“Memorable customer service comes from emotionally engaged employees”. This a quote from one of our keynote speakers at this year’s Smarter Services Symposium. But what happens when those employees are not your own W-2 workers? What if you are partnering with a third party and outsourcing field work?

The Future of Service Excellence Might Look a Bit Different

This is a question that is becoming more of a challenge for service leaders in 2016 and into 2017. These executives see a looming shortage of workers due to an aging and retiring demographic impacting their ability to continue to deliver high levels of service and support to customers who desire more value in their care. Service leaders look to balance the desire to establish and leverage a dynamic workforce which can meet fluctuations in service needs while also ensuring they provide the level of quality of service their customers demand. This balance must be struck because your customers want the job done right, but the experience of who is delivering that service is also becoming more important.

To achieve this balancing act, a quarter of companies are reviewing their outsourcing strategies to:

- Establish metrics to measure performance,
- Align goals with potential partners,
- Better understand third party capabilities and reach,
- Confirm skillsets and certifications.

This openness to outsourcing some service jobs to third parties is a trend we have been tracking for a while now, seemingly putting an end to the skepticism associated with whether outsourced service teams can deliver at the same levels as internal W2 employees. But there is still a long way to go, and I am intrigued to see how each stakeholder within this equation (i.e., service organization, third parties, the end customer) adapts to this evolving service paradigm.

What’s Your Take?

We are currently wrapping up a project to identify some of the best practices and challenges faced by service teams regarding outsourcing field work. If this is a topic that challenges you or one in which you have an opinion, please participate by taking a few minutes to fill out our latest survey on the topic.

Learn from Your Peers

We will be publishing the results to this project later this month. But as a sneak peek, we will share some of the findings in advance in the coming week. So please join the conversation as this is a topic which will continue to impact service and your end customers.

Aly Pinder Jr
Director of Member Research & Communities
The Service Council
ap@servicecouncil.com or @pinderjr