Why Even Think About Hassling With Outsourcing?

The answer is outsourcing. Many companies are going this route and finding it fits their monetary needs as well as their company's management needs. If you are thinking about outsourcing, you first need to come up with a solid plan.

Planning

Your first plan of attack in outsourcing is to figure out what it is you want outsourced. Is your customer service taking up too much of your time? Do you have a technical support area you would like someone else to handle? Need graphics created or articles written? When contacting a service provider you need to have a specific plan already in place of what it is you would like them to take care.

Many business owners will draw up a proposal outlining the scope of work and the time in which they expect the work to be completed. This will give the service provider an idea of what they need to fulfill. Informing the service provider in detail of how you want them to handle your project will allow them to fully understand the scope of what needs to be done and what is expected of them.

One mistake made by many business owners who outsource is the expected turn-around from their facility to an outsourced facility. Many have the idea the transition will happen over night, but, in reality, this is not the case. When outsourcing things such as customer service, companies will most likely have to continue doing the work for a little while in order to get the new assistant trained correctly. This can take some time, as training needs to be in place to make the transition as smooth as possible. If you plan ahead however, you can easily create draft-type emails for your most common requests that your assistant can easily customize for each individual request.

Just as the time rewards will not happen overnight, perfection will also not happen overnight. The new person on your team will need to learn your operations and adapt to your company's way of doing things. You'll also want to keep an eye on how things are going and communicate frequently with your contractors to ensure they are doing things correctly.

Payment

Payment is another issue to work out before hand. You'll need to make sure that both parties are clear on not only what amount of money will be involved, but also when and how it will be paid. This information should be communicated before any work begins and agreed upon by both the outsourcer and the assistant.

Developing a way to track what contractors have done is crucial. Most service providers will have a way to do this already in place, but it's important to know how it will be done. For instance, those being paid an hourly rate usually keep a timesheet of some sort. Others may a flat fee for the tasks they will complete.

Maintaining a good relationship with the service provider is key. Constant communication in the form of timesheets, emails and telephone calls will keep the process running smoothly. If you don't have that line of communication, you can run the risk of damaging your company's reputation with workers who don't know enough about your business to properly represent you.