Modern customers have more complex and diverse expectations. These days, customers from all across the globe expect a lot more from customer service than just being helpful and reliable. They expect easy access to help whenever they need it and a tailored service experience. Despite how simple it sounds, the complexity is real!
Unpredictable events often happen when you think your customer service procedure is working flawlessly. A perfectly balanced system begins to sway, and all of a sudden, you run the risk of slipping from reliably high quality into the slime of average service.
When a business expands globally, change is inevitable and often welcomed, but it isn’t always easy to deal with. It may require some planning and preparation, but you can increase your global customer care operation without sacrificing support quality.
The first challenge is learning the definition of “scaling customer support,” and the second is identifying the need to scale (preferably before anything goes wrong). In the upcoming paragraphs, we will assist you in meeting both challenges.
This post will be about scaling your customer support to the global market. We will analyze some prominent examples from China’s BPO Industry, revealing their secrets and strategies.
Let’s dive in!
Global Customer Support – What is it?
When you provide first-rate assistance to your consumers in every market, through every channel, and on every platform, you are engaging in global customer support. It also entails creating critical plans and infrastructure to support clients all around the globe.
Building a solid worldwide customer care system takes effort, but it pays off in increased brand recognition and satisfied customers worldwide. Companies with a global or medium-to-large-scale presence invest sufficient resources to serve their customers around the clock.
Basics to Scaling Customer Support Globally
It takes a combination of tactics to attract new international clients. For example, advertising and foreign marketing must be implemented to raise the company’s profile. The next step is to ensure that clients in these international marketplaces may readily access your business.
Here are some quick tips to attract new clients when you expand globally:
1. Improve Customer Service Procedures
A few changes can help your team spend more time supporting customers and improve the workplace. Such as:
- Upgrade your automated responses
- Be prepared for any emergency
- Delegate additional power to your team.
- Transform your touchpoints
2. Grow Your Knowledge Base And Self-Service
There is no more scalable form of support than self-service support, which clients can use whenever needed, without any dependence. Here are some quick points on how to achieve this:
- Increase the availability of self-service knowledge
- Get better at using your saved responses
- Put together a community.
- Fill up your knowledge gaps
3. Strengthen The Customer Support Team
A larger group is sometimes necessary, especially when you are scaling at a global level. Good customer service cannot be reliably provided by an undersized team that can keep up, regardless of the caliber of the team members. When you tap the global market, no number is enough for a perfect CS team.
Consider these quick suggestions to strengthen your customer support team:
- Think about outsourcing
- Put money into training
- Try company-wide support
- Rearrange coverage direction
Scaling Customer Support Globally – The Real Challenge?
It’s possible that in the beginning, when you were a little business attempting to establish a position in the market, you had less than twenty support requests in your customer service mailbox each week.
As your business has expanded, the number of inquiries has certainly increased, and they now originate from many channels such as social media, live chat, email, and phone.
Your customer service workflow looked something like this when you were a small company:
CS request ⇉ Email & Phone ⇉ Case
However, your CS process flow currently appears like this due to the growth of your business:
CS request (relates to sales, IT, billing, etc.) ⇉ Email, Online, Chat, & Phone ⇉ Case
Having a larger support staff is crucial to handle increasing inquiries. This is because the larger your company gets, the more responsibilities grow!
Additionally, your customer representatives must always maintain a professional demeanor, provide quick, individualized service around the clock, and treat each customer individually. Another task is finding appropriate resources (like tools) to expand these processes and guarantee effective operations.
It seems like a lot more effort, doesn’t it?
That is why you must optimize and change your CS procedures to gain control of this quickly developing problem. If your customer support lacks quantity, quality, or overall work efficiency, growing globally will remain a dream!
Chinese BPO Industry – The Real Customer Support Game-Changer?
With a predicted CAGR of 11.3%, the business process outsourcing industry in China is expected to reach a value of USD 38.38 billion by 2030. Those are not some random numbers you see!
Many factors have contributed to the market’s growth, such as:
- International trade agreements
- More BPO-specific training for recent graduates
- Increasing demand for outsourcing services in the banking, information technology, financial services, and human resources industries.
There are many other reasons for the rapid development of China’s Business Process Outsourcing industry in recent years. Some of the top ones include the country’s vast and varied talent pool, competitive pricing, outstanding education, and supportive government legislation.
Below are some major reasons Chinese BPO services are scaling customer support for international markets like a pro:
1. The Prominence of China in East Asia
As an important provider of IT and BPO services, China has a significant impact on the inter-Asian market. Despite its fast development, China continues to play an important role in supplying BPO services to other Asian nations such as Korea and Japan.
A large number of captive centers in China facilitate the Asian operations of multinational corporations by providing them with technology and related services.
Companies, including DHL, Siemens, Cisco, and Maersk, have shared service centers in the Chengdu province. As shown by the recent launch of direct flights between Chengdu and Bangalore by Air China, India has begun to engage more with these shared service centers, acknowledging the significance of this geography.
Additionally, when appropriate, India has begun to outsource to China. Work is being sent to their centers in India by large vendors, who also have connections with local vendors to subcontract IT work when necessary.
In a nutshell, China is the perfect spot to meet the demands of numerous international partnerships that benefit China and the greater East Asian area.
2. Adaption of the Latest Trends
An important development in China’s BPO industry is the growing use of AI and automation. Chinese business process outsourcing companies are pouring money into automation and AI to boost productivity, precision, and cost-effectiveness.
As a result, they are ruling the international markets in the following aspects:
- Superb Automation: With the help of AI, a lot of routine tasks that humans used to do are now automated, allowing business process outsourcing (BPO) agents to concentrate on higher-value, more complicated activities. Better quality, lower costs, and more efficiency are some prominent outcomes.
- Ideal Personalization: Through analyzing consumer data and providing personalized recommendations and offers, AI personalizes interactions with customers worldwide. As a result, Chinese BPO services are able to provide increased client satisfaction and loyalty.
- Quality Assurance: Chinese Service providers are certain they will fulfill their clients’ quality standards thanks to AI’s ability to automate quality control activities. Analyzing consumer feedback and identifying areas for development are some major benefits of AI usage.
- Level-Up Your Competition Game: With the help of Chinese BPO services, you can gain an edge over the competition. BPO companies, like Transcosmos China and Beijing 95teleweb Information Ltd,corp, are quick to embrace AI, giving their clients better, more tailored services.
3. Fundamental Macroeconomics
One of the main factors propelling China’s BPO market is the country’s robust economic growth in the past several years. The demand for products and services, including BPO services, has increased due to a fast-expanding middle class and more discretionary incomes.
As China seeks to increase its worldwide trade and investment relations, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has opened new doors for business process outsourcing companies. Lastly, the continued trade disputes between China and the US have made many businesses seek ways to diversify their supply chains and lessen their dependence on China. This could mean more BPO jobs in the country.
4. Exceptional Talent Pool
One big plus for China’s business process outsourcing industry is the country’s huge and varied talent pool. An abundance of college grads in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects attest to the country’s highly educated workforce.
China is a popular outsourcing location because of its cheap labor costs compared to other developed countries. Tax breaks and subsidies are just two examples of the policies put in place by the Chinese government to encourage the growth of the BPO sector.
Moreover, Beijing is an ideal location for BPO due to its size and the high quality of its workforce. Since China is already a major participant in the manufacturing sector, many new managers have extensive experience and training in managing processes, quality, and large-scale resources.
Concerning the workforce, China has a large supply of high school graduates who would excel in business process outsourcing but would have previously been limited to manufacturing employment. Recruiting and maintaining top personnel is a breeze in the BPO) service industry since jobs in this field are far more appealing than those in manufacturing.
5. Strong Educational Reforms
Every year, 8.3 million Chinese students graduate from high school, completing their education well. China’s prospective labor pool is enormous compared to other countries, with an estimated 23 million graduates from more than 1,800 higher education institutes.
Through robust educational reforms, China has created millions of outsourcing employment despite its citizens’ low English proficiency. Growth prospects have arisen due to educational institutions’ investments in BPO student training.
In addition, businesses in China can apply for government funds to fund the establishment of their feeder institutions. M&Y Global Services runs the institution in Daqing City, and its main concentration is educating data entry operator skills. The government can partially cover new employee orientation costs.
To illustrate the point, the Chinese government provides around US$650 (or 4,500 Yuan) in subsidies to every college graduate employed by an outsourcing firm in China.
One example is the BPO skill sets taught by M&Y Global Services, a Chinese outsourcing company, in partnership with the Shanghai Zhanjiang Institute of Education and the Beijing Jade Bird Information Technology Training Centre. The market is anticipated to experience growth throughout the forecast period, thanks to these activities by leading firms.
Why You Should Outsource to Chinese BPOs?
Customer happiness and loyalty are the two most important aspects of a successful business. Transferring responsibilities to another party frees you to focus on expanding your business without compromising on these two aspects.
Considering Chinese BPOs will help in freeing up some time in this way. In that case, you may devote it to higher-value endeavors that are good for your business and your employees. For example, creating brand-new offerings or making content for social networking sites like Twitter or Facebook.
Improved quality control (QC), faster response times, and new ideas contribute to greater efficiency, which benefits consumers in the long run. When businesses outsource, they can gain access to markets where they would only have been able to compete after, owing to a lack of knowledge about local laws governing wages, working conditions, and other factors.
Outsourcing to Chinese customer service providers will allow them to scale up rapidly without sacrificing service quality at any point in the production process, spending a lot of money, or wasting time on heavy training sessions.
Final Thoughts
When a company enters the “Big League,” common and uncommon challenges arise. Choosing the correct strategy and tools to provide outstanding customer service worldwide is crucial for companies whose success is increasingly dependent on client retention.
You now know what it takes to have a customer support department that is both highly productive and efficient and still provides an exceptional experience for customers at a global level. Understanding customer support scaling globally is the key to success. And that’s exactly what top Chinese BPO service providers, like M&Y Global Services, believe!
With time, the China BPO industry will reach its full potential. The industry will rapidly develop into a competitive option for various forms of business process outsourcing (BPO) with the government’s help. BPO service providers in China provide several benefits that may help organizations expand their operations globally, making it an essential strategic site for every worldwide company.
Some of the top qualities of the Chinese CS market include amazing educational reforms and a talent pool, a strong position in the East Asia region, amazing use of the latest trends (like AI), and exceptional government, providing all the right reasons to tap in!
Author: Greg.B
Executive with 25 years of proven success in call center management and revitalizing business units. Proven career record of producing multimillion-dollar profits through pinpointing operational inefficiencies and encouraging the revitalization of employee morale and corporate culture change.