re here for you
Our commitment to do more and do better
Digital-first, omnichannel platform built for enterprises
Agent efficiency, automation, and operational insights
Self-service support, education, and collaboration
Content management, publishing, and governance
Create a space for customers to get answers, connect with peers, and share new ideas
Connect with customers on SMS, Messenger, WhatsApp, & more
Chat with customers in real-time or anytime on your website
Start the conversation with automation, increase agent efficiency, triage, & more
Protect your brand & drive loyalty across social media and review site
Orchestrate social campaigns that drive business results
Understand social trends from customers, the market, and competitors
Find, curate, and share the best social media content
Deflect inquiries to messaging channels and self-service communities
Automate conversations with our intuitive drag-and-drop platform
Supercharge agents with AI tools & intuitive workflows
Build brand awareness with a user-generated knowledge hub
Drive higher conversion rates and more revenue
Secure solutions to keep customer information safe
Cutting-edge tech to innovate and inform your customers
Deep insights to keep a pulse on customer demands
Real-time capabilities to stay connected with consumers
An integrated platform to nurture the customer journey
Our in-house experts in social media and community management for Khoros customers
More than onboarding and implementation, this is where our partnership begins
Increase satisfaction and improve product adoption with complimentary training.
CX Confessions, the definitive podcast for digital CX leaders
Guides, tipsheets, ebooks, on-demand webinars, & more
Integrations to connect with your customers, wherever they are
Technical overviews and links to developer documentation
Join us for webinars and in-person events
Insights, tips, news, and more from our team to yours
Case studies with successful customers to see how they did it
Connect with 70K+ customer engagement professionals
A customer experience podcast with Khoros Customers
Check out our social content and follow us on every major platform
20+ years experience, built from Spredfast and Lithium
Meet the team that leads the team
Press releases and other announcements
Data integrations for better customer experience
We’re hiring — come build the future of customer experience
Need anything? We’re here for you
Our commitment to do more and do better
Customer care is never easy, and the past year has only made it harder. As customer needs and inquiry levels rise, brands must weigh different options to meet the demand.
One of those options is to outsource customer service, either partially or fully. If your brand has been kicking this idea around, you’re not alone. With contact centers constantly being challenged to cut costs, while also continuing to provide exemplary service, the benefits of business process outsourcers (BPOs) can be appealing.
But your contact center is the front line and the voice of your brand. That doesn’t necessarily mean you should never outsource customer service, but it does mean that it’s critical to understand the pros and cons.
Understanding the key benefits of shifting care efforts to a BPO, whether that be for after hours support or full support of a specific channel, should be the first step before vetting potential partners. Here are the three most important benefits.
One of the most common concerns we hear from Khoros Care customers is, “how do I increase the capacity of my agents, without hiring more people or risking agent burnout?”
Great question.
A digital-first contact center solution, such as Khoros Care, is the best way to keep customer service in-house while significantly improving agent capacity. However, customer service outsourcing will add additional agents, without the additional labor costs and overhead associated with benefits and office space.
It's no surprise, but consumer and customer expectations have changed. They want 24/7 support on their channel of choice. But figuring out around the clock staffing in-region can often prove not only expensive but challenging. Working with a BPO partner can open up your brand to resources in key markets and time zones, many of whom have specialized training and industry experience at the ready.
We saved the most obvious benefit of partnering with a BPO for last: you can save your contact center some money. And while CSAT and CX should always be a primary goal, budget constraints are always important considerations. While it’s true that partnering with a BPO can help reduce labor costs, it is also vitally important to work closely with your chosen partner, to ensure that things like SLAs, brand voice, and customer experience are not hampered. Remember: sacrificing quality of customer service will also result in poor business outcomes, especially in the long term. Likewise, improving scores like CSAT and NPS can improve business outcomes.
While there are benefits of partnering with a BPO, there can definitely be some challenges as well. Before engaging with a BPO partner, or if you are already working with one, it is important to consider these potential roadblocks and ensure proper alignment of teams. That way, you can minimize friction and protect your customers’ experience.
As we’ve already mentioned, your contact center is the front line of communication and engagement with your customers — one of the few chances you get to make a good impression on them. The stakes here couldn’t be any higher: as many as 96% of consumers say they’re willing to leave when they experience bad customer service. This can cost brands over $75 billion a year. In short, good customer service isn’t optional; it’s required.
These heightened stakes make your brand’s relationship with its BPO absolutely critical. Especially for companies that have spent years building their brand, handing over the keys to a third-party vendor with limited visibility into how they do customer care is a shaky proposition. Your brand must implement a governance structure to ensure that the BPO is following brand guidelines, responding with the right brand voice and tone, adhering to the same SLAs provided to internal care agents, and otherwise sticking to corporate guidelines for compliant digital use.
This process of governance is even more critical for brands in highly regulated industries like financial services and Healthcare, as well as in retail, where customers need to share personally identifiable information such as account numbers and billing information.
While it will always be more difficult to have oversight and governance for an external team than an internal one, there are still measures your brand can take. Using the right tool is critical in this situation. By having your BPO use the same customer care platform as your in-house care team, you can mitigate risk and gain valuable oversight into how all agents are engaging across a variety of channels. Standardizing on one care platform is a critical step in creating this governance structure, and should be mandated from the brand.
BPOs often have a set of technology tools that their agents typically use. In some ways, this is a good thing for the brands they contract with, as it can save them money. However, there’s always an important question that needs to be asked: “how much is your customer care data worth to you?”
When BPOs use their own technology platforms, brands typically have limited access to the wealth of data generated by daily care interactions. And these data cover a lot more than just agent performance. Care teams are tapped into the voice of the consumer. They understand the challenges, wants and needs of the customer, and those data are lost if there isn't close collaboration across teams. Digital-first platforms like Khoros Care offer brands data insights to influence not just care practices, but also marketing strategies, R&D, product design, and more. This is another reason that even if your brand outsources customer service, you should do so with a BPO that is willing to use the same Care solution as your internal support team. That way, even when customer service outsourcing, you’ll maintain ownership of your own precious data.
Quality control in an internal contact center is difficult enough in an internal contact center; with a BPO, it gets even harder. The BPO will need to be trained on your business to ensure that they are providing the right answers at the right time, and keeping customer experience consistent with what they would receive from your internal teams.
Here again, a tool like Khoros Care can help. The platform helps internal and external teams ensure that they are providing a consistent experience to the customer, while also preventing things like agent collision and providing comprehensive data to inform all parts of the business.
So, is customer service outsourcing the right move for your brand?
The real answer is that it depends. It’s often better from a customer experience perspective to keep everything internal, but that’s not feasible for some brands — especially those who need to provide support around the world or after business hours. What’s more, BPOs offer real savings, and the best ones make excellent partners; these are all great reasons to outsource customer service.
What’s more important is that whether or not your brand contracts with a BPO, you have the procedures, governance, and tools in place to take excellent care of your customers.
Learn more about Khoros Care, or schedule a demo to see what a digital-first platform can do for your contact center.
Stay up-to-date with the latest news, trends, and tips from the customer engagement experts at Khoros.
By clicking Stay Informed, I am requesting that Khoros send me newsletters and updates to this email address. I agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Want to view our regional site for Australia?
Go to siteWant to view our regional site for New Zealand?
Go to site