subject: How To Communicate Effectively With Your Service Provider? [print this page] Offshore outsourcing is all about delegating your work to external service providers located in offshore boundaries who complete it and deliver you results. This involves transferring your business data to another location and coordinating with a team that is not present in your office premises. And to make sure you outsourcing procedure is smooth and seamless, it is important to ensure that there is effective communication between the clients and the service providers.
Communication forms an integral part of all business processes and especially so in offshore outsourcing. For any business to outsource successfully, it needs to have a plan. And it should be able to chart out both long term and short-term course of action. In order to provide relevant directions to the executives and employees, it is important to articulate the future steps of the outsourcing endeavor.
And communication strategy plays a crucial role while composing an outsourcing plan. The communication involves interaction with the service provider and employees, as well as marketing and public relation efforts of the company as such. These are the areas that arouse interest in the company's products and services which results in further increase in the revenue.
Here are some tips to communicate effectively with your service provider:
Choose a Professional Service Provider
You can only communicate effectively if your service provider can understand what you are talking about. If they have no experience of dealing with clients or doing the kind of work you want to outsource, chances are that you would have to explain them from the scratch. Moreover, if you use certain industry jargons they would most likely not get it. Therefore, the first step of effective communication is making sure you choose an experienced and professional service provider who you can have a fruitful discussion with. Remember, more the experience they have, better will they grasp your talks.
Have a Steady Discussion while Drafting SLAs & Contracts
Make sure you sit with your service provider, or if that not possible have a video conference at least and negotiate the SLA and contract for the projects. In addition to putting the terms and conditions on paper, it is also important to discuss them with your service provider. This will clear any doubts and misconceptions and make both parties clear about what is mentioned in the contract. Also, ask them how they plan to carry out the process and what their approach will be. This will let you know how your project will be treated.
Ensure Accessibility to the Service Provider
Make sure your service provider provides you various communication channels to contact them like phone, e-mails. Instant messengers and also their physical address in case your need to send out hard copies of anything.
Appoint an Outsourcing Manager
Communication becomes quite difficult when there are many people from both the teams interacting with one another for the same project. It can lead to very confusing situations and account for inconsistencies in the project. Therefore, appoint an outsourcing manager, both at your end as well as the service provider who can coordinate among themselves and give directions to the rest of the team.
by: Maneet Puri
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