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Misconception: Outsourcing User Support Costs Less

Jan 27, 2025 | Smart Ticketing

In a cost-reduction mindset, many companies consider outsourcing their user support to providers in low-labour-cost countries. On paper, outsourcing to less expensive geographical regions appears to be an obvious and effective way to minimise expenses. However, behind this apparent cost-saving measure lie numerous challenges that can ultimately limit performance and user satisfaction while creating hidden costs that are often underestimated.
Key Topics 👇

  1. Distant and Less Responsive Support
  2. Loss of Efficiency and User Autonomy
  3. Often Underestimated Hidden Costs

Distant and Less Responsive Support ⚙️

When user support is outsourced to geographically distant locations, response times to end users can increase, directly impacting support responsiveness and effectiveness. A user blocked from using an application cannot afford to wait hours for a solution, especially when time zone differences or language barriers come into play. Beyond geography, this distance also creates a gap in understanding the business context and the organisation’s specificities, which reduces the relevance of responses provided to users.

Support agents, though effective in standardised tasks, often lack knowledge of the company’s internal processes, legal nuances, and proficiency in tools such as HRIS or ERPs, which are often customised to meet organisational needs. This disconnect from on-the-ground realities can make interactions complicated and frustrating for users.

Loss of Efficiency and User Autonomy 🤖

The quality of responses provided by support teams unfamiliar with local processes directly impacts user autonomy. Faced with less operational agents who struggle with tool complexity or the variety of required actions, end users tend to develop workarounds to bypass the obstacles they encounter. From using Excel spreadsheets to sharing internal tips, these practices highlight a loss of trust in support systems and often lead to additional issues, such as data errors or non-compliant procedures.

Furthermore, without a deep understanding of company processes or the history of its challenges, support is often limited to generic solutions. In situations where personalised and contextualised interventions are needed, users are left without effective resolutions.

Often Underestimated Hidden Costs 💵

The primary goal of outsourcing is to reduce costs, but this approach often overlooks diffuse and indirect expenses: the impact on user productivity and engagement. Frequent delays, inadequate responses, and repeated back-and-forth communications to clarify a request can hinder internal processes and slow down business operations.

As these inefficiencies accumulate, the company ends up paying the price for lost productivity. Users become overly dependent on support for simple tasks, and resolution times lengthen. Moreover, if outsourced support cannot efficiently resolve tickets, internal teams must step in to fix errors or resume validation processes. Consequently, the initial cost savings expected from outsourcing can quickly be offset by reprocessing expenses and additional support requirements.

Conclusion

Outsourcing user support to low-cost countries may initially seem like a cost-effective solution. However, by delegating such a central function, the company exposes itself to significant risks in terms of responsiveness, service quality, and user satisfaction. Ultimately, the cost of distant and less effective support can be much higher than anticipated, both for the company and its users.

👉Explore our 4 Secrets to Reducing the TCO of Your Business Application to dive deeper into optimising support costs.

 

The Solution Smart Ticketing:

 

To address these challenges, it is crucial to rethink ticket management by adopting modern solutions like Smart Ticketing.

This ticket management system allows you to:

  • Streamline and simplify ticket management with an integrated and intuitive back office.
  • Effectively prioritise requests by automatically redirecting tickets to the appropriate team based on the selected category.
  • Accelerate problem resolution by ensuring that tickets received by support are well-qualified (with features like screenshot capture and contextual information gathered by our algorithm).
  • Enhance user experience and satisfaction by providing human responses through real-time discussions.
  • Reduce operational bottlenecks by enabling users to troubleshoot independently with a self-service knowledge base, which offers automatic solution suggestions to users.

This intelligent solution allows you to bring ticket management back in-house and simplify it, significantly reducing associated costs.

If you would like to learn how Smart Ticketing can help you reduce your user support costs, contact us now for a demonstration.