Hi there, a little poll for you all!

Who here outsources their support and why?


Personally, I don't outsource.
I think you and your actual employees represent your company, not how you outsource.

I don't outsource now at all, I hire employees who actually come into an office on a daily basis since my company does a lot of things such as Web Design, Web Development and Web Programming as well as Web Hosting.

But in the future, I'm not sure but possibly five months or so, I may outsource to a rather expensive company - obviously to get the best results. But I'd only do this to offer a minimum 1 hour response time, since currently my company offers a 12 hour response time and I plan to soon get that down to 6 hours, then in the end make it only 1 hour and then also have a minimum 6 hour resolution timing.


So, that's me, do you guys outsource?
If so why, and if not, why?

Who is this expensive outsourcing company you were referring too?

Would never outsource - we handle everything in house to keep an eye on Quality of service we provide. Our Network is also somewhat unique as we have alot of gear distrobuted around a few data centres, which no outsource company would be able to help with a customer as they wouldnt know whats going on where.

We don't outsource at all and would never dream of doing so, given that we actually built the reputation of our company on the quality and breadth of knowledge of our staff. However for a new "unmanaged" server venture / brand we did look at a possibility of paid for outsourced support, but came to the conclusion that it would be better to just not offer support at all than outsource it due to the lack of clue with most of the outsourced support companies we looked at.

Outsourcing is not a bad idea. There are a lot of advantges that you get when you outsource like having access to a a large and varied pool of talent,
Cut infrastructure expenditure and Increase your profit margins.

But before you outsource look around and see which is the best and affordable company you want to go with.

I'm aware that this is old thred but support is ongoing thing, isn't it?

So, what do you think now about having support outsorced ? Maybe offshore support ?

Are any of them reliable ??

No one care to answer ...

I have no problems with outsourcing support if that's what a host chooses to do.
I haven't used any outsourcing companies so I can't comment on them.

Outsourcing over all improves to your company sales and production. The matter important here is selection of the right options.
Some people around, I understand, have miss-used outsourcing contracts, and I too face such issues around on normally all forums.
But, then, if you have a excelent team of outsourcing professionals, you all will agree to this, it will give the most imaginative results.
I own an outsourcing company myself, and have the support of a well known registration and hosting company, and I know what heights the company has achieved in the 2 years we worked together.
I still am under plans of expanding, and getting contracts of under developed and growing hosting and registration companies, to lend them the support they are really worth of.
Imagine ur a company, with lower profiles,inadiquate money, and lower quality training professionals. Outsourcing come to aid here.
Email : samir.pancholi@gmail.com for more details on this, and if you are interested in outsourcing your works with us(registration and hosting including 24/7 live chat support and ticket system, with a daily report) contact with your budget.

While we have never used outsourcing, the only complaints I have ever heard from customers were with outsourcing providers that did not speak english well - largely this comes from working in a tech support environment from ISPs where we would get customers calling in complaining that they can't contact their PC vender because they can't understand what the tech support reps are saying.

Beyond that, if you can afford to out source to a support group that doesn't have problems with a language / accent barrier - it can be quite helpful. Really though, a host needs to consider how many calls they get from customers and whether or not their current staff can handle that volume.

For a small company, I don't think that outsourcing support would ever be worth it (unless the host isn't sure how to answer customer questions - which usually isn't the case). I'd say outsourcing is only truly viable for a medium sized company - where you have enough of a call volume to warrent it - but not enough to have your own 24-7 dedicated call center (which is rather expensive to run).

The smallest ISP I worked for had a staff of only 8 people, four on days, 4 on evenings and the managers would help make up the difference when there was a high queue....but even so - your still paying 8 people - and if you don't have a large customer base, it won't be worth it.

I've tried outsourcing -- went back to doing everything in-house. It all depends on whether the company you outsource to is competent and can handle your business. If not, it's not worth sacrificing the quality of your customer service and technical support.

I keep everything in-house now.


JP

I think outsourcing is a good idea, because that enables hosting companies their clients to obtain the cost advantage of offshore support team with great technical and language skills.

Yeah, and by hiring people from different timezones you can have true 24/7 support with ease.

Does anyone know of any good places to outsource? We currently do everything in house, but it might not be a bad idea, as we grow..

I'd recommend www.rootsupport.com