Customer support agents represent a business or company, acting as the first point of contact for clients via phone calls, live chat forums, social media pages, emails, or other forms of communication.
Freelance phone support agents provide professional, high-quality customer support from any location, improving customer experiences, ensuring every inquiry is responded to promptly, and allowing busy owners the time to focus on what they do best.
What are the roles of support personnel you can hire freelance agents to do? There are numerous types of customer service, and with a vast network of talented professionals available to hire today through Guru, you can create a detailed job post to specify the skills and expertise your agent must have.
Why Are Customer Phone Support Functions Important?
Even the best brand can fall short if customers become frustrated about waiting for hours in call queues, waiting days for a response to an email, or not being able to get in touch with anybody at the company to answer a question or provide an update on their order.
What is remote customer service, and how can it enhance the way customers perceive and engage with your company? Remote phone support agents can take over any type of customer communications. If you are comfortable providing access to your systems, they can handle a range of queries, from processing order cancellations, sending copies of invoices or shipping paperwork, updating customer delivery instructions, or checking when an order is due to be delivered.
Freelancers specialized in phone support act like virtual assistants, working from any location, diverting calls or messages to their desktops, and providing first-class customer assistance. Complex queries or issues can also be logged and acknowledged without a customer needing to keep calling back in the hope of reaching out to a brand representative with the technical know-how necessary to resolve their problem.
What Responsibilities Can a Freelance Customer Support Agent Manage?
The duties and tasks you delegate to a customer support agent very much depend on your business, priorities, and how your customers tend to make contact.
Most businesses hire a support agent to manage inbound phone calls, although they might also be responsible for responding to live chat messages and emails. The exact responsibilities of your customer support agent could include the following:
- Answering all external phone calls, sometimes within a time limit, and providing a professional, friendly, and helpful service, attempting to answer all a customer’s questions on their first call
- Managing inbound messages and emails, sending quick responses, or acknowledging the message straight away and replying once the agent has the appropriate information
- Technical support, walking a customer through how to use a product or company service (agents can be trained beforehand or provided with specification sheets and installation guides to refer back to)
- Offering live chat responses, a service an increasing proportion of businesses use to improve response times and augment customer satisfaction
Businesses can also ask their customer phone support agent to update customer records or databases after each call, circulate requests or complaints to the relevant employee or team member, and perform administrative tasks, such as recording changes to a customer’s address or communication preferences.
How Can I Hire a Freelance Customer Support Agent?
A remote customer phone service agent is an excellent solution if you find yourself under constant time pressures due to the number of calls or messages you receive every day or need to improve customer services and ensure your clients are always happy with the response they receive.
The easiest way to find great candidates and skilled customer service professionals with ample experience is to post a job on the Guru platform. Here, you can include your specifications, requirements, budget, and expectations in terms of time commitments, the number of hours per day or week your agent will work for you, and how long you expect the role to continue.
One of the great aspects of hiring a freelance customer support representative is that you have the ultimate flexibility, whether you need extra support to cover periods of leave or require a freelancer to cover your phone lines for certain days of the week. From there, you can collate the proposals you receive, review freelance profiles to shortlist those you’d most like to work with, and arrange a time to chat and establish whether you have a good rapport.
