Independent cross-border e-commerce sellers have entered and maintained steady growth after 2-3 years of operation. Due to the insufficient human resources to manage a global after-sales customer service team, they have been experiencing a growing pressure. The time differences between countries? Non-native languages? Cross-cultures? Overseas communication platforms? Management personnel? Reporting software? Quality control measures? It is not easy to manage global customer service on their internal team, specifically “phone + Email + Facebook + Live Chat”, not to mention to achieve an extraordinary global customer service experience for e-commerce brands.
Outsourcing to a one-stop global customer service solutions (for instance, Callnovo that provides 35+ language specialists, global communication platforms, and CRM solutions), can not only allow sellers to focus on the research and development of the actual products and increase sales turnover, but also a general trend that leads to greater efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and profit maximization.
Four major limitations of global customer service for independent e-commerce sellers in 2020:
1. Difficulty in hiring suitable customer service talents:
As customer service personnel are not easy to recruit, e-commerce sellers need to examine the following entry points: personality characteristics, environmental background, long-term stability, language ability, sense of responsibility, responsiveness, and learning ability.
Advantages of implementing outsourced solutions:
A complete pool of native-speaking customer service representatives from all countries, professional pre-evaluation of HR customer service qualifications, dedicated personnel responsible for recruitment, and basic soft skills training.
2. Time-consuming and insufficient training and administration:
After hiring suitable employees successfully, a series of practices are needed to be carried out, for instance, soft skills training, product knowledge training, long-term service quality management, attendance, internal incentives, career counseling, and serviceability improvement. Most e-commerce sellers, especially independent sellers, do not possess these skills as time and training are demanded to create long-lasting change.
Advantages of implementing outsourced solutions:
Professional and systematic management system to guarantee smooth delivery of services, including implementing attendance policy, mitigating risk through quality assurance, setting the right KPI, and developing incentives and disincentives to ensure compliance with management measures.
3. Lack of global customer service software and management tools:
A global customer service communication platform with CRM is required to be implemented, as it gathers customer interactions and manage centralized data across all channels in one place, including toll-free numbers, SMS, Email, Live Chat, Facebook, etc. During the follow-up process of e-commerce customer service management, assembling pieces of email communications and Excel reports from all parties is tricky. Independent e-commerce sellers have little understanding of global communication solutions, nor can they find a sophisticated and applicable one-stop customer service communication software and CRM solution internationally.
Advantages of implementing outsourced solutions:
A single CRM platform centralizes and manages toll-free numbers in over 120 countries and regions, two-way SMS, Email, Live Chat, Facebook, invoices, etc. It also provides deeper insights and data analysis, integrating from Amazon Seller Central, Shopify, etc. Targeting e-commerce sellers, the IT tools for global customer service management helps to realize service recording, SLA monitoring, CSAT customer satisfaction survey, missed call reminder, absence reminder, incentive reminder, KPI real-time display, internal case information communication, and historical record. On top of that, it can also perform soft skills and product knowledge training and assessments regularly.
4. Customer service team produces very little values:
One-stop outsourced customer service can efficiently and professionally provide customer communication solutions to a series of personnel and technical problems globally, reducing the pressures of e-commerce sellers effectively. However, apart from attributing as costs, some e-commerce sellers hope that it could drive sales and generate profits.
Advantages of implementing outsourced solutions:
Use Callnovo as an example, with 16 years of experiences and 900 employees worldwide, it has in-depth and ongoing research and development of global customer service solutions and value-added IT services for e-commerce sellers. It aims at obtaining honest reviews from e-commerce buyers in an efficient, professional, and compliant manner. When e-commerce sellers have continuously obtained 5-star ratings by utilizing the outsourced customer call center, sales will be boosted accordingly. The assistant services of the outsourced customer service center also allow them to arrange revisits, COD e-commerce up-sales, document translation, and listing management. Besides, customized and advanced IT services allow e-commerce sellers to gain market insight and discover new business opportunities through analyzing data, which eventually promotes and stimulates product research, development, and operation.
To conclude, as the division of labor becomes more specialized, outsourcing has revolutionized the way businesses function, as professionals are known for their specialized knowledge. To maximize revenue, independent e-commerce sellers should focus on product research and development, as well as the core market development during the growth stage. Apart from cost-effective, partnering with a professional one-stop outsourced customer service center can modernized workforce management, but also obtained and enjoyed the most advanced IT tools and service management capabilities in one single stride, thereby promoting the steady development of e-commerce sellers’ global business.
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