The ultimate guide to successfully outsourcing help desk

It’s hardly a revelation to say that outsourcing help desk provision to an offshore third-party support provider massively reduces costs and allows organizations to focus on more strategic fundamentals. What’s often left out of the conversation is essential best practices required to ensure a successful experience. Before you sign on the dotted line with an outsourced, usually offshore, help desk provider consider very carefully the following:

There are a few common outsourcing models for help desks: onshore outsourcing, offshore outsourcing, and a hybrid model. Evaluate the pros and cons of each model based on your priorities and needs.

Carefully vet multiple outsourcing providers before choosing a partner. Have extensive discussions around their proposal, transition periods, processes, and technologies.

You may like to start with a pilot program before fully transitioning support. Evaluate the provider to ensure they meet support standards before the broad rollout. You could do a pilot with limited support levels, products, or customers.  Here at ServiceJi, we’re happy to arrange that.

Before outsourcing your help desk, define key objectives and metrics to measure success, such as reducing customer support costs, decreasing call resolution time, and elevating customer satisfaction scores. Establishing goals upfront helps choose an outsourcing provider suited to meet them and set proper Service Level Agreements. Regularly review metrics to ensure outsourcing your help desk achieves key objectives.

Create detailed process documentation, knowledge bases, and call scripts for your help desk before outsourcing. Standardizing help desk procedures makes it easier to transition support to an outsource provider.  It helps quickly get new outsourced teams and agents up to speed in addressing support needs and meeting quality standards when outsourcing your help desk. We will help you with that.

Service Level Agreements define expectations and quality standards for an outsourced help desk. Determine key metrics for availability, response times, resolution times, customer satisfaction, and quality/compliance. Include these in Service Level Agreements and tie them to penalties when not met.

Work with your help desk outsource provider on a proper transition plan from an in-house help desk to an outsourced help desk. Have them continue current support during the initial ramp-up. Have current staff train outsourced teams. Set an end date for the full transition and stick to it. Transition management helps ensure the continuity of quality support.

Once you outsource your help desk, closely monitor operations and quality.  Review metrics and service level agreements regularly. Conduct audits and customer satisfaction surveys. Provide open feedback and communicate frequently with providers to address any issues and make improvements. Focus on relationship management, not micromanagement but stay actively engaged.

Consider making support staff available for a short period after the transition, just in case there are issues to help troubleshoot. Have backup plans in case outsourcing support does not work out as expected. If you appoint us at ServiceJi then, humbly speaking, this will not be an issue.

Regularly survey internal staff and end-users to gauge satisfaction with outsourced support. Look for opportunities to improve quality, consistency, and service levels continuously over time.

Make sure you retain visibility into help desk data, tickets, and documentation. Do not lose full control and oversight of help desk operations just because it is outsourced. ServiceJi offers complete transparency to our clients.

Outsourcing a help desk successfully requires partnership and ongoing effort between all parties. Review contracts and service level agreements at least every 2-3 years. Help desk support requirements change, so outsourcing relationships need to adapt. Ensure service levels stay aligned with business requirements.

Contact us at ServiceJi. We will run through all your options; explain how we can help and utterly delight you with the cost savings.