Running a 15-person SaaS. About 14 months ago we were bleeding money on US-based support, two full-time agents, benefits, turnover every 8 months. Classic early-stage mistake of hiring local before validating the volume.
We explored a few options. Freelancers on Upwork were inconsistent. A BPO we tried was terrible, felt like they were reading off a script. Then someone in our founder group mentioned building a dedicated pod model through an India-based team.
Took us about 5–6 weeks to get it fully running. The ramp-up was slower than I expected but once the agents understood our product, honestly the quality caught up to what we had before, sometimes better because there was less churn.
Cost dropped significantly. We ended up working with an agency that helped structure the whole thing, pod setup, training framework, escalation flows.
Biggest lesson: offshore support only works if there is a rigid system around it. Raw hiring without ops structure is where people fail.
Anyone else gone this route? Curious what the breaking point was for others.