Why Outsourcing is the Strategic Solution to Tackling Talent Shortages in Customer Experience
Article
The global labour market is currently witnessing a human talent shortage, including a persistent shortage of skilled customer experience professionals. Consulting firm Korn Ferry reports that by 2030 more than 85 million jobs could go unfulfilled¹ due to a lack of skilled people. The result? A potential $8.5 trillion in unrealised annual revenue. Can CX outsourcing offer global business organisations the solution?
How is the CX talent shortage impacting businesses?
CX talent refers to people who work in customer experience roles. For instance:
- CX Specialists – frontline reps who handle queries, complaints and support requests ranging from simple password resets to more complex troubleshooting
- CX Managers – oversee team performance, analyse data, and provide proactive feedback to the partner (client) for performance enhancement and process improvement
- Service Delivery/Partner Success Managers – manage tools and systems and optimise all Customer Support as a Service (CCaaS) related technologies.
These roles, and others, collectively contribute towards a comprehensive CX strategy, ensuring customer satisfaction and brand advocacy.
With fewer such skilled CX professionals available, companies face longer hiring cycles and higher costs to attract and retain talent. But that’s not all – it also impacts on the ability to:
- Deliver great customer service across touchpoints
- Keep response times within promised SLAs
- Maintain consistent customer interactions
- Manage increasing customer frustration
- Maintain brand loyalty, as customer satisfaction and trust erode.
For start-ups, the shortage can stall growth as limited resources make competing for top talent difficult.
Enterprises, on the other hand, may struggle to innovate or implement advanced technologies due to a lack of qualified personnel to manage complex systems. Additionally, high turnover in CX roles exacerbates the issue, leading to frequent disruptions and added training costs.
The cumulative effect for both business types is reduced competitiveness, as they fail to meet increasingly demanding customer expectations and lose market share to more agile competitors.
Why is there a CX Talent Shortage?
The CX talent gap reflects both labour market dynamics and the evolving demands of CX roles:
- Rapid tech advancements have created a need for new, specialised skills in specific platforms, data analytics, AI, etc.
- Heightened customer expectations for personalised, always-on support
- The emotional labour of CX roles which involve managing taxing customer situations contributes to high turnover/lower retention
- An ageing workforce in developed nations
- A shift in workplace preferences towards flexible work situations which is reducing the pool of experienced, full-time CX candidates.
Outsourcing CX is a Smart Customer Experience Strategy
Everest CEO and Founder Peter Bendor-Samuel writes in Forbes that the talent shortage has prompted an expansion in offshoring to third-party service providers and rapid expansion of the GBS organisations using off-shore, low-cost talent.
Here’s how outsourcing customer experience to a CX outsourcing provider provides a strategic advantage:
Access to a Global Talent Pool of CX Specialists
Outsourcing companies have established networks of skilled CX professionals across diverse markets. This global reach ensures access to experienced CX agents, multilingual support, and culturally aligned service representatives – crucial for delivering personalized customer experiences.
Scalability and Flexibility
As your business grows, so do your customer support demands. Outsourcing partners offer scalable solutions, enabling businesses to ramp their CX operations up or down according to demand. This flexibility is especially beneficial for start-ups experiencing rapid growth and seasonal spikes, and enterprises moving into new global markets.
Cost Efficiency
Recruiting, training, and retaining in-house CX talent is increasingly expensive. Outsourcing eliminates these overheads by transferring the responsibility to specialised CX outsourcing providers. Businesses can use economies of scale and optimized resources to maintain profitability while enhancing customer satisfaction.
Advanced Technology and Tools / CX Tech Stack
CX outsourcing providers invest heavily in their tech stacks, ensuring that both the stack and tech specialists are up to date. Partnering with these experts allows businesses to deliver tech-enabled customer experiences without incurring high investment and maintenance costs.
Improved Focus on Core Competencies
By outsourcing non-core CX tasks, companies can concentrate on their primary business objectives, such as product innovation and market expansion. This realignment of focus enhances overall productivity and competitiveness.
Impact Sourcing and CX
Outsourcing CX to a purpose-driven outsourcing provider that practices Impact Sourcing has an added significant strategic and competitive advantage.
Impact Sourcing focuses on employing individuals from marginalized or underserved communities, creating not just economic benefits but also fostering diversity and inclusion within an organisation’s operations.
This approach helps businesses align with growing consumer expectations for social responsibility, enhancing brand loyalty and reputation.
Impact Sourcing partnerships also enable businesses to contribute to UN sustainable development goals (SDGs), providing a meaningful way to combine business success with positive societal impact.
In addition, Impact Workers prove to be highly motivated and committed, leading to lower attrition and higher retention – good for improved performance and customer satisfaction.
Successful CX Outsourcing Scenarios
Which one are you?
Scenario 1: A Start-Up’s Journey to Scalable CX
A fast-growing e-commerce start-up faces an overwhelming surge in customer enquiries during its peak sales season.
By outsourcing its CX operations to a specialised provider, the company would be able to scale its support team within weeks, and significantly reduce customer response times.
Partnering with a CX outsourcer with multilingual capabilities would also enable the startup to offer 24/7 multilingual support, allowing it to boost its customer retention rates as its customers are served in their own languages.
Scenario 2: Enterprise-Level CX Innovation
A global telecommunications company is seeking to transform its CX processes to align with digital-first customer preferences.
Outsourcing CX capabilities could help the company integrate its touchpoints to provide omnichannel engagement, resolving queries quicker, providing more efficient customer service, and in so doing raising customer satisfaction scores.
Create CX Moments that Matter with ADEC CX
Whether you’re a start-up aiming to scale rapidly or an enterprise refining its CX processes, outsourcing offers access to skilled talent, cost efficiency, and innovative solutions.
We provide CX strategy, solutions and services that fuel business growth with our one-stop-CX-shop.
Learn more about our capabilities and capacities, or contact us to find out more about how we can help you with your CX outsourcing needs.
Sources:
¹ The $8.5 Trillion Talent Shortage, Michael Franzino, Alan Guarino and Jean-Marc Laouchez, Korn Ferry, 2024
