Outsourcing support

I've worked with both in house support and overseas support (India, Ireland, UK, etc.) The biggest struggle I usually have is not being able to just tap someone on the shoulder to assist with a high priority issue.

Even if you are on a call with your support folks and sharing screens etc. the delay, the issues with the technology (audio, video), poor connections with India, etc. are a huge issue.

As many people stated before the cost savings are very nice but you definitely lose some productivity due to simple local things.

Another issue I've encountered is the difference in culture. Working with teams in India can be very frustrating because there is a lot of "yes I understand or yes that makes sense" when they don't understand or they disagree with the solution. There is a "you are the manager, you know best" mentality in India, and this is super detrimental for complex decision making.
 
Best to have in-house team as it provide easy access to a dedicated tech support team member that can address issues immediately. You also get a certain cost control measure as the IT team members salary remains the same regardless of the tasks undertaken such as troubles tickets, setting up a new server, or working after hours to complete a network upgrade. This means that your costs remain steady even as your technology needs change.
 
There have been times when we have outsourced technical support, however, this has mostly happened only during some major events (like switching data centers, etc) when we anticipate a lot of support requests for a short duration, where our internal staff may not be sufficient to handle.
 
Have you ever used outsourcing support?
If yes, where from?

There is nothing bad in outsourcing your support if you know you don’t have time and you want to provide 24/7 support for your business. Instead of losing your customer it is better you outsource your support but remember that it will cost you additional money. There are many cheap reputable companies online that you can hire for your support.
 
We will never let our customers to the hand of the third party, strictly in the house. For privacy and security reasons we will never use outsourcing support.
 

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