Help Desk Outsourcing Pros And Cons | Business Process ...

Outsourcing is an accepted way of doing business in the United States. It can save companies both big and small a boat load of cash over an extended period of time. Help Desk support is one of the most commonly outsourced areas within in an organization. But that doesn?t mean it?s a perfect solution. If you?re considering outsourcing your Help Desk, take a look at our outsourcing pros and cons before you make your final decision.

PROS

Focus On Your Core Business

Outsourcing your Help Desk means not forcing your employees to wear every hat but the one you hired them for. It?s just not pratical or smart business to use employees to handle your support desk and manage their primary work assignments.

Outsourcing, allows you and your employees to focus on the areas of your business you want to expand and increase revenue.

No Holiday Staff Shortages

An outsourced team means you will never have a problem with being short staffed because of holidays, vacations or illness. The vendor has the ability to increase staff quickly and efficiently. This means no down time or loss of revenue.

Hey, if a giant snow storms shuts your city down and your employees can?t make it into work. It?s a good feeling knowing that your Help Desk is still operating at peak performance. Your outsourced team can operate 24 hours a day if necessary.

Cost Savings

It can?t be stressed enough. Choosing to outsource your Help Desk saves you money. Although the savings are realized over time, there?s no denying the huge benefits of not having to pay employee taxes, health and retirement and paid vacations for dozens of extra employees.

Expert Help Desk Vendors

A vendor that specializes in the area of Help Desk support can train and make changes faster than your in house staff. This is particulary true if Help Desk support is not an area you or your staff have had an extensive background in running.

Vendors in this area have the technology and experience to deal with changes and other needs.

CONS

Company Reputation Can Be Damaged

Poor Help Desk staff is a direct reflection on the company they represent. If a vendor has a staff that is not very interested in maintaining and providing a good customer experience. This can damage the image of a company or brand. It can end up costing a company a substantial amount of money to fix an image problem after the fact.

Training Problems

A vendor?s training methods may not fit well with your company. Some organizations are a little uncomfortable allowing a third party to manage the training process. They fear that the vendor may not be able to fully grasp certain concepts.

Cultural Issues

Many times a customer?s first experience with a company will be the Help Desk. In situations where staff is offshore, there can be problems with language barriers.

Typically heavy accents can be frustrating to customers who may already be annoyed by a product or service that is not operating properly. Dealing with someone they can barely understand can be a major problem for an organization using offshore vendors.

Offshore Vendors Can Be Difficult To Communicate With

Even with the internet and email, time diffrences can be a major problem when management needs information or some kind of assistance from the vendor. It may takes hours instead of minutes to recieve an answer about a particular concern.

There is no doubt that outsourcing can be challenging. But, if you take the time to create a plan to manage the outsourcing process, you?ll find that even the most challenging areas can be dealt with efficiently.

But you have to be willing to take each area of concern, sit down with your staff and come up with potential problems and solutions for each.

That?s not to say that you won?t have any problems. What you will have is a plan in place to deal with each problem as they arise. So instead of wasting time and resources trying to figure out what to do at the last minute, you will already have a list of possible solutions to draw from.

Finally, having clear and consise goals communicated to your vendor right from the start, can really help to reduce or in some cases eliminate any potential problems.

Source: http://itoutsourcing-bpo.com/2012/02/help-desk-outsourcing-pros-and-cons/

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