Why customer service outsourcing remains immune from the recession bug?
Why customer service outsourcing remains immune from the recession bug?
August 26, 2009
The prevailing recessionary trends are giving sleepless nights to businesses worldwide and there is plenty of speculation going around that sooner or later customer service outsourcing firms will also have to face the heat. The customer service outsourcing industry has however managed to keep its cool and is not getting overly worried about the ongoing financial crisis. Some experts will certainly describe this as a case of over-optimism, but if we dig deeper, it will become quite clear that the optimism of customer service outsourcing firms is based on verifiable facts and sound logical reasoning and is not akin to wishful thinking.
It is true that most businesses are facing a credit crunch situation and are deploying survival strategies for combating recessionary forces. Huge layoffs, postponement of business expansion plans and cutbacks on employee benefit schemes have now become quite common. Customer service outsourcing firms however opine that all these negative developments will not affect their businesses prospects. They reason that losing customers due to sub-par customer services is the last thing businesses would want today. Since customer service outsourcing is a time-tested method for improving customer satisfaction in the most cost-effective manner, they say that demand for customer service outsourcing will actually increase in a short-term recession, not exceeding 12 to 18 months.
Data collected from a recent survey, wherein the top 100 customer service outsourcing providers were covered, also substantiates the optimism displayed by customer service outsourcing firms. The survey indicated that the average growth rate achieved by the top 100 customer service outsourcing firms has increased by 7.34% over the last two quarters (april-june, july-sep). This provides enough evidence to support the existence of that much-needed immunity acquired by customer service outsourcing firms. It also signals that businesses can continue to derive the benefits of customer service outsourcing and work their way towards a bright future.