What is a Virtual Customer Service Representative
A virtual customer service representative is an agent that helps the businesses by solving all the questions asked by the customers remotely. They mostly use email, online chats, phone calls or any other remote medium to provide assistance to the customers.
Let’s imagine by this example, you run an ecommerce store and hundreds of customers have different queries before buying a product. That’s where virtual customer service representatives come in.
They understand your business, your customers and then they act as a bridge between both of them.
To summarize, virtual customer service representatives aren’t different from traditional ones, they just operate remotely through online channels.
Let’s expand on it in the coming article about the specific duties of virtual customer representatives.
What Does a Remote Customer Service Representative Do
A remote customer support representative serves many purposes that connects with the end goal of a business (making money in most cases).
1. Resolve Customers’ Questions
When businesses try to sell their products, customers don’t buy during their first interaction with the product. They have multiple journeys to walk through before buying a product, and they may try to reach your online support team for some questions as well.
In this situation, a virtual customer service representative answers all of the concerns a customer may have and tries to address them in the best way possible.
This helps to build trust and credibility for the businesses.
2. Provide Helpful Guide
Since businesses may target multiple types of customers with different backgrounds, it’s possible that sometimes a user may find it difficult to understand your product or service.
For example, if you are using an online software and are not familiar with most of its functionalities, you can always reach out to an online customer support representative who can help you understand everything.
3. Onboard Customers to a Software
Oftentimes, businesses sell products that are very hard for beginner-level users to understand; this is where a virtual customer support representative comes in.
They onboard new customers, guide them through the software, and then address their concerns.
4. Troubleshoot Technical Problems
Let’s imagine a scenario where you suddenly receive an email discussing a bank transaction that you have never made.
In this situation, once again, you would contact a virtual customer support representative who will assist you in debugging the issue, determining whether it’s a technical glitch from the bank’s side or if there’s another explanation you need to know.
How To Hire A Virtual Assistant
In House vs Outsource Virtual Customer Support Representatives
In house virtual customer support representatives are employed by the company itself. However, outsource virtual support representatives mostly are employed by a third-party and they manage the whole department of your support team.
If you are a small medium business or running an enterprise level company, outsourcing your customer service always proves to be cost-effective.
In contrast, in-house customer support department involves many (legal and managerial) processes to follow that may end up being depleting the revenue, low efficiency and low customer satisfaction score.
Following are the main differences:
| In-House | Outsourced |
|---|---|
| More Legal compliances | Less legal compliances |
| Full-time employee classifications | Contractual employee classifications |
| Costly (starts from $25/h) | Cost-effective (starts from $7/h) |
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