How to Choose the Perfect BPO Vendor

IMPROVE OR TERMINATE YOUR VENDOR? HOW TO DECIDE

Certain conditions need to be met before a vendor relationship can be legally terminated. First, a change can be made if the vendor contract is set to expire. Most contracts last around three years. After that, client companies are free to move on if they wish or re-negotiate a new deal. Ties can also be severed if either party breaches the contract. If a vendor fails to deliver what was stipulated in the contract, your contract may allow for it to be voided. Check with your attorney. In any case, a current state evaluation of your vendor is recommended to start. This is a health checkup of your BPO's operations, its performance, and your relationship to your BPO. Current state evaluations may take many different forms, a cost analysis, a business case, or a capability model to name a few. A qualified evaluation partner will be able to offer a wide-ranging menu of options you may pick from and customize to suit your operational goals. These cover all aspects of your outsourced call center, including a look at your in-house vendor management team. Once the evaluation is complete, informed decisions regarding your vendor can be made based on facts. Though some insights can be revealed through crunching data at a distance, a real boots-on-the-ground approach is necessary to ferret out the true details of a vendor's current state. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Key stakeholders should be interviewed from both companies. • Side-by-side observations should be conducted with agents. • KPIs and other metrics should be gathered. • Recruiting, training, Workforce Management, and Quality and Calibration should be scrutinized. • A close inspection of processes, technology, reporting, and future-state plans needs to be included.

In short, every single stone that can be turned over within the contact center operation should be turned over to determine the health of the vendor and its job performance.

Although organizing and analyzing this information can start during discovery, it really proceeds in earnest once data gathering is complete. Here is where the magic happens. Strengths and weaknesses filter out. Gaps become apparent. Root causes reveal themselves. A clear picture comes into focus to show exactly what's going on and why. Process maps give stakeholders an easy way to see the data after it has been analyzed. Map annotations show the exact locations of strengths and weaknesses. They also call out opportunities for improvement and reveal the places to make them. Ancillary data, photos, charts, and graphs can be tucked in along the process flow chart to underscore findings. All these assets come together to present an accurate and visible image of current-state operations.