How to Outsource Customer Support: A Comprehensive Guide for Founders and Service Leaders
Making the choice to outsource customer support is not an easy one.
On the one hand, outsourcing can bring in expertise, reduce costs, extend your operating hours, and provide a level of hands-on management your business may not have the resources to provide in-house.
Alternatively, outsourcing adds a degree of separation between the customer and the brand. There may be concern that the quality of interactions will go down, that external agents will be unable to properly represent the brand, or that the organization will lose insight into their customer and their challenges.
Outsourcing customer support can even bring a sense of guilt for some individuals. Understanding the importance of the customer experience, many online retail brands have the intention of forever keeping service in-house, but as the business grows, and as operational and financial complexities become real, using a contact center may start to make more business sense.
Having mixed feelings about outsourcing is normal, especially if this is a brand you built, or the first time you’ve led this transition from in-house to outsource.
This guide will walk you through how you can evaluate your needs and select the best option for your business.
Step 1: Determine Your Goals Before You Outsource Customer Support
Don’t outsource just because you think you’re supposed to outsource.
Online retail brands outsource for many different reasons. The goals you’re aiming to achieve will shape your outsourcing strategy and will influence the types of partners you look for, your method for integrating your partner into your current support operations, the level of autonomy you give your partner, the KPIs you use to measure success, how you focus your team training, and more!
Some common reasons brands outsource include:
You don’t have the bandwidth to lead and grow an in-house support team.
Your customer inquiries have surpassed what you as a founder, or your internal team, can realistically manage.
Your support volume is very inconsistent, making in-house hires tricky.
You want to extend your service hours, but hiring in-house for nights, weekends, and holidays isn’t feasible.
You want to leverage the knowledge and skills of an experienced partner who has seen it all before.
You want to improve the agent experience of your in-house team by focusing them on chat and email support, more challenging interactions, or project-based work.
You want to reduce your overall support costs.
Step 2: Outline What Support Functions to Outsource
Once you’ve confirmed your main drivers to outsource customer support, the next step is identifying your outsourcing model. These models can range from outsourcing your whole support function, to only outsourcing what your internal team is unable to complete in their normal day-to-day.
Here are some of the common ways online retail brands can outsource customer support:
By Tier: Your external team handles all service inquiries. If they are unable to resolve the issue, they escalate the inquiry to your internal team.
By Inquiry Type: Your external team is focused on a few specific inquiry types, while your internal team handles the remaining inquiry types.
By Service Channel: Your external team handles live channels while your internal team handles email; or visa-versa.
By Service Hours: Your external team responds to inquiries when your internal team is off the clock.
By Customer: Your external team handles your low-risk customers while your internal team handles your new, high-value, and/or sensitive customers.
Additional Hands: Your external team handles all the same inquiries as your internal team - you just have a few extra pairs of hands.
Full Handoff: All of your support is handled by your external team.
How you outsource support will change over time. For example, it’s not uncommon to begin a partnership handing off only a small percentage of your service interactions, and as that partnership proves beneficial, to increase your reliance on them.
Your business goals may shift what you outsource as well. You may initially have your external team responding to all inquiry types, and then as the business becomes more sales focused, decide to hand off sales inquiries to a sales team.
Your business may also decide to cut costs. In this case, you may change your approach to increase the ratio of internal to external service professionals.
Step 3: Choose Where to Outsource Your Operations
While contact centers exist all throughout the world, the customer experience industry generally categorizes them into three buckets in relation to where your business is headquartered.
Domestic or Onshore
Onshore support operations are based within your own country. Your headquarters are in California, but your support operations are in South Dakota.
With domestic operations, you may have a better candidate pool and lower support costs compared to hiring within your own state. Agents will typically share the language and culture of your customers and internal team. The center is also close enough for the business to visit for training, celebrations, and QBRs, allowing for a close relationship between partners.
Nearshore
Nearshore support operations are based in a nearby country. Your headquarters are in Florida, but your support operations are in Mexico.
Nearshore operations are an increasingly popular solution for online retail brands. The organization benefits from lower support costs compared to Onshore operations, while also being close enough to visit a few times a year without it being too big of a hassle. They’re often on the same timezone as your business, making collaboration simple.
Offshore
Offshore support operations are based in distant counties. Your headquarters are in New York, but your support operations are in India. Countries like India and the Philippines are known for customer support and contact centers pride themselves on their expertise. While costs are often the lowest with an offshore partner, visiting the contact center can be challenging, and differences in culture can rarely - but occasionally, impact service quality.
Whether you choose domestic, nearshore, or offshore will depend on your business goals, the level at which you want to engage your partner, and your preferences.
Step 4: Fractional Vs Dedicated Customer Support
Now that you have a sense of your business goals, how a contact center fits within your support operations, and the location of your operations, you need to consider whether you’ll require fractional or dedicated support agents.
Five years ago, if you wanted to outsource customer support, you needed to fill 10-12 full-time agents before a potential partner would even talk to you. This is no longer the case.
While there are still some outsourcing partners with a minimum headcount requirement of 10, 25, and 50 agents or more, the industry has recognized a need for small business outsourcing partners. A minimum headcount of 2-3 agents is more common, in addition to fractional support options.
Dedicated Support Agents: Dedicated support agents are completely devoted to your program alone. They work full-time for your customer support operations.
Fractional Support Agents: Fractional support agents have two or three clients.They spend some hours working for your customer support, and the remainder working for other brands.
For founders who are transitioning customer support for the first time, or for teams outsourcing a small percentage of their inquiries, fractional agents may be a more flexible and cost-effective option.
Step 5: Select the Right Outsourcing Partner
There are thousands of outsourcing partners to choose from, ranging from giants that service major retailers like Walmart, Verizon, and AT&T, to small agencies that focus on up-and-coming brands.
Some programs will include managers, team leaders, and trainers while others expect you to oversee your team’s day-to-day.
Some will aim for as much productivity as possible, while others focus primarily on quality.
Because of these differences, it’s important that you do your research, evaluate a number of options, and then choose a partner that’s a good fit for your brand based on your needs, preferences, and business goals.
Here are a few things to consider:
Is this partner aligned with my support philosophy?
Does this partner understand our brand and customers?
Will this partner meet my business objective?
Does this partner have experience with ecommerce customer care?
Will this partner be able to scale with my company's growth?
What resources will this partner require to be successful?
What will this partner require of myself and my leadership team?
How does this partner recruit candidates?
How does this partner treat employees?
What role will this partner take in onboarding and training?
How does this partner handle concerns?
What reviews and reputation does this partner have?
Who else does this partner work with, and what is their service experience?
Have I enjoyed the evaluation process with this partner?
Can I see myself working with this partner for a year or more?
As you narrow down your selection, you can ask for client references and case studies, as well as visit the contact center.
Step 6: Build an Effective Onboarding Process
The onboarding process is where outsourcing efforts either succeed or fail. As a founder or service leader, it’s critical that you take the time to consider your training process and develop the documentation your support staff will need to be successful.
Remember, after your initial training, the documentation is all that remains. Create as much as you can in SOPs, decision trees and knowledge base articles.
Without thorough training, even the best outsourcing partner will struggle to meet expectations.
Here are the key elements to include:
Brand Guidelines: Provide documentation on your brand tone and values so they can deliver service interactions that look and feel like your business.
Escalation Procedures: Define when and how agents should escalate complex cases to you or your internal team.
Tool Training: Ensure the outsourced team is comfortable with your CRM, helpdesk software, and other tools.
Quality Control Metrics: Establish KPIs such as CSAT (Customer Satisfaction Score) and first-response time (FCR) to monitor performance.
Training is not a one-and-done process.
You’ll need to meet with your team weekly at minimum; update team members on marketing campaigns, new products and issues; provide training refreshers; share feedback regularly; and made changes to documentation as processes change, in order for this partnership to be successful.
How a Customer Experience Consultant Can Help You Outsource Customer Service Successfully
A customer experience consultant can play a pivotal role in making the outsourcing process smoother and more effective. Here’s how:
Strategy Development: CX consultants help online brands determine what to outsource, select the right outsourcing model, and design a roadmap for implementation.
Partner Selection: Consultants leverage their own partnerships, experience, and industry networks to identify reliable outsourcing partners with proven expertise in e-commerce customer care.
Onboarding and Training: A consultant can develop onboarding programs that align outsourced teams with your brand's culture, tone, and processes.
Performance Monitoring: They provide ongoing audits, performance tracking, and recommendations for improvement to ensure the outsourced team delivers consistent value.
Scalable Growth: As your business grows, a CX consultant ensures the support operation can scale efficiently without sacrificing customer satisfaction.
By working with an experienced customer experience consultant, businesses can avoid common pitfalls and confidently navigate the emotional and logistical challenges of outsourcing.
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