Is it not cheaper to chat with your own staff instead of outsourcing?

Chatting with your own staff is only cheaper to the point that no additional staff are required.

Practice has shown that chatting with your own staff involves a number of major risks. Even if additional staff is hired, chatting is not only more expensive, but there is also the risk that the chat may not be conducted properly. We have, as a livechat provider, a full team of trained chat operators who have done hundreds of thousands of chats.

The risks of chatting are to a large extent due to the fact that employees have to combine work at the same time. Companies often mistake how much time it takes to answer the chats. The average chat time is at least 10 minutes. The risk is that both the actual work and the chat will suffer. Maybe due to answering chats too late. Especially at peak times in the chat there is a risk that chats can no longer be answered because the visitor has left the website. Hiring additional staff is an option, but more expensive than outsourcing.

The calculation example is based on a gross monthly salary of €2,000 and factor 1.2 employer’s contributions. The number of hours per week is multiplied by 4.2 to calculate the number of hours per month. The hourly wage including employer’s contributions is rounded off to €14.29 (2400/168). So by multiplying the number of hours per month by 14.29, the gross monthly salary is calculated.

It must be taken into consideration that this calculation does not take into account 24 holiday days on an annual basis for a full-time employee. In addition, an employee is sick for an average of at least 6 working days a year. These figures are not included in the calculation because they differ from one situation to the next. It can be concluded that, on the basis of 1 FTE (40 hours per week), an additional 10% is added in terms of costs.