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Outsource Support - There’s No Money In Doing It Yourself! | ||
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This is entry #4 in the What Are You Struggling With? series. If you’d like to submit one of your struggles for consideration please post a comment in this original post. If you want to view all the posts in this series visit the Struggling Series category. Repeat after me… THERE’S NO MONEY IN DOING YOUR OWN SUPPORT! This goes for Customer Support or Tech Support. If you are doing it yourself you are keeping yourself from making a lot more money. The real money is made by your marketing and from your business development. Now this doesn’t mean you “do a bad job” at supporting your customers, it just means you hire someone else to take care of them for you — and it can now be done very inexpensively, so there’s no excuse. Here’s a struggle I see a lot…
Antone, First of all, if you’re in a money crunch, the last thing you need to be doing is hiring an actual employee to be doing your tech support or customer service. What you need to consider is hiring a reputable service that will do all of your customer service for you (as well as other tasks, if you wish) economically, and this can include technical support. One of the biggest mistakes business owners make is hiring an employee to a full-time position for a job that’s definitely PART-TIME. Unless you have a massive business, your customer or tech support can most likely be handled in a few hours a day — and it’s okay if you don’t have a 60-minute or less response time. Most people are thrilled if you help them within 12-14 hours of their request; a day at the most. If you’ve read “The 4-Hour Workweek” by Timothy Ferriss (which I highly recommend), he gives some great tips on outsourcing your customer service, including the recommendation of these services… www.yourmaninindia.com Other resources for outsourcing your customer service include… www.customerservicedoneforyou.com By using one of these services, you simply pay by the hour for the amount of work they actually do for you - anywhere from $4/hr. on up. Plus, these services train the people who work for them so you don’t have to. You simply provide specifics about your products and services that allow them to do their job, and let them go to work (potential questions with answers, refund info, etc.). Also, by using a service like this, you don’t have to worry about firing any employees, being responsible for putting food on the table for employees, or any of the other headaches that go along with hiring people for your company. Furthermore, whether you hire someone to work for your company, or simply hire a service to handle it for you, what would make life much easier for you would be to fire up Camtasia studio, record yourself as you teach people ONE TIME all about your product, how to handle tech support requests, where to find your FAQs, how you want them responding to people who need help, and so on. You can take the time ONCE to gather all of the pertinent information that’s needed to train people to perform your tech support for you, and simply create your own video training that any new support person can watch from their own computer WITHOUT having to continuously waste precious hours of your time! Most entrepreneurs ‘fight’ hiring someone because they don’t want to have to train them. The other reason is that they want to be a CONTROL FREAK and do everything — I know this all to well as I did this for many years and it probably cost me a small fortune. I started to see major growth in my own business when I finally learned to just LET GO. Hire a service to help you — just give it a shot. You can always stop using them if it doesn’t work out. But I promise you, once you find the right service (or individual) to take over some work for you… IT *WILL* CHANGE YOUR LIFE. (And your business.) And you’ll be A LOT happier. I promise. ~ John
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September 4th, 2007 at 9:15 am
FIRST!
Thank you this amazing post! But please post an update about Income.com status!
September 4th, 2007 at 9:24 am
(The links are broken in this post)
September 4th, 2007 at 11:18 am
John,
Thank you for responding to my question! Since posting it, I have been advertising in a few places for a part time contractor to help me with tech support, but haven’t yet received an application I’m satisfied with.
I checked out the sites you linked to, and have now posted the job on Elance. A year or so ago, I considered hiring someone through Elance, but decided not to because at the time, being locked into Elance and having to continue to pay their fees bothered me. Today, especially having tried unsuccessfully to find someone through various other routes, it seems silly to worry about such things.
Thanks for pointing me back that direction. Here’s hoping this is the beginning of the next stage of my business!
September 4th, 2007 at 11:38 am
Excellent post, I agree 100%. defo check out the 4 hour work week, it will give you lots of ideas
September 4th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
Here’s a few more reasons -
#1 - other people may be better than you at dealing with your clients or customers. My clients love my VAs, who take the time to answer their questions and chit chat (productively) with them. Gives my busienss a nice, real person feel.
#2 - you look more important. If you answer your own phone, you can’t be that busy (according to your customers). If it takes 2-6 weeks to get an appointment with you, you must be good. (would you go to a restaurant with a crowded parking lot, or one that’s empty?)
#3 - no one wastes your time. My clients view it as a privilege to talk to me, so they get to the point during phone calls and meetings. Calls that took 60 minutes now take 10 minutes. They thank me for taking the time to help them (and they are paying me for my time).
Thanks for the tips, John!
Elizabeth
September 4th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Great post, sometimes I have the same problem ! Great one
September 4th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
A site you should definitely check out if you’re interested in outsourcing is oDesk (http://www.odesk.com). One of the neat things about oDesk is that it works very well for long-term projects. Many online marketplace sites offer only project-based work, but because oDesk offers the option of payment by the hour (and its neat oDesk Team software allows Buyers to verify that their providers are working the hours they say they are working), it’s a great option for people looking for either tech support or longer-term jobs. There are over 15,000 tested and rated providers, so it’s a great place to search for what you’re looking for!
~Michelle, oDesk
http://www.odesk.com
September 4th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
carp rocks antone. Its like a swiss army knife.
September 4th, 2007 at 11:29 pm
I admit it…. it’s true….
I’m a control freak.
I just cant help it.
To let go of control is
a dark and gloomy
thing for me to face.
It’s beyond my comfort
zone.
Someone hold my hand.
Great post John - Thanks
for sharing!
~Eric
September 5th, 2007 at 6:21 am
To me it’s a matter of losing focus by trying to do everything yourself. Gotta stick with what brung you to this point in the first place. And it ain’t administrivia. Outsource it, and get back to the basics.
Thanks, John, for an excellent post.
September 5th, 2007 at 1:23 pm
Hey John,
Of the resources you gave for outsourcing, which would you *most* recommend over others? (specifically for customer support)
September 5th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
To add to the list of good websites to find outsourcing capabilities, I’d recommend http://www.odesk.com . I recently just signed up with them and they’re great! Much easier to manage then Elance and RAC. I used to be a RAC junkie, but the site is just to “bulky” and I like that ODesk look and feel.
Oh…I just looked up at some of the other comments and noticed someone already posted about Odesk. ….ah well.
September 5th, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Nice blog post, i have been taking a break from outsourcing because it can give big headaches at times, but its nothing like getting pretrained freelancers, so i will check out the resources that you listed.
September 6th, 2007 at 9:10 am
Great tips John, i definitely will try that once my business go into next level. Thanks.
September 6th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Here is another outsourcing service that I use and have found them to be very professional and not to mention very inexpensive.
http://www.outsourceyourwork.com
September 6th, 2007 at 9:51 am
People seem to forget something very basic - experts are better at what they do than you are. If you need to write some copy, get a copywriter - they’ll do a better job. And sure, it’s not going to be free, but if it generates 100% more sales as a result, that’s going to be a good return on your investment.
Do what you do best. Everything else, outsource to experts.
September 6th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
[…] with hiring, training and finding someone trustworthy. Sounds familiar? If yes, you should read John Reese’s “What are you struggling with” series offers some answers to this […]
September 7th, 2007 at 1:33 am
Awesome advice…ALWAYS outsource customer support, but I’m a tad surprised to see suggestions to outsource to countries where English is not the native language just to save a buck or two. Or do you really save?
I may be naive and it seems like “all the big companies are doing it” but are they doing themselves damage in the process? I’m sure you’d agree that customer support is a HUGE part of profitability and good customer service is what keeps customers coming back for more and it also helps encourage word-of-mouth.
But what happens when your customer service is not what it should be? I think you run that risk when you run your support through a company that staff non-native speakers of English. It doesn’t matter how much school they had or how much they practiced their English, a non-Native speaker who doesn’t live in an English-speaking country doesn’t understand the colloquialisms and idioms your customers are going to use…among other things.
And my goodness, I’ve experienced this first hand on a number of support calls, and on particular one of note. I don’t think I used any irregular language (I was careful not to as I instantly knew what I was dealing with). The people I spoke to just didn’t understand what I was saying. And as I spoke to everyone from staff member to manager to the manager’s manager, it was clear they were reading from a script and a manual that didn’t allow them to use their own instincts or experience to asses the situation. They simply didn’t comprehend the situation as a whole.
Of course, if you are doing email / help desk support, your issues may be different. And as a former ESL teacher, I can tell you, that there are different countries in the world where people either write more fluently or speak more fluently in English. It is rare that they can do both as a generalization. I won’t post those comments here because I certainly don’t want to appear to stereotype, but it all comes down to the education system where they are taught English and to some degree, how closely related their native language is to English.
So, my thoughts are - definitely outsource your support…just be careful where you outsource it to.
September 7th, 2007 at 2:48 am
I like the tip to video your FAQ using Camtasia. With my XSP Cheat Sheet I have a “request a video” option. I did this because I know when one person asks how something is done there are sure to be others who are keen to know as well. By publishing the video It removes another potential support question.
September 7th, 2007 at 7:34 am
Great point Alice. I know a few people who have gotten so frustrated with their interactions with individuals in customer support who barely spoke English that they stopped buying the company’s product. If your company does not have a good customer support system there is a good change you will lose a lot of customers (a lot of the time without even realizing it).
September 7th, 2007 at 9:37 am
I’ve been using an old version of Carp and Grouper for years!
I don’t make a ton of money but I outsource almost everything. Link building, writing articles (other than my blog which is fun), database work, programming… all that stuff is just low leverage, you doing it in most cases won’t make your business grow. And by outsourcing you don’t have to worry about managing the employees.
I have helpers in India (3 different companies) and Colombia. It’s really nice because its low cost for you, they make money, and they bill you. You don’t have to pay the extra tax and social security you would to an employee, in fact I don’t even have to pay taxes outsourcing to services outside the European union.
September 10th, 2007 at 1:40 am
Well I love outsourcing to other countries. And I don’t think this is a HUGE problem.
I know of some online companies that don’t even get back to you after trying to contact customer service multiple times. Now that’s a PROBLEM! No communication.
September 10th, 2007 at 8:50 am
dear john i always like your blog post very informative too
i like your advice on one thing that is how can i actually start using adsense to earn from my blog
i been blogging for months and only get a few dollars from adsense
what do you think is the way to go around this thank you
September 10th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
I totally agree with Alice.
I outsource a lot off tasks myself - design, copywriting, articles, programming etc., but I don’t let anyone else to deal with my customers.
I’m not a native English speaker myself, well actually, English is only 3rd language I learned in school.
BUT
Even when my English isn’t *Top Level* - I know MY STUFF!!! I couldn’t let anyone else to handle customer service because they don’t know RIGHT answers.
The only way I could do this by writing a 5000 page manual and give it to my customer support to learn it letter by letter. And even then - there is no guarantee that he/she will be sharp-minded to act the right way in crisis.
I understand that for many products this isn’t the problem because they are simplier and e-mails coming in every day are about the same topics.
I’m not talking even about the visitor excitement when they talk to owner of a website, not some kind of $10 per day 3rd World Country student. As I’m using “Live Chat” on my website - I have personally closed many sales in “Live” - I see money coming in while I’m still chatting with customer.
I can honestly say - one of the reasons why I’m successful on The Internet in my niche is because I Handle Customer Support by myself!
Best Wishes,
Andy Minalto
http://www.BookieClub.com
September 11th, 2007 at 1:20 am
HI:
I’m the founder of my company and I have my email set to automatically send me the
support emails. I have to manually check the sales but I always get any support
emails first. That’s because I want to know if my customers are having trouble with
our product. If they are I assign the person to my person in technical support but not
before I see the complaint. We say that our technical support is “Fast and Furious”.
We have a real phone number and email/chat support.
I have many products that have only email support and I can tell you that if there
is another similar product that has phone support and that it’s real and not in India, etc
We always buy that.
As a result of our customer support we have sold thousand of products at 159.00 and
we have had only 10 returns due to support…wow…
When you treat your customers like they are your repeat customers and referrals
they respond in kind. So my advice is to be “Fast and furious” We answer in hours if
not minutes to our customers and they always have a way to contact us. We will
never hide behind email support .
By the way… I’m a fan of John as well and can’t wait to see income.com…..give us an
update on the site…PLEASE
- Mike Shiflettt
MS Avoation
September 11th, 2007 at 2:13 am
Couldn’t agree with you more. And if it will cost too much to outsource, then time to sell your business and look for another website that is more automated.
September 11th, 2007 at 5:49 am
I took your advice last year.
All of my articles are outsourced. I use http://www.need-an-article.net/
the service is just great.
September 12th, 2007 at 7:48 pm
f
September 13th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
There are definitely a lot of great ideas and thoughts in not just your post John, but also the awesome feedback everyone has been leaving.
I did see one question that I agree with, of the resources you mentioned, which would come with your highest recommendation?
Of course I am sure it also depends on the type of products you are putting out there. Support for a hosting company is different than answering questions about the link to an ebook download from a client (those I used canned replies to often to save a little time).
I definitely like the idea of making videos for your FAQ’s that was a great suggestion too.
Xavier
September 15th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
Great information, theres too many tedious tasks operating an online business.
February 25th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
[…] fact, recently John Reese suggested to outsource customer support and to outsource it to India to save some cash. This was my comment on his post (I have edited […]
March 13th, 2008 at 9:19 am
NG0hEC U cool ))
April 6th, 2008 at 1:34 pm
My point of view may differ from the other’s, but anyway I have may things to say on this subject. First, everything here is true. Second, check the information first, then comment it
April 9th, 2008 at 3:57 am
It sounds good, I love the simplicity. Your posts are easy as a pie and really attractive at the same time.
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:52 am
I had heard about ghost writers and elance.com at seminars and wish I had taken the action to look into it further. Instead we met a person at a seminar, got a freindship going, he offered his services, brought forward a proposal with all the bells and whistles, yes we knew time was a factor for us so we went with his services for a mere ( embarrassed to say ) but try $15,000.
What did we get? Well he did start, but he fell ill with no finished services as per proposal.
Yep we did our money. Oh he did promise to pay it back but doctors ordered to take time out.
So anything from $4 per hr/up is worth checking out. Lesson learnt.