6 Ways Offshore Customer Service Outsourcing Provider Boosts E-commerce Customer Lifetime Value

Like that of fine wine, a customer’s value must increase over time. You call that the Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). But here’s the dilemma: The amount you’re probably investing in your existing customers is not worth the business you are receiving from them. If this situation applies to you, employing customer service outsourcing strategies might be what you need to increase your CLV. 

What Is Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)?

CLV is a crucial metric that describes how valuable a customer is to your business. It measures how much revenue a customer brings into your brand throughout their lifetime as your customer. 

Why Is CLV Important for Your E-commerce Business?

CLV is a great data to use when developing strategies of acquiring new customers and retaining current ones. It helps you allocate a cost per acquisition and retention that yields a maximum value. 

Additionally, understanding this metric tells you if your marketing initiatives drive customer loyalty. It also allows you to adjust re-engagement strategies accordingly. Ultimately, measuring the CLV helps ensure the long-term profitability of your business.

How Do You Compute CLV?

To compute the CLV, subtract the amount you invest for acquiring and serving the customer from the total revenue gained throughout their lifetime as your client. 

Here’s the formula for better illustration:

CLV = Total Revenue Gained From the Customer – Total Amount Spent in Acquiring and Serving the Customer

Nurturing relationships with existing customers is up to seven times less expensive than establishing new ones. The probability of repeat purchases is also higher among existing customers. Despite this, about 44% of businesses allocate more time and resources to customer acquisition over retention. 

If you want an edge in today’s ultra-competitive e-commerce market, you have to keep your current customers happy and engaged. Here are some tips to enhance your e-commerce CLV:

#1 – Harness the Power of Words of Mouth (WOM) 

The most potent form of advertising is free. It happens when satisfied consumers share the positive experience with a brand with the people they know. This process is called word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing or advertising. 

WOM has been around for the longest time. Traditionally, WOM is spread through actual conversations among consumers. Today, with the advent of social media and other platforms, WOM is more powerful than ever. Take a look at the following statistics collected by BigCommerce: 

• 92% of consumers trust the recommendation of their family and friends over the messages in paid ads.
• 88% of shoppers trust online reviews from other consumers as much as recommendations from known contacts.
• 74% of consumers said they rely on word of mouth as a key influencer in making a purchase.

The Impact of E-Commerce Customer Service Outsourcing on WOM  

In one article, SEMRush mentioned that 96% of customers would likely recommend a brand following a delightful interaction. Another study showed that 36% of consumers would share their experience with customer service, whether good or bad, on social media. For these reasons, you need to strengthen your efforts in delivering the best customer experience. 

A responsive customer service team is one of the most valuable arsenals to increase WOM referrals. And the most cost-efficient way to build one is to outsource customer service from a provider with an established reputation for enhancing customer engagement and experience.  

#2 – Boost Hyper-Personalization Efforts

Compared to personalization that mainly involves the use of basic and transactional customer information, hyper-personalization requires a deeper understanding of your customers’ psyche. You have to know both the tangible and intangible motivations behind their purchase decisions. 

In today’s intense competition for customer attention and loyalty, the cookie-cutter approach will get you nowhere. According to a study conducted by SmarterHQ, 90% of customers are willing to share behavioral data for a more personalized experience. There is also a good 72% of consumers that will only engage with brands that have personalized messaging.

Take Netflix and Amazon for Example

Netflix is one of the brands that have seen and taken advantage of the power of hyper-personalization. They gather behavioral data from their customers’ previously watched titles to offer real-time suggestions. 

In the e-commerce sphere, Amazon is among brands leading the hyper-personalization war. They use both historical and real-time data to create personalized content on the home page of their customers. 

How E-commerce Customer Service Outsourcing Empower Smaller Brands

Delivering a hyper-personalized customer experience requires intelligent technology that gives you access to your customers’ behavioral data. It should also facilitate the real-time delivery of messages to your customers. However, investing in artificial intelligence is a costly endeavor. It also takes time to implement the technology into your system and get a reasonable ROI. 

This is among the reasons why brands outsource e-commerce customer service. By leveraging your customer service outsourcing partner’s access to big data analytics and other modern infrastructures, you can expedite the implementation of your hyper-personalization strategies.  

#3 – Prioritize High-Level Customer Service

The COVID-19 pandemic has unprecedentedly placed the customer service sector in the spotlight. From being mainly a source of support, the role of customer service has expanded to being a primary sales and marketing tool. Today, industry experts consider customer service as a brand.

To increase your CLV, develop a customer service strategy that will ensure the highest level of customer experience. Start by focusing on the following aspects that customers care about the most:

• Speedy resolution. To achieve this, you need to accelerate your digital timeline. Your customer service support team needs to have access to the latest technology that empowers them to deliver seamless support. Enhance your services by incorporating artificial intelligence into your strategies or finding a customer service outsourcing partner to equip you.
• Empathy. While speed still matters among customers, empathy is still the significant differentiator for a satisfying customer experience. According to ZenDesk’s 2021 Customer Experience Trends Report, empathetic agents drive a +42% growth area (+12% higher than speed), among other aspects of customer service.
• Availability. E-commerce customers are worldwide. If you want to increase customer retention, you need to defy time zones by providing support 24/7. This feature is part of the benefits of offshore outsourcing. 
• Accessibility. Whether through social media, live chat, or phone, you have to be where your customers are. Otherwise, your competitors will be there for them. If you lack the resources to employ effective omnichannel strategies, seek support from a dependable e-commerce customer service outsourcing partner.
• Proactivity. Proactively engage your customers and anticipate their issues. Use chatbots and other automated tools to enable your support team to deliver the best possible experience for your customers.

#4 – Identify Behavior and Triggers of Repeat Customers

As previously mentioned, keeping existing customers is way less expensive and more profitable than finding new ones. And what better way to retain existing customers than to learn from those who already have high Customer Lifetime Value? 

The actionable insights you gain from your repeat customers is useful in coming up with the best strategies to increase the CLV of the rest of your customers. This endeavor will require knowledge in qualitative research as well as access to digital data-gathering tools and techniques. 

You will not just analyze data presented at face value; you will be reading contextual cues, performing social media listening, and doing other applicable exploratory research methods. If these functions are not your core expertise, your best approach is outsourcing the tasks to the experts. 

#5 – Improve the Buying Experience

Buying experience describes the entire process the consumer engages in, from gaining awareness about your brand to the actual product usage. It involves all the thoughts, desires, fears, and other intangible motivations that your customer experiences with every interaction with your brand. 

The customer journey used to be linear, enhancing the buying experience was pretty straightforward. Today, with a myriad of touchpoints available to consumers, the customer journey is way more complex. 

From reading marketing materials to having an actual conversation with a customer service outsourcing agent, every interaction with your brand shapes their buying experience. Whatever they get from these experiences (feelings, thoughts, etc.) drives them to move to the next step. 

Take note that the following steps do not necessarily end up with a purchase from your brand. Your goal is to create experiences that connect to the customer’s innermost motivations to move from status quo to sales. 

How To Enhance the Buying Experience 

Here are some tips to improve the buying experience and level up your Customers’ Lifetime Value: 

• Map out your customer’s journey.
• Amplify both artificial and human interactions.
• Maximize captured data to entice customers with personalized offers.
• Pay attention to customer feedback and reviews.
• Send real-time product and inventory updates to create a more dynamic purchasing experience. 
• Invest in artificial intelligence software and omnichannel systems.  
• Provide world-class support by partnering with an established e-commerce customer service outsourcing provider.

#6 – Choose the Right Offshore Customer Service Outsourcing Partner

The restriction brought by the COVID-19 pandemic paved the way for the evolution of the role of customer service. In 2020, many turned to contact centers not just for assistance but for reassurance. Industry experts see this trend to continue in 2021—and even stay for good. 

As the new “face of your business,” your customer service team plays a crucial role in increasing the CLV of your clients. For this reason, it is imperative to make the right choice in picking an offshore customer service outsourcing partner. 

What Is Offshore Outsourcing?

Many confuse offshore outsourcing with offshoring. Offshoring is the process of setting up another branch or operation in another country. On the other hand, offshore outsourcing is the practice of engaging a third-party provider based overseas. Nearly all functions can be outsourced offshore, but the most common is customer service. 

Why Outsource E-commerce Customer Service?

There are many benefits of outsourcing customer service and other tasks involved in running an e-commerce business offshore. Some of these advantages are as follows: 

• Cost reduction.

The most popular reason for outsourcing is the significant savings it offers. Through offshore economics, e-commerce customer service outsourcing providers can offer services at a significantly lower cost. They also allow staff scaling according to the needs and demands of your business.

• Global market insights and competitiveness.

The marketplace is increasingly becoming globalized. To increase competitiveness, many companies are expanding their reach and bases to different parts of the world. Partnering with an offshore customer service outsourcing company enriches you with valuable international market insights to edge out your competitors.

• Seamless customer experience.

When you outsource customer service offshore, you get to take advantage of the internal time zone differences. This feature means you can serve your customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Outsource Customer Service to the Ideal Offshore Outsourcing Partner

When it comes to offshore customer service outsourcing, finding a provider that focuses on the value of business partnerships is essential. Apart from offering all the benefits mentioned above, SuperStaff BPO puts a premium on establishing great relationships with our clients.

Our goal as your offshore outsourcing partner is to serve as the extension of your business. Outsource customer service with SuperStaff BPO today!