If you do it right, outsourcing is a great way to cut costs, increase capacity, and use outside expertise, especially when you only need those specialized skills occasionally. If you do it wrong, you can add time and money, hurt your relationships with customers, and sometimes even put your company out of business. With that in mind, here are some of the biggest mistakes you can make when outsourcing and some ideas about how to avoid them. Read on to find out more so you can make the right choice.
Outsourcing Customer Facing Tasks
You can outsource anything you want to, and there will be a business or individual out there who will be able to help you. However, just because you can outsource something doesn’t mean you should, and anything that is customer-facing is a good point to consider.
If you outsource your IT support Irvine or your marketing or even your accounts, the customer is not going to know, and it won’t affect them (aside from allowing you to focus on them more because you have more time). If, however, you outsource customer service, such as phone calls and emails, you could have problems. The customer won’t feel listened to, and they might not get the results they want, resulting in poor sales and even a bad reputation.
Not Giving Enough Guidance
When a process or task can be explained with steps, rules, and procedures, it makes sense to outsource it. The problem is that many businesses don’t take the time to make these detailed rules, procedures, and guidelines.
Think about it this way: if you already have written guidelines and procedures for a process you do in-house, assume you’ll need to give your outsourcing partner at least twice as much information. In most businesses, there are a lot of rules and practices that aren’t written down. When you hire outside help, you have to put everything in writing. Anything you think doesn’t need to be said probably does need to be said. In other words, make sure you give enough guidance at the beginning of the task to ensure it is done the way you want it to be. Otherwise, you’ll waste time and money going back and starting all over again.
Not Having An Exit Strategy
Every agreement should have criteria for getting out of it, like not meeting standards or not having enough capacity, or just how and when you can get out if outsourcing hasn’t saved you money or time.
If you don’t have an exit strategy, you might find that, even when you no longer need the work done, you can’t stop the process – this can be costly, especially if you’re not happy with the work being produced. Always make sure you know how to disengage from any outsourcing partner before you sign any agreement or start working with them. Most will understand and know it’s simply part of their work, but you don’t want to run the risk of coming up against a problem.