How do you feel about outsourcing?

[HostingKing]

How do you feel about outsourcing support? Would you ever do it, and to what extent?

I think it can be useful and can really reduce costs, but you have to make sure that the outsourcing company is good. There are some that do not do a good job, so will only hurt your company's image. But I have seen some that seem to work pretty well, and are fairly seamless in integrating into your company.

But I think it's important always to have some support available from your company, for higher-level issues that the outsourced support techs might not be able to debug on their own. There has to be a balance.

 

[romes]

Well, outsourcing is not bad as long as you use a company that is near your target audience. For example, USA based clients prefer to speak with people that are from the USA or speak fluent English. Talking with someone who can barely spell English words or can barely speak English only hurts you. I've seen a lot of hosts who outsource to India due to low costs but their support sucks because the tech and the client can't communicate properly.

So if your client base is USA, then focus on a USA company that can handle outsourcing. USA companies are reasonable and are good. But like I said, gotta research and remember your target audience when looking for outsourcing companies. Nothing worse than your client not being able to get the help they need. Makes you look bad.

 

[VMhosts-Gordon]

Yes outsourcing support has its benefits but as mentioned you have to have a balance. We find a lot of our customers have built up a relationship with us and we know a fair amount about their environment.
Naturally a company offering managed support and services, needs to be able to offer a broad spectrum of skill sets. This is where outsourcing can help I feel.
I agree that in an ideal world the outsourced support should be based geographically close to the majority of customers however this is not always a possibility.

 

[postcyhosting]

outsourcing is not so bad, but it is beneficiary which is near to your targeted customers.
which sales and carries your products to customers door step and make them to feel free for business and market related tasks

 

[Acalita]

I think it depends on what work you need to have completed and where you are going to for the help. I have outsourced before, not for hosting related but more for design related issues. If I can help someone else out I am sure they will return the favor and it has proven useful in the past to team up for certain projects.

 

[new2webhosting]

How do you feel about outsourcing support? Would you ever do it, and to what extent?

I think it can be useful and can really reduce costs, but you have to make sure that the outsourcing company is good. There are some that do not do a good job, so will only hurt your company's image. But I have seen some that seem to work pretty well, and are fairly seamless in integrating into your company.

But I think it's important always to have some support available from your company, for higher-level issues that the outsourced support techs might not be able to debug on their own. There has to be a balance.

I'm not a fan of outsourcing personally, but that's coming from an end-user point of view. As an English speaking customer, when I call for customer service or tech support, I need to speak with an agent that's also fluent in English. From a business owner's perspective, I can see where it could save a lot of money, but I think it's a risky venture that could potentially be VERY bad for business.

 

[concerto49]

Outsourcing needs to be managed otherwise it fails. Often those that outsource think the work is outsourced and there is nothing more to do.

There's a lot of contract management, governance and strategic planning involved.

It can be good if done right.

 

[GelHost-Basil]

It all depend on the owners of the hosting company. They could be located in US and get their needed support from other country via online/support ticket. If anyone need to contact the company on usa, there is always a toll free number.

 

[Future-Hosting]

I have some limited experience with finding programmers, developers and data entry specialists on oDesk. It's worked well enough.

 

[ventureer]

I have experience with outsourced support. It has some positive points and some negative points.

In the positive, it´s cheap. If you are starting it´s good as you can provide a service to your customers and sleep

In the negative, you are transfering some control of your company to another company.

As I said before, it´s a good way to start with.

Regards.

 

[shockym]

I vet a outsourcing company or team like I would any other, they need to prove that they can do the things they say they can. I have no issues with it, if you can do the job, do it. Very simple here, but the problem most people face is either communication difficulties (with frustration) or not vetting the team in the first place.

 

[alex0]

Outsorucing is good at times when your own costs for doing a task is much higher than that of others doing it. From a business point of view its a good thing I feel as long as sales is not affected and the quality is good.

 

[HostMunch]

Why would I hire someone at $50,000/year when I can hire someone for $3,000/year who does just as good a job?

Here's a fun example: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/...ina-busted-employee-cat-videos_n_2489122.html

 

[Future-Hosting]

Realistically though, would you outsource your help desk? I haven't seen it go over well as a long term solution.

 

[whland]

Outsourcing is okay. But I'd rather pay someone in my own town to do the job.

Chad

 

[mikho]

When deciding to outsorce the work actually begins
No one can take over the support without someone will notice. In the beginning, response time will be slower and perhaps not accurate (because of the person handling the case do not know your environment)

depending on the size of your server-farm, this will take some time to let the people get "into it".

There's also the aspect of documentation, did you hand over any type of documentation regarding your environment or do the new support have to guess what goes where and which systems are connected in what way?

My dayjob is in the "support" business where a large part is to handle different companys servers and their application. I generally do not handle anything INSIDE their business systems. If they can connect, my work is done. Someone else have to take the support on that part.

I do have colleagues that takes 1-st line support, with questions like "how do I add a signature to my email software", if there is anything more technical, they flag a case to me and I make the call what to do with the problem.


What you always need is someone that takes the command and feel responsible for the customers situation.
And ofcourse do anything to solve the customers problems.

 

[HostMunch]

Realistically though, would you outsource your help desk? I haven't seen it go over well as a long term solution.

Well, I've noticed that outsourced help desk's are often really, really bad. However, if you focus on outsourcing to some knowledgeable people (even if you have to pay a little more), I think it can be successful.

 

[pwhcary]

Outsourcing allows you to concentrate more on how to increase the sale of your hosting business and take your hosting business ahead in the path of perfection cause all the support and needed things get handles by other team for your own hosting.

 

[Alex - A2 Hosting]

I think outsourcing is generally bad, you really have no control. If someone says something to your clients you disapprove of then you have no control of that employee.

When starting out I think its best to provide a quality service with friendly & personal customer support, customers may be happy (especially local ones) to wait a little longer for a quality resolution response.

When you get to a certain size you can have an in-house team to provide 24 / 7 coverage.

 

[dedideals]

Personally for me, outsourcing is terrible - I have first hand experience with Companies who out sourced support, there were endless complaints, not just the odd one.

They tried about 10 different companies, it was the same, regular.

I think it is better to grow your own team, this works much better in regards to quality.