A Request For Proposal (RFP) is an excellent and helpful tool that can be useful in the process of selecting an outsourcing call center outsourcing provider for your business. It is essential to choose the right partner and see if they meet your requirements.
An RFP can guide you to see if your outsourcing partner fits your culture, requirements, technology, compliance and security, and other crucial elements that can determine the relationship's success.
Elaborating an RFP for your outsourcing vendor selection process can be tedious and complicated. An easy thing to do can be to download a generic RFP template, but you need to carefully consider which sections and elements the RFP must include considering every vital aspect of your business that would take part in your new call center partnership.
Here are six crucial sections of a Call Center RFP:
Company Profile
First, you need to know the general information about the call center solutions provider. In this section of the outsourcing RFP, you can add questions about their history, mission, vision, values, and current numbers (such as the number of employees or years of experience), their structure, culture, and expertise of their management team.
This basic information lets you know if they are a trustful company, have the expertise your project needs, see if their culture aligns with yours, and identify their potential as a business partner.
Agent Hiring, Training & Engagement
As we always say, agents of contact center outsourcing companies are their biggest asset. Therefore, it is essential to know if they hire the right people, offer the proper training and development to have a good performance and grow, and if the agents are engaged and happy in the company.
These three elements must be part of your call center questionnaire. Ask them about their hiring process, how they test agent skills, if they have ongoing development training, and how they incentivize or motivate their team. In the end, their agents will be part of your team.
Performance, Reporting & QA
Numbers, processes, and protocols are part of the day-to-day of a business that is constantly looking to improve. If you invest time, effort, and money to find the right call center outsourcing service, it's because you want to improve your numbers. Whether looking to increase profit, improve customer experiences, or reduce cost, knowing if the contact center is reaching its goals, it's crucial.
Ask your outsourcing vendor questions about how they keep track of KPIs (Key Performance Indications) and business goals, what type of reporting or information can you expect from them to see if they are meeting your requirements, and what actions they have in place to ensure performance and quality and include any questions you may have about specific processes and protocols.
Technology
To have a smooth implementation, a proper business synergy, and reach the expected performance, technology plays a vital role. You need to know if your call center services provider has or can integrate the technology your call center processes require.
Here are some things you can consider about what you ask a call center provider about their technology: telephony platforms, integration capabilities with your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) or CTI (Computer Telephony Integration), internet service provider carriers, computer features, monitoring systems, and any other technology your operation might need. You can ask your IT team about the basic requirements for your operation.
Compliance & Security
Compliance and security are topics you can't miss in a BPO RFP to avoid issues and conflicts. Knowing about their certifications, procedures, and policies will allow you to understand how compliant their operation is and if it is what your operation requires. This RFP section is also the opportunity to know if they can implement continuous improvements and audits to the function.
You can ask about their information security; if they have a paperless policy, implement certifications or security standards such as PCI or SOC. Ask about internet access and user restrictions, physical access, disaster recovery, and system redundancy, about their internal and external audits and legal protection.
Pricing
Let's say that your operation is running, and suddenly you get an extra charge for something you didn't consider, and now it's more complicated to negotiate. It is essential to know about their pricing structure and understand what is covered and what type of extra chargers you might have according to your long terms plans with your call center partner.
Establish your future goals and identify what type of services and solutions you might like to add to your outsourcing provider, such as investing in new technology, expanding to a new city, implementing new work models like Work From Home or hybrid, or a different hiring profile, etc.
In this section, you can also ask about the advantages you can get, including volume discounts, and what performance guarantees are included.
Now, it is time to include these sections in your RFP and ask the right questions to identify the outsourcing call center provider that best fits your business needs. But don't forget that an RFP needs to address your actual needs. Avoid asking things that would not add knowledge and value to your decision and include specific questions involving your processes and requirements.
If you are still considering new vendors, we invite you to know more about Call Center Services International. CCSI is strategically located in Mexico that helps U.S. businesses establish high-performance nearshore Contact Centers by providing a World-Class Bilingual Workforce, State-Of-The-Art Infrastructure, and Proximity to the U.S. Request your proposal!