As a small business owner, you can do only so much. Even in highly effective partnerships, a small company can only branch out so much when owners maintain control of the administrative aspects of the business. The minute you learn to let go of the reins and free admin time for entrepreneur and business development time, things immediately feel more expansive.
Smart business outsourcing means handing over the mundane but necessary so you can grow your business like a visionary.
5 Benefits Of Outsourcing For Small Businesses
The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) lists outsourcing as one of the most potent ways small business owners support themselves and their businesses. Included in their list of 10 daily functions easily outsourced are:
- Administrative tasks
- Customer service
- Human resources
This is because all three of these areas rely on the same methods and strategies for success. The universal tenets for successful admin, customer service, and HR are universal. So, the key becomes finding a virtual services provider invested in getting to know your brand and target personas to tailor services and tone accordingly.
Once that’s in play, your small business can reap the benefits of outsourcing in multiple ways - including these Top Five:
Instant connection and relationship building
The inability to answer calls or return calls or emails in a timely manner is the death of a small business. Customers want to feel seen, heard, and valued. Even a delay as short as a single day causes prospects to move on or automatically rule you out.
According to the marketing researchers at HubSpot, “90% of customers rate an “immediate” response as important or very important when they have a customer service question, and 60% of customers define “immediate” as 10 minutes or less.” Unfortunately, it’s a rare business owner or single-receptionist office that can provide that level of response.
By working with virtual receptionists, you reap the benefit of instant connection and relationship building with prospective and existing clients at a fraction of the cost required to add one or more receptionists or office helpers to your staff.
Cost benefits of outsourcing due to customer retention
There are two ways in which outsourcing benefits your bottom line. Most people talk about the cost efficiency of money saved through more affordable virtual service providers. That’s absolutely a benefit, but the more significant cost benefit is in the ability to increase profits through customer retention.
Customized outsources increase your ability to meet both prospective and existing customer needs and yield more satisfied, repeat customers. However, for now, let’s focus on your existing customers or clients. They are the ones you want to keep happy because research shows that 65% of company sales come from existing customers and that 20% of those customers are the source of 80% of total profits.
Your virtual receptionist and assistants are there to support customer retention by answering customer questions immediately and providing them with in-house resources to help drive their decision-making. Your assistant ensures your calendar is up-to-date and that you have the time and space to focus on your job - rather than clinging for dear life to keep up with pragmatic daily operations and leaving your customer gold mines left hanging in the meantime.
The other side of cost benefits is that virtual outsourcing costs significantly less than traditional staffing and its necessary benefits. This frees up overhead costs so they can be reinvested into company growth.
Access to business expertise
Most visionaries and creatives are less adept at the nuts and bolts of business expertise. One of the benefits of outsourcing is the instant and affordable way to gain business insights, recommendations, and expertise you wouldn’t have gleaned elsewhere. Our highly-trained professionals are passionate about what they do. Their specialized services enrich your wheelhouse by providing services, and ideas, and utilizing technology and software that wouldn’t be available to you without a significant investment.
The more we learn about your company, its strengths and weaknesses, and your vision for growth along the way, the better we can tailor virtual services to meet your needs and support the next stages in your business development plans.
Immediate scalability
Some small businesses are on an uphill trajectory in terms of business growth and service demand. Other businesses have inherently fluctuating rhythms, like those whose peak seasons align with certain seasons or holidays. Then there are business owners who are more interested in an intentionally flexible schedule, with set breaks for vacations or months spent in other parts of the country.
Regardless of the reasons your business requires scaled services, outsourcing is one of the only ways to have instant access to services pacing. Rather than dealing with the HR stresses of hiring seasonal or part-time employees, or the challenging reality of laying off key players during business downturns, virtual services are built to accommodate instant shifts. Seasons downtime? Scale down services; unexpected business growth? We’ll immediately scale up.
Improved service levels
Virtual outsourcing companies curate experienced professionals and service experts. That means your customers - and in-house staff - always benefit from the highest level of service. And, this works both ways. For example, while virtual HR outsourcing supports small business owners with tasks like hiring, benefits administration, payroll, and handling time and attendance issues, we are also there to help find the best and brightest talents when you’re ready to bring new staff on board. Our HR professionals act as recruiters, only bringing the most qualified candidates into your interview room.
Zen Resources Helps Bay Area Businesses Reap The Benefits Of Outsourcing
Is the ever-expanding list of administrative tasks taking over the time you have to take care of client needs or continue growing your business? Zen Resources is here to help. We’re a multi-channel virtual service provider, specializing in small to mid-size organizational scale-ups by providing real people and real solutions. Contact us to schedule a consultation and let’s see how we can help you and your business to thrive.