Being able to call 24/7 customer support, irrespective of your timezone might be something we take for granted, but it’s the result of a strategic approach called offshore support.
But success for offshore support requires more than just setting up shop in different countries and establishing satellite remote teams.
It demands a thoughtful balance of cultural intelligence, automation, and regional enablement to truly deliver value to customers worldwide. Let's get into it.
What is offshore customer support?
Offshore customer support refers to the practice where a company offers customer support outside of the country it primarily operates. This relies on companies recruiting customer support managers in countries across the world, connecting businesses with customers who’d ordinarily be out of the catchment area for support.
What are the benefits of offshore customer support?
If you’ve ever wondered if the world feels smaller than it once did, you’re not alone. The “shrinking world” theory is a big topic in the wider conversation of globalization.
As communication and businesses develop, companies are increasingly turning to offshore customer support to better serve their global customer base.
Talent far and wide
Many companies are waking up to the limitations of relying solely on domestic recruitment; why put all your eggs in one basket when there's a whole world of talent waiting to be put to work?
Instead, the global talent pools offer diverse perspectives, multilingual capabilities, and often specialized skills that might be scarce or expensive in your home market.
But beyond access to talent, offshore recruitment enables companies to build truly global teams that better understand and serve international customers, while often providing significant cost advantages and the ability to operate across multiple time zones effectively.
Multiple industries utilize offshore support, but if we had to narrow it down, based on prevalence, the following tend to be the usual suspects:
- Tech support
- Software development
- IT infrastructure maintenance
By nature, these industries typically require people who are specialized in more niche topics. As a result, it can be difficult to recruit people with the relevant skill sets within an organization’s country of origin.
24/7 customer support
There's nothing worse than struggling with a product you've had such high hopes for, and feeling like you're doing battle alone. A helpful word on the phone, or a message over a chat function with a real person, at any time of the day or night can be a lifeline in those moments of frustration.
It's not just about fixing technical issues – it's about providing peace of mind and maintaining customer trust, knowing that help is always just a few clicks or a phone call away, regardless of time zones or geographical boundaries.
Cost efficiency
For many companies, operating solely in their home market presents a double challenge: limited access to specialist knowledge and high payroll costs. Operating in high-cost markets like the US, UK, or Australia means competing for support talent in environments where salaries and overhead costs can make growing your operations exceedingly pricey.
Many companies will look to expand their operations in regions with lower cost structures to avoid burning through their operational budget. But don’t think this means it’s just a case of sourcing cheap labor, far from it.
You’ll find high educational standards and strong technical expertise are prized in India, the Philippines, and Eastern Europe, making them ideal destinations for companies to build robust support teams without compromising on quality.
Grace Gupta
What are the challenges of offshore customer support?
Customer relationship management (CRM) is first and foremost a people game, and when you’re dealing with human emotions, you’re going to run into one or two snags along the way.
Even with the best intentions, offshore support teams face unique obstacles that can impact service quality. When customers reach out for help, they're often already frustrated with a product issue, making clear communication and cultural understanding absolutely critical.
Here are some of the challenges offshore customer support faces:
Cultural barriers
Anyone who works in CRM knows that cultural barriers are notoriously tough to overcome. What seems like a relatively simple exchange can all too easily descend into confusion and mixed messaging due to differences in communication styles.
For example, some countries favor more formal, or direct communication, while others may use indirect language to avoid confrontation. When left unresolved, this can result in misunderstandings where feedback may seem too blunt or too vague.
Communication gaps
If you think language and communication are wholly synonymous, think again. Communication gaps extend beyond language differences.
If you’ve ever tried to learn another language, you’ll know that even when both parties speak the same language fluently, variations in accents, idioms, and technical terminology can lead to misunderstandings.
Written communication can be particularly challenging, as tone and urgency might be interpreted differently across cultural contexts and lead to unclear explanations. The result? The customer feels misunderstood or unsupported.
Time zone coordination
While not an insurmountable problem, time zone coordination presents logistical hurdles that affect both teams and customers.
There’s no doubt that 24/7 coverage is a monumental benefit of offshore customer support, it’s one of its core benefits.
However, managing handoffs between teams, ensuring consistent service quality across shifts, and maintaining effective communication between headquarters and offshore locations requires very careful orchestration.
This challenge becomes particularly acute during critical incidents or when complex issues require collaboration across multiple time zones.
Eve Chatfield
What are the best practices for effective offshore customer support?
Let's be real – setting up offshore customer support isn't just about finding the cheapest option and hoping for the best. We've all heard the horror stories of offshore experiments gone wrong, and nobody wants their brand to become another cautionary tale.
For example, if you rush into offshore support without proper training, you might save money initially, but you'll end up with frustrated customers and a damaged reputation. Been there, done that, got the angry customer reviews to prove it.
Instead of diving in headfirst, you need a solid game plan. Maybe you start with email support before jumping into live chat and phone support. Or you might begin with just one product line instead of your entire catalog to simplify things for your new offshore customer support agents.
Whatever your approach, this guide will walk you through the proven strategies that actually work. And here's the thing – offshore support can be brilliant when done right. We're talking about round-the-clock customer support, significant cost savings, and even improved customer satisfaction scores.
Sounds too good to be true? Keep reading and factor in these best practices to make it your reality:
- Avoid cultural missteps
- Start automating for maximum efficiency
- Provide multilingual support
- Source regional enablement pros
- Be ethical
Avoid cultural missteps
Cultural misunderstandings can turn a simple support interaction into a customer service nightmare.
Training your teams on cultural nuances isn't just a nice to have, it's pretty damn essential for success. Each region has its own expectations for customer support interactions.
Take HubSpot's approach, for example. In a presentation at Customer Success Festival Londonrevealed, Ash Bhardwaj, ex-Customer Success Manager at Shopify, revealed that HubSpot's support teams are trained to recognize that some customers prefer getting straight to problem-solving, while others appreciate building rapport first. The result?
"Their APAC teams excel at adapting their chat response times and communication patterns to match local preferences – like understanding that some customers expect frequent progress updates during longer support sessions, while others prefer to receive one comprehensive solution.
"Meanwhile, their EMEA teams are skilled at navigating multiple cultural contexts within the same support queue, seamlessly switching between different communication styles based on customer needs."
Start automating for efficiency
Nobody wants their offshore teams drowning in repetitive tasks when they could be focusing on meaningful customer interactions. This is where smart automation comes into play – and no, we're not talking about throwing a chatbot at the problem and hoping it goes away.
Look at how Cisco's global account managers use automation to stay on top of their game. According to Ash Bhardwaj, "Cisco set up automated playbooks that handle routine CRM updates and health scoring, freeing up their offshore teams to focus on what really matters: building customer relationships."
Provide multilingual support
Here's something that might surprise you - offering support in a customer's native language isn't just about understanding words. It's about getting the cultural context right too, says Ash:
"Zendesk figured this out early on, building diverse support teams that don't just speak the language but live and breathe the culture."
For instance, Brazilian Portuguese support isn't just about translating English responses – it's about understanding when to use "você" versus "tu", and knowing that Brazilians often prefer a warmer, more personal communication style. That's the kind of detail that turns good support into great support.
Source regional enablement champions
Think of regional enablement champions as your eyes and ears. These aren't just team leads, they're your cultural translators, trendspotters, and local market experts all rolled into one.
The best part? They can catch potential issues before they become problems. Maybe they notice that your APAC customers rarely use your help documentation – it turns out it's because the screenshots are all in English. (Super helpful… not.) That's the kind of insight you only get from having feet on the ground.
Don’t forget the ethical considerations
We want to talk about something that often gets swept under the rug – ethical offshore support practices. This isn't just about ticking boxes on compliance forms. It's about treating your offshore teams as valued partners, not just a cost-cutting measure.
Take tech recruiter Turnkey Staffing's approach – they're transparent about their offshore operations with both employees and customers. They ensure equal pay for equal work, provide comprehensive benefits, and maintain the same professional development opportunities across all locations.
Because if we’re being honest, happy support teams lead to happy customers.
Grace Gupta
How to set up an offshore customer support team
Setting up an offshore support team isn't like ordering takeout – you can't just pick from a menu and expect instant results. Let's break down the crucial steps to set you up for success right from the start.
1. Identify your key markets
This isn't just about finding the cheapest option (spoiler alert: that rarely works out well). Instead, look for regions with a solid track record in customer support excellence.
Cities like Manila and Bangalore aren't just popular because of cost savings – they've got robust educational systems and specialized training programs specifically for customer support roles.
2. Select your offshore partners wisely
And when it comes to selecting partners, think of it like dating – you wouldn't commit to someone without getting to know them first, right? Take time to vet potential staffing agencies.
Check their track record, talk to their existing clients, and make sure they're not cutting corners on labor practices. Your offshore team is an extension of your brand, after all.
3. Cultural training
This is where an astonishing amount of companies drop the ball. Don't just throw your new team members into the deep end with a boilerplate onboarding manual. Invest in proper training that covers everything from your brand voice to handling different types of customer interactions.
When done to the letter, your customers shouldn't be able to tell whether they're talking to someone in Boston or Bucharest.
Selecting the customer support metrics that matter
Don't worry, these numbers are actually pretty straightforward and they'll tell you whether your offshore support is crushing it or needs some TLC.
CSAT score
Think of this as your ability to instant replay what’s gone right – and wrong. Each time a customer finishes a chat or hangs up the phone, they’re asked to share if they're happy or ready to throw their laptop out the window. If you're consistently scoring below 4 out of 5, it's time to dig deeper into what's going wrong.
NPS
This one’s your long-game metric. It's one thing to solve a customer's problem, but are they actually going to stick around and recommend you to others?
Pro tip: Track this separately for your offshore and onshore teams at first. If there's a big gap, you've got some work to do on consistency.
Response time rate
Response time isn't just about speed (though nobody likes waiting 48 hours for a "we'll get back to you" message).
The real magic happens when you nail the balance between quick responses and actually solving the problem. Some companies get so obsessed with response times that they forget about the quality of those responses. Don’t be those guys…
First contact resolution
Speaking of solving problems – that's where this monumental metric comes in. If your customers need to explain their issue three times to three different agents, you've got a problem.
Aim for resolving issues in that first interaction whenever possible. Your customers will thank you, and so will your support team's workload.
Looking for more customer support content? Head to our hub, where we’ve got a whole host of resources ready for you
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