10 Best Outsourced Customer Service Providers for 2024
Compared to recruiting and managing an in-house customer service team, outsourced customer service is the most time and cost-effective, and resource-efficient way to manage customer service at scale.
This is important because customers who receive poor service will go elsewhere. According to Forrester Research: 63% of customers will walk away from a company following just one bad experience.
On the other hand, 71% of people will recommend a company to friends and family and on social media if they receive high-quality service.
Outsourced customer service is a huge industry, currently worth over $100B and likely to grow to over $132B through 2028. With so many providers in this industry, it can be confusing knowing if you're going to pick the right one.
To make this easier, we have compiled a list of the top 10 outsourced customer service vendors, including their pros and cons, and more information about them.
What is Outsourced Customer Service?
Outsourced customer service is an operational model for outsourcing your customer service provisions to a third-party provider. Instead of recruiting and managing an in-house team, an outsourced agency can handle all of your customer-centric communications.
Pros of Outsourced Customer Service
There are several advantages to customer service outsourcing, including:
- A wide range of services, including telephony/voice support, email, live chat support, and in-app support (including in some cases via Amazon and other platforms)
- More cost and time-effective than having all of those staff on payroll
- A better quality of service
- More flexible: scaled up or down customer service provisions as needed
- Customer service in safe hands: entrust your customer service to providers that already manage this for huge global brands
Cons of Outsourced Customer Service
Before going this route, there are a few disadvantages to customer service outsourcing. There are also other things to be aware of as it will involve contracts, allocating budgets, etc.:
- A business's reputation is entrusted to a third party. The outsourced provider will be speaking on your behalf, so you need to train the staff who train customer service agents
- You need to have internal resources and communications with other teams ready to handle customer service issues via a third party. So that if an issue needs escalating, agents can pass these along to in-house team members
- Self-help and self-serve solutions and software ready to support inbound customer service tickets will help keep outsourcing costs down
- Be clear on costs and potential ways budgets could over-run and the potential flexibility in the event of customer requests increasing suddenly
- Be clear on lag time before scaling up or down customer service provisions so you can adequately plan ahead
Top 10 Outsourced Customer Service Vendors
Here are 10 outsourcing providers for customer services that could give your customers a top level of service:
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Foundever
Foundever is a global customer service provider that was founded in 1994. It now includes Sitel Group and Sykes Enterprises, providing multi-language customer service support for clients in 45 countries.
Services
- Over 170,000 staff in 45 countries and 60 languages supported (telephony and live chat)
- A flexible and scalable talent pool, so that if needed you can provide customers with 24/7 support worldwide
- Extensive experience in traditional and more modern businesses, such as AI, Web3, and the Metaverse
- Mainly B2C although they can provide services for B2B businesses
Pros
- Over 170,000 staff in 45 countries
- 60 languages supported and spoke fluently
- Proven track record: 9 million customer interactions and counting
Cons
- Better equipped and cost-centric towards larger companies
- Moving from the contact center, telephony service level agreements (SLAs), and provisions to digital-centric services
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Ascensos
Ascensos is a boutique customer service contact center provider tailored to delivering more customized solutions than others in this market.
Services
- Omnichannel and multi-lingual across every customer service provision: phone, chat, text, and social
- Tailored to your company, brand, and style, so you can be confident your customers won't know they're speaking to an outsourced agency
- Providing deep customer service analytics and insights to clients
Pros
- High-quality customized services
- Multi-channel approach to customer service offerings
- Multi-lingual services, so ideal for brands with customers in numerous countries and regions
Cons
- Ascensos provides hybrid services via traditional contact centers and home-based workers, so they might not be as cost-effective as those that operate on a WFH agent model only
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TELUS International
TELUS International is a globally recognized brand in telecommunications and customer service outsourcing. It also incorporates a customer experience (CX) company, VoxPro, that was acquired in 2020.
Services
- An extensive range of multi-channel and multi-language customer service provisions including telephony and digital
- A TELUS AI-powered chatbot that can provide service to customers in over 500 languages
- Outsourced customer service in the US and Europe
Pros
- Combines customer experience (CX) and enhanced digital support (DX), including via AI-powered chatbots
- A larger European service provision footprint: useful for European companies or US players entering the EU market
- A powerful multi-channel setup including AI-assisted and natural language programming (NLP) trained apps that can support 500+ languages
Cons
- More experience in the gaming and media sectors; although with a global footprint, they can deliver for numerous types of businesses
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LiveOps
LiveOps provides flexible cloud-based contact center services with high levels of quality assurance and agents with over 15 years of customer support experience.
Services
- Omnichannel customer services and support for clients through their VirtualFlex platform
- A flexible pricing model: Billed by the minute, so if you have not had many customer queries in one month, then this will be reflected in a lower bill. However, it means your costs could spiral if suddenly you have a lot of customers needing support for one month
- A focus on providing high-quality customer service every time with a robust quality assurance team
Pros
- An excellent flexible cost model
- LiveOps even provides disaster recovery customer support
Cons
- Customer service agents are all US-based. Great for US companies but not as useful for those with customers in other regions and countries
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UpCall
UpCall is a customer service provision. However, it's more suited to inbound sales operations as the company's unique selling point (USP) is focused on engaging and converting sales leads.
Services
- A flexible call center outsourcing option for businesses that either have a lot of inbound leads or need a sales team to deliver outbound sales calls
- Combines SaaS-based technology and the top 3% of sales agents to provide sales services and market research for clients
- Lead nurturing, analytics, and other services can be added to their inbound and outbound calls to your customers
Pros
- Potentially very useful for SaaS and other companies that generate a lot of inbound sales leads
- Flexible pricing
- Analytics provided
Cons
- US-based, so not ideal for businesses in other countries and regions
- Not suited for those looking for customer service and customer experience (CX) support
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Sensée
Sensée provides outsourced work-from-home (WFH) contact center services across multiple channels.
Services
- Over 1000 WFH-based contact center agents providing customer services across multiple channels
- Agents only work for one brand/business, so you can be confident they'll support your customers well
- Agents are on full-time contracts rather than 'gig' or zero-hour contracts. This helps ensure they provide better service
- ISO accreditation and useful for financial businesses as this company is financially accredited and qualified to provide support for finance sector companies
Pros
- Providing high-quality customer service with a boutique approach
- Ideal for banks, fintech, and other mid-size businesses in the financial sector
Cons
- UK-based so might not be ideal for US companies or smaller businesses (as they are better suited to larger/more complex institutions)
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Working Solutions
Working Solutions provides multi-channel CX support for clients in the US and Canada.
Services
- A range of customer services including phone, text, live chat, and social media
- Expertise in sales, so if you need an outsourced inbound sales team they can deliver that, as well
- Analytics are included so you can regularly track and benchmark agent performance, call volumes, quality, NPS, and SLA adherence
Pros
- Ideal for clients with specific or sensitive requirements (e.g., care homes or home tutoring services)
- Multi-channel CX with analytics capabilities and a proprietary customer service portal
Cons
- More suited for big businesses and those in North America rather than other regions and countries
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Capita
One of the giants of outsourced services, Capita, provides an extensive enterprise-level range of customer service outsourcing provisions.
Services
- Multi-channel and automated customer service with a focus on telecoms, retail, and utility
- Specialists in remediation, complaints, and collections
- Numerous digital channels supported, including SmartAgent for WhatsApp
- Handles over 100 million conversations with customers every year with call centers in the UK and a massive WFH team
Pros
- Customer service support across multiple channels
- Experts in remediation, complaints, and collections
- Numerous automated customer service options are available
Cons
- More suited to larger businesses due to the cost Capita charges for outsourced services
- Services are targeted towards specific industries so might not be suitable outside of those
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Ventrica
Customer service for the modern age: Ventrica provides multi-channel (inbound and outbound calls) and customer services via social media for brands.
Services
- Ventrica partly selects agents based on whether they'll be positive "advocates" for their clients, making them ideal for providing customer service support via social media
- A multi-layered provision of inbound and outbound telephony, lead nurturing, and social media services
- Staff onboarding ensures that agents are aligned with your brand for every channel
Pros
- A "socially savvy" outsourced customer service provider
- Useful for lead nurturing and customer services
- Home-based and office-based agents
Cons
- Not a traditional customer service provider as it focuses more on social media and making agents "brand advocates"
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SupportYourApp
A modern and fairly recent addition to this list, SupportYourApp was founded in 2010 in Ukraine and now has offices in the US and UK.
Services
- Customer service support geared toward social media and Amazon
- Ideal for SaaS and eCommerce
- Social media management services are also designed to grow a brand's followers
- Flexible pricing and 24/7 support as required
Pros
- Flexible pricing and 24/7 support
- Inbound, outbound, and social media support for clients
- Amazon customer support for Amazon sellers including Messages and product listings feedback support
Cons
- The knowledge base is still catching up with new tools and software such as AI analytics
- Not as able to provide multi-language support as other service providers (UK, US-based, with headquarters in Ukraine)
Customer Support Outsourcing: Key Takeaways
As you can see, there are a lot of choices in this sector. It's crucial you read case studies, assess pricing models and the outsourced customer service provided, and ensure the right company is aligned with your business needs and can deliver the customer service necessary to keep customer loyalty.
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