What to Outsource
[typography font=”Myriad Pro” size=”32″ size_format=”px” color=”#2a850c”]What to Outsource[/typography]
Deciding what would be in your best interests to outsource may take some time – and certainly requires serious thought. You must consider the necessity of sharing sensitive information as you share the workload, which is always a possibility. Because of this factor, you need an outsourcing service you can trust and a confidentiality/privacy agreement that will help prevent the sharing of private information.
Outsource tasks that can be done just as well somewhere else and by someone else. Answering phones, emails, and payroll are fairly standardized tasks that can be performed at the same level of efficiency and at the same level of quality by contractors. Consider outsourcing anything that does not require your personal attention or the attention of one of your in house employees.
Consider how each of the following may work for you:
- Answering phones
This is a basic task that can be easily outsourced. Like any task, it will require training for the employees of the outsourcing service, but a great way to remove the burden of customer service calls off your shoulders (or other employees in the company). Since these calls are often repetitive in nature, they can be easily outsourced – freeing up you and employees to make better use of your talents.
- Responding to emails
This is even easier to outsource the phone calls. The contractor has plenty of time to research and appropriately answer customer service questions, which are also often highly repetitive in nature. Having an in house employee who is capable of handling more diverse and difficult matters tend to these email questions is often a waste of resources. Outsourcing makes perfect sense in these cases.
- Payroll
Payroll services are fairly standardized and can be performed as well by a reliable outsourcing service as it could be by anyone in house. Outsourcing the function is far more financially efficient than employing an entire department to handle your payroll needs. Since it can be much less expensive most of the time, it is well worth considering, if you have employees.
Regardless of the size of your company, it is likely that an outsourcing service may want to evaluate your needs. Of course, if you are a one-person company, you can be very specific about what you need, and the evaluation will be limited to that area. The evaluation will include the amount of work, the deadlines involved, and the quality controls.
If you are contracting with a company to handle your calls, you definitely want to make sure that this service is kind, courteous, helpful, and accessible. You should test the service personally by calling the number when they are “working” (mystery caller). If you have any difficulty getting the “help” you need, have a talk with the service to resolve the problem – or switch services altogether (which is probably what I would do).
Both telephone and email services become the public face of your company and you must ensure that you are being well represented. As I mentioned early, outsourcing services require monitoring to ensure proper handling of duties and for quality control; but, you will realize the worth when you begin enjoying the feeling of lightness that results from the weight they take off your shoulders.
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