Choosing The Right Outsourcing Partners For Your Business

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There are a lot of reasons to outsource services for your business. You might be trying to save some money by downsizing your team; you might be looking to make your business more flexible and agile, and you might even use it as a growth tool, freeing up resources you can use to expand. Choosing the right outsourcing partner will always be critical regardless of what you’re outsourcing and why you’re doing it. As such, here, we’re going to look at ways you can narrow your options down to the partners most likely to suit your needs.

Make sure that they can be trusted

First of all, you should take the time to narrow down your options to a few potential partners. This is because you’ll want to take the time to look at them a little more closely, what they offer, and how much their services suit your needs. However, you will also want to look closer at their credentials and track record. Look at online review sites to ensure that their customers have good things to say about them, see if they have any industry recognition to speak off, and look for things like trust badges on their site.

Be specific in your needs

If you want to ensure that you get off the right foot with any outsourced service provider, then you will need a clear idea of what you want from them and what goals they should help you meet. One of the best ways to do this is to write a scope of work document that breaks down, in detail, your specific needs and the solutions they offer that might be the best fit for them. Your provider might want to talk to you about options they can use beyond what you might consider, and it’s a good idea to listen to them, as they may have more experience in this field than you. Still, you should ensure that whatever you select sticks to your goals, avoiding unnecessary budget growth.

Ensure that they are investing in customer service.

No outsourcing provider isn’t going to promise you that they will deliver excellent customer service. However, the reality is that some will fall way below the average regarding customer satisfaction. However, there are metrics by which you find out how effectively they do what they say. Their net promoter score, which you can learn more about online, is an objective metric used to calculate how effectively they can provide customer service. If they are unable or unwilling to provide their NPS, it might be a sign that you should look elsewhere instead.

Consider going with industry-specific outsourcing partners.

Aside from making sure that the company you choose is reliable and trustworthy, it would be best to consider how well-suited they are to the specific needs of your business. How effectively can you communicate your goals and what you want to outsource? How well do they understand your market, customers, and general processes? Suppose you outsource any processes with specific circumstances your partners must cater to. In that case, you should learn more about industry-specific outsourcing, such as hiring an insurance process outsourcing service if you’re running an insurance company. Otherwise, it can take more work and some trial and error to help a more general provider deliver the services suited to your needs, which can undermine some of the benefits they’re supposed to provide.

Ask about their stability.

There are few business owners who want to admit that their company isn’t stable, but you shouldn’t stand on occasion. You want to make sure that you’re able to rely on them to stay open and operational enough to keep providing the services that you need, to make sure that you’re not left scrambling to cover if they close their doors overnight. You shouldn’t be embarrassed about asking for proof that they’re able to commit in the long term and any professional outsourcing service provider will understand that. Depending on whether you intend to use them for Long vs Short Term Placements, you might require a higher or lower level of proof. Suppliers and partners that you only intend to use for a few months will be less important than suppliers you want to use for years. You should also ask about their supply chain and downtime. You can tolerate some downtime, but you want to make sure that you get warned ahead of time when services might be interrupted.

Mind how you protect your data and processes

You want to ensure that any data you share, or any information on the working processes of your business, is protected and that your new outsourcing partner doesn’t leak anything they shouldn’t. This isn’t just a matter of whether or not they’re trustworthy, but also whether you both put the practices designed to protect in place. For instance, you can learn more about contract confidentiality clauses by having them sign them. If they’re accessing any valuable data, you can also ensure they access it directly from your server rather than sending it wholesale to them. You control who accesses what, how they do it, and when they can do it.

Consider whether they’re a cultural fit.

It might sound a little less important than whether or not they’re able to meet the practical needs of your business, but the cultural fit of any partner should be well considered. You want to ensure that any company you work with, especially in the long term, is aligned with the core values of your business, understands and respects your priorities, and is willing to work to meet them. If they don’t share any of your company cultures, they may not be the right fit for a strategic partnership, as they might have priorities that can clash with yours when push comes to shove.

What you outsource and how you do it will largely depend on your business's specifics. However, you should always keep the above points in mind when you’re evaluating service providers.

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