Offshore vs. U.S. Customer Service Call Center: Which Option is Right for You?

When you are operating a business, excellent customer service is paramount to building a reputation and revenue. One of the most important components of great customer service is allowing your customers to get in touch with you anytime they need to. The best way to do this is to use 800 services or a call center, so customers can reach a live person 24 hours a day.

There are two ways business owners can go when they are using a customer service call center. Today, the most common option for businesses is using an overseas call center to save money. The other option is to use a domestic call center. Though the benefits of using a call center based in the U.S. take longer to see, in the long run domestic 800 services save businesses time and money.

Benefits of Call Centers

Before breaking down the differences between domestic and foreign call centers, business owners may want to consider the reasons call centers can be so valuable in the first place. The most important benefit is the availability it offers customers; having a live person available to answer questions 24 hours a day is a real asset.

Call center staff are highly trained individuals who can thoroughly and expertly answer all the questions that customers call in with. They can sell your customers on upgrades as well as help retain dissatisfied customers when they call with the intention of cancelling their accounts.

Call centers are also affordable. Instead of paying a staff to sit in your office building 24 hours a day, you can save money by outsourcing the work to a call center. Whether you decide to use a domestic or a foreign call center, this will save your company a lot of money.

Why Domestic Call Centers?

To save money on overhead, many businesses outsource their answering services to offshore operations. While this can save money in the short term, revenue lost through frustrated customers, and their willingness to share bad experiences openly, leaves many business owners abandoning overseas call centers. Some of the most common complaints from U.S. customers dealing with overseas call centers include:

Language Barrier

The most common complaint that customers have when they deal with foreign 800 services is the language barrier. Even if there isn’t a language barrier, dealing with a foreign representative can offend some customers.

Different Definitions of Service

Most overseas call center personnel can and will follow your instructions to the letter. While this is good for black-and-white processes, those processes that require critical thinking and analysis are better left to individuals who can think outside the box and are allowed to use discretion in decision making.

The average foreign call center worker goes by the book in an extremely inflexible manner, which can be frustrating for an American consumer who is accustomed to taking their business to the competition when they are dissatisfied.

The Smart Choice

In general, domestic call center workers are better at thinking outside the box to find solutions for a customer’s problem. They display a better level of empathy for their customer’s situation, which will help your customers to be much more satisfied.

Although it may be tempting to save money by hiring an overseas call center, business owners need to look at the big picture. Although there will be some short-term savings with foreign call centers, they can never compete with a domestic call center for the level of customer service they provide. Hiring a domestic customer service call center is the smart choice. It will actually save money in the end with increased customer satisfaction and retention.

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