Most in-house versus outsourced comparisons put a vendor’s hourly rate next to an agent’s wage, and get the answer wrong. The wage is not the cost, and a paid hour is not a working hour. This paper builds a customer support cost model line by line, so both options are priced on the same unit of work, with every figure sourced and every step of the arithmetic shown.
Get the full guide, free
Thank you. Your copy of Customer Support Cost Model: In-House vs Outsourced, Line by Line is ready.
Who it is for
VPs of Customer Experience, VPs of Finance and founders at US direct-to-consumer brands between $10M and $200M in revenue who need to put an outsourcing decision in front of a CFO.
What the paper covers
- How to turn contacts, handle time and occupancy into the productive hours the work needs
- Shrinkage built from its parts, with paid leave taken from BLS compensation data
- An in-house model covering wages, benefits, supervision, tools, recruiting, attrition and workspace
- A benefits load from the BLS Employer Costs for Employee Compensation survey, without counting paid leave twice
- Outsourced pricing by the hour, seat and resolution, using only rates outsourcers publish
- A full worked example for a 10-agent team, and a sensitivity table showing which inputs matter most
- How to present the model to a CFO
Three takeaways
1. The loaded cost is far above the wage. The worked example uses the BLS median wage of $44,770 a year and ends at $77,972 per agent per year once benefits, supervision, tools and hiring are added.
2. Ask which hours the rate buys. The same $10 offshore rate costs $208,000 a year billed per paid hour and $150,000 billed per logged-in hour for the same work.
3. Headcount inputs matter most. Two extra minutes of handle time turns a 10-agent team into 13. Measure handle time and shrinkage before you trust any comparison.
About Atidiv
Atidiv runs outsourced customer support for consumer brands in the US, UK and Australia, with teams in India and the Philippines. Across our accounts, support costs up to 60% less than an in-house team, with an average QA score of 98%.
Fill in the form to get the full cost model.
Ayushi leads Customer Experience services at Atidiv with a strategic/operations-focused mindset. Her primary objective is to increase how well businesses deliver service and retain customers. She evaluates customers' journeys through marketing impact, performance metrics, and gaps to develop improved systems and processes. With a reputation for curiosity and structured thought processes.