How to Create an Outsourced Call Center Statement of Work (SOW)

In the modern business world where competition is extremely fierce across all industries, high-quality customer service can make the difference. Delighting your customers at every touchpoint will not only ensure they’re loyal to your brand, but will encourage them to become proactive advocates of your company.

But what happens when you don’t have the expertise or manpower to offer the customer experience (CX) that consumers have come to expect? That’s where outsourcing your customer service to a call center can give you a significant advantage.

To help with the process of partnering with a call center and hitting those quarterly customer service goals, your business should create a statement of work (SOW).

A SOW is a highly important aspect of both project and contract management. It will help your business guarantee that outsourced customer service will be undertaken according to specific guidelines and expectations set by your company.

The outsourced call center you choose to work with will use this SOW to guide their work during the course of your partnership. It will ensure that an outsourced call center outside of your organization can effectively work with your internal team to revolutionize your approach to customer service and transform your brand’s CX.

So, what exactly is a SOW?

A SOW is a formal document that is used by an employer to explain the expectations of a service provider. The SOW will include the scope of work, deliverables, timelines, work activities, expected outcomes, projects as well as the payment for the work that’s being performed.

While in this case it will be designed specifically for your outsourced call center - such as Advantage Communications - SOWs in general are used for a group of established, and emerging, outsourced solutions that address your company’s needs to source and manage services from a range of different suppliers and vendors.

These services could include anything from advertising, IT, staffing agencies to marketing and much more.

A statement of work is often used in conjunction with a request for proposal (RFP), which we recently covered in our blog titled ‘How can my Business Create an Outsourced Contact Center RFP’.

How do I create an outsourced call center statement of work?

While a statement of work isn’t overly complicated to create, for many organizations that have never written one before it can be a daunting task.

A SOW should act as the framework for your relationship with an outsourced call center. The specific directions and instructions, along with the established requirements, tasks and conditions of a SOW, will help objectives to be clearly understood by both parties - and that will lead to customer service success.

To help you create a SOW that will clearly and concisely explain your expectations when working with an outsourced call center in Canada or the US, here are some tips:

Start with the basics: Your starting point of a SOW should be a description of the project and the exact services that you are outsourcing. This will include everything from a breakdown on the roles within the project, billing and payment information, liabilities, insurance, compliance, confidentiality and the infrastructure and technology responsibilities.

Clearly define your objectives: The most important aspect of your SOW is to clearly explain the key performance indicators (KPIs) that you want to achieve with your outsourced call center partnership. Once they know what you want to achieve, your customer support partner can put the required resources into meeting those goals by using innovative new technologies such as contact center artificial intelligence (AI).

Use data to ensure a successful partnership: Every strategic partnership leverages data to constantly strive for improvement, and your SOW should lay out exactly how metrics will be used and analyzed. Think about how data can be used to ensure your company and your customer service partner is hitting customer experience and customer journey targets.

Adjust expectations where needed: Your business won’t always stand still, and neither should your partnership. As your outsourced call center works to develop a superior customer experience for your brand, you should always be working on continuous improvements. Adjust metrics and quarterly goals to ensure your expectations are aligned with the work that your outsourced contact center is doing.

Are you looking for more information about outsourcing your customer service to a call center in Canada, serving global clients? Contact Advantage Communications today and learn more about how we can help.