Evaluating the work of outsourcing companies
People who do analytics analyze various metrics, and might come up with formulas to evaluate market performance, or perhaps the performance of people’s work. It is sometimes easy to evaluate the work done by a particular company, but there are so many variables, that it is not easy.
Quantity is an easy metric to concern yourself with. If the average employee working on your project at a particular call center can do 30 calls per hour, that is a metric you can use to see how valuable they are. You might find that one employee averages 25 calls while the other averages 40. Is one being lazy, or are they more thorough? Do they spend too much time chatting with clients when they need to move on to the next customer? Or is it good to spend a little time being personal. In this busy world, many people are in such a hurry, that they don’t have time to get to know others or to make small talk. Many discipline themselves not to make any small talk, but to frantically move on to the next call.
Quality is not such as easy metric to look at. If you hire a call center (call centre), and they do many calls for you, you have to listen in on their calls, or get feedback from clients as to how good they are. Call center work is actually quite involving. There is the way a clerk speaks which might be clear, too quiet, or they might have poor pronunciation. Some clerks don’t answer questions clearly. It is common for call center employees to show empathy if a client has suffered at the hands of the company, while other call center employees behave like they couldn’t care less. Some employees might suggest solutions to problems, or even be able to talk a client into making an additional purchase. If you made an evaluation check list, the list might get longer and longer the more you look into these types of issues.
Flexibility — is the company you hired able to adequately handle your changing workload or are they rigid? Do they nickel and dime you too much with hidden charges, or are they accomodating and working for your convenience instead of theirs?
Reliability — Many companies have a very “fluid” workforce. People are being hired and fired regularly, so you are always having to deal with new employees. You might have an old worker you learned to trust, but then they might disappear. Or, the boss, might allocate his workers to another project leaving your project on the back burner going slowly. Are there strange things that happen to your account from time to time, or is it always steady?
There are other metrics to think about, but these are some basic ones. Good luck figuring out how to assess the strength of your outsourcing partners!
Tweets:
(1) Measure the quality & quantity of work done at various outsourcing co’s to compare!
(2) Flexibility & reliability are metrics that are even more important than quality & quantity!
(3) 1 way to compare outsourcing companies is to see how long they keep the same workers!
You might also like:
How good are you at estimating jobs?
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/10/09/how-good-are-you-at-estimating-jobs/
If your client criticizes your workers, who do you side with?
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/09/19/if-your-client-criticizes-your-workers-who-do-you-side-with/