Remember the early days of your startup? You were a small but mighty team. Back then, hiring for customer-facing positions often meant looking for jack-of-all-trades types who could wear multiple hats. They were the kind of people who could switch from answering support emails to brainstorming marketing strategies without breaking a sweat. Flexibility was crucial because, in a small team, everyone needed to contribute to everything.

Your pioneer employees thrived in a fast-paced environment and were motivated by the thrill of wearing multiple hats. Agility and adaptability were the rules, and your customer-facing team was all about diving in, regardless of the task.

Fast-forward to now, and your startup is finally approaching an upswing—congratulations! But with growth comes great responsibility, especially for your customer operations team. The qualities you look for in new hires have evolved. Now, it’s not just about finding someone willing to jump into the fray; it’s about finding specialists who can help streamline and professionalise your customer service operations.

But as your startup grows, the complexity of your customer operations grows, too. Now, you’re dealing with more than just a handful of daily inquiries; you’re managing hundreds, if not thousands. Once leading strategic initiatives, your rockstar over at Customer Operations finds themselves overwhelmed by the constant firefighting, leaving little room for the big picture.

Many startups consider expanding their customer operations team by hiring additional onshore personnel to address this challenge. However, as the workload grows and the need for more new hires increases, a crucial question arises: who oversees qualifying, onboarding, monitoring, and managing these hires?

Also Read: Tech-forward, human-centric: Shaping tomorrow’s customer engagement landscape

As the startup focuses on scaling up, managing a growing customer operations team—with its complexities and escalating costs—can be daunting. According to Forbes’ Key HR Statistics and Trends in 2024, nearly 38 per cent of new hires quit within one year. Replacing them costs 33 per cent of the employee’s annual salary. These hiring challenges could disrupt your customer operations team’s ability to service your customers efficiently and smoothly.

Offshoring some customer operation roles is an alternative to alleviate this pain and provide two key benefits:

Cost-effectiveness. Offshore talent is often cheaper than hiring locally, allowing startups to allocate their limited resources more efficiently. Stretching your runway is particularly crucial with the current sentiment on additional fundraising.
Access to a global talent pool. Beyond cost savings, you will have access to a vast volume of hires that otherwise would not have made it onto your radar- all without going through the tedious efforts of recruitment.

Not all outsourcing companies are created equal

It is important to note that offshoring customer operations require effective communication and collaboration between onshore and offshore teams. Clear communication channels, standardised processes, and regular performance evaluations are essential to ensure seamless integration and service quality.

Here is where things often fall apart: growing an offshore team through outsourcing companies but continuing to manage the individuals directly puts much more burden on your already overwhelmed onshore CXOps manager.

Also Read: Want to build a sustainable startup? Solve for a problem for your customers

This is where working with boutique outsourcing companies that act more like an extension of your onshore teams is the key to effectively hiring for scale. These are the top reasons why working with companies like FullSuite is a unique fit for a growing startup.

Employee management: More than growing a pilot team of one person to five people, managed outsourcing firms can take care of onboarding, training, and managing these resources on your behalf. Your offshore team would have a backup system alongside the daily presence of a business operations manager, all at no cost to you.
Process management: Unlike traditional outsourcing or EOR (Employer on Record) companies, this type of partnership takes into account your current processes, sets up KPIs and SLAs, and recommends improvements to them where allowed.
Intact core functions onshore: More importantly, offshoring the procedural, repetitive part of your customer operations can alleviate the burden on existing onshore team members. Expanding the team with offshore talent can redistribute workload more evenly, allowing your internal team to focus on strategic initiatives and long-term planning.

Partnering with a managed outsourcing firm can help you manage the operational responsibilities that come with growth opportunities. As there is no one-size-fits-all solution to effectively support a startup’s scale trajectory, your startup must pursue the solution that allows for flexibility without compromising accountability.

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