When outsourcing support tickets, it’s essential to have a plan in place to ensure a smooth transition and continued quality service support. Below are some tips that we’ve put together based on our years of experience partnering up with hundreds of brands.
Set up a centralized helpdesk.
Before outsourcing tickets, ensure there are tickets being created for each channel that you want to be covered. This allows you to obtain a clear look at performance across channels once the outsourced team starts working on tickets. After working on tickets yourself, you will also know what apps need to be integrated and what features may need to be added to improve overall efficiency. You should pick a helpdesk based on features needed for your industry. Our team often helps brands migrate or set up new helpdesks.
Choose an outsourcing partner.
You’ll need to find a partner within your budget that fits your volume needs. Your helpdesk should be able to give you volume estimates that you’ll can to share with your potential partners so they can plan out staffing needs. Look for reviews and ask for references from other clients. Reputable partners with a good record will be able to set up a call so you can speak to another partnered brand.
Develop a communication plan.
Determine how you will communicate with them at the beginning, the cadence of meetings, and what reporting is expected. Have a list of specific contacts and their information (internal team members, warehouse contact, etc.) that the outsourced team may need since they won’t have the onboarding experience internally where they are introduced to the entire team. At wrrk, we usually communicate with clients on Slack if it’s a matter of urgency, email updates, and get on biweekly or monthly meetings. In reports, you’ll see how many tickets our agents worked and a QA score, on top of metrics that are pulled directly from your helpdesk.
Train and onboard the new team.
Be prepared to share knowledge with your outsourcing partners. Share your brand guide if you have one. If not, try to at least put together a one-pager that describes your brand & voice. Get a list ready of all the tools they’ll need to support your customers and share access. Most outsourcing partners will already have an established process for training, so you should be able to get away with just sharing some FAQs and support processes. A good partner will be able to continue building out these processes over time.
Define metrics and goals.
To kickoff your relationship with your outsourcing partner, it’ll be important to establish your goals and how you’ll measure performance early on. Is customer satisfaction (CSAT) score the only thing you care about? Is your focus primary on lower cancellations? Depending on goals, we might risk a lower CSAT to retain a customer.
Monitor performance of your agents.
Figure out how your team performance will be managed. It can be difficult to let someone else take the reins and we understand that it takes time to establish trust. Find out what the outsourcing partners have in place for quality control – at wrrk, we audit a percentage of tickets weekly. You may choose to create a view of all tickets the outsourcing partner closed weekly to keep an eye on things yourself.
Ready to outsource your support needs? Book a meeting here with our Managing Director! We’ll walk you through each step you need to take if you decide wrrk is the best fit for you.
