Should You Outsource Live Chat? The Real Pros and Cons

Companies that decide to outsource live chat support have a lot to gain on paper: it usually leads to reduced costs and around-the-clock availability without the need for in-house training. Still, it’s not always a perfect fit, as it comes with the risks of brand inconsistency and limited knowledge of the products and services.

It can be the right match for businesses that need 24/7 coverage or those that experience unpredictable surges in support queries. But it can also fail if you require deep technical expertise. It all depends on the vendor, support needs, and scale at hand. 

If you’re still weighing your options, this guide will shed light on the pros and cons of live chat outsourcing that might just lead you to the right decision.

What Outsourcing Live Chat Actually Means

Outsourcing live chat refers to handing off a portion of your web chat volume to a third-party support vendor. You can either go all in or delegate a portion to an external workforce while keeping Tier 1 requests in-house.

There are 3 different models that companies and executives should consider: 

1. A chatbot-only tool
2. A traditional business process outsourcing (BPO) option
3. An Agentic Workforce Platform. 

If you’re unfamiliar with these concepts, you can read all about them in our live chat outsourcing guide.

Simply put, a chatbot-only solution is the way to go for customer support automation, but its efficiency pretty much ends when a more complex query comes in. Traditional BPOs offer hands-on expertise, but they primarily rely on agents who work in full-time blocks. The modern customer service outsourcing model that pairs AI for simple queries and human agents for technical questions brings the best of both worlds.

Knowing which model best fits your purpose is quite helpful, but it still leaves you with the big question: Is outsourcing live chat worth it? Let’s get into the good and the bad to try and answer it for you.

The Pros of Outsourcing Live Chat

Live chat outsourcing has proven to be an effective solution for many companies, which is why we’re having this debate in the first place. These are some of the main reasons why you might decide to go down this path:

Lower and More Predictable Cost

Cost-cutting is one of the main benefits of outsourcing live chat support, as it reduces the in-house training, agent onboarding, and salary expenses. With an outsourced model, you only pay for the support you need; it’s like paying a variable service fee based on usage. 

Companies that used ShyftOff’s Agentic Workforce Delivery model report savings ranging from 30% to 50%, while McKinsey’s surveys suggest even higher average reductions of around 40% to 50% in the first year alone.

24/7 and After-Hours Coverage

With an outsourced live chat, there’s no need to keep trained agents working night shifts just to ensure 24/7 availability. Vendors whose outsourced agents operate in different time zones make for a much more budget-friendly alternative. 

The main benefit in this context is the same as for call center outsourcing: it’s easier to delegate high-volume chat support to third-party platforms with built-in quality control than having to oversee it all yourself.

Scale and Surge Flexibility

When seasonal spikes occur, outsourced live chat lets you simply bump up around-the-clock availability and scale by adding more agents to handle higher request volume. On the other hand, during periods of low demand, you can scale down and pay only for the service you need. 

Speed and Trained Chat Specialists

Instead of training an in-house team of experts, you can save time and money by hiring third-party specialists who already know the drill. In the long run, that means quick resolutions without spending months on educational training and onboarding alone.

The Cons of Outsourcing Live Chat

The benefits of using outsourced live chat support are palpable, but the trick is to properly integrate it into an existing framework. There are a number of things that could go wrong here, which is why its efficiency depends on the case. Here are the main risks to keep an eye out for:

Brand Voice and Consistency Risk

In niches where brand consistency and deep technical knowledge come first, the risk of hiring under-trained agents is always present. If you choose the wrong vendor or traditional BPOs, it could lead to operational overhead and a poor customer experience (CX), especially if the agents aren’t familiar with your audience or services. 

Thinner Product Knowledge

If you provide the right resources and product details, outsourced customer support staff can perform as well as an in-house team. However, if external agents aren’t completely familiar with your products or services, it could lead to potentially dissatisfied customers and harm the brand’s reputation.

Less Direct Control and Visibility

Setting up key performance indicators or service quality tests gets more difficult at a distance. If you don’t track an external team’s performance metrics through regular reporting, there’s a real risk of it negatively reflecting on CX without you even knowing it.

Quality Can Slip When Scale Outruns Training

If you’ve ever heard stories about unsuccessful outsourced support team integration, a big chunk of the reason could be poor quality control on the vendor’s end. You have to be careful as to which service and model you’re choosing, as some agencies focus more on growing their headcount than on actually making sure they’re hiring expert-level agents.

Data Security and Compliance Exposure

One of the main things you’ll want to avoid is putting sensitive customer data into the wrong hands. Plus, not all agents are familiar with industry compliance regulations, so you should only go with vendors that meet PCI DSS for payments, SOC 2 for security, and GDPR for personal data protection.

So, Should You Outsource Live Chat?

Outsourcing live chat is worth it when chat volume is highly unpredictable and driven by seasonal spikes. It also makes sense for companies that require 24/7 coverage across multiple time zones without requiring overly technical knowledge.

On the flip side, it might be worth reconsidering it if your support needs demand sensitive interactions in highly regulated or technical niches. 

Or, you might not be looking at it the right way from the get-go. The question at hand isn’t just "should you outsource live chat", but also which model makes the most sense for your case. 

Here’s a breakdown of the factors worth considering before you make the final call:

How a Modern GigCX Model Resolves the Classic Cons

The key thing to keep in mind when considering the pros and cons of outsourcing live chat is the availability of modern-day models capable of delivering near-in-house-level service through a flexible staffing framework.

A gig customer experience (GigCX) model offered through the ShyftOff Agentic Workforce Delivery Platform retains the benefits we’ve discussed while knocking off most of the downsides. Here’s how it solves the biggest challenges we’ve laid out in this guide:

• Avoids idle costs: Instead of making you pay full-time salaries, outsourced models allow you to cover only the time that agents actually spend on the line with customers.
• Tackles rigidity with on-demand staffing: Maintaining a permanent agent roster incurs high costs when demand is low, whereas elastic on-demand staffing lets you scale up or down based on work volume.
• Eliminates brand-voice and quality challenges: Modern blended models can maintain brand-voice consistency through certified agents with proper training, while AI systems review interactions for compliance and consistency in real time.
• Goes around thin knowledge or slow-ramping problems: The combined AI/human support model ensures a brand-specific knowledge base for outsourced support representatives, while AI solutions handle multiple tasks at once to eliminate slow ramp-up times.

This is not just an estimate of what such a system can do: these are all real problems solved for existing ShyftOff users. Plus, cost reductions are in the 35%–55% range, while support quality scores remain at or above 98%. You can see how it all fits together in our full live chat support guide, which covers the basics behind the model.

What to Look for in a Live Chat Outsourcing Partner

Even with everything we’ve covered in mind, picking the right support outsourcing vendor is still a big decision. Here’s a checklist to help you evaluate providers and narrow down your choice:

• Are there certification and training systems in place?
• How does the vendor ensure on-point brand tone consistency?
• How flexible is agent staffing?
• What are the available pricing models?
• How does the platform handle relevant compliance certifications?
• How does scaling work in situations of increased demand?
• Are combined AI/human models available?

Run any provider you are considering through these questions before you commit. If you want to see how ShyftOff answers them, talk to our experts to book a demo and see the platform in action.