After a lengthy and exhaustive (and exhausting) selection process, you finally signed an outsourcing contract for support. Home free? Not exactly: you are entering the most delicate part of the outsourcing relationship, the implementation and rollout. Here’s how to do it right.

Appoint a solid project manager
Outsourcing implementations are complex and include many aspects from training to tools to metrics. Find an experienced project manager, ideally someone who is already familiar with the way you run your support operation. If you cannot free up anyone internally, hire a contractor with outsourcing experience. What outsiders lack in day-to-day experience they can make up with an experience-tested methodology and comprehensive checklists.

Insist on developing and maintaining a project plan that shows all activities through the rollout. Make a complete inventory to avoid surprises, test all assumptions, and schedule any “make or break” steps early on, so you can implement alternatives. You don’t want to find out the week before rollout that no one at the outsourcer’s site can access your tracking tool because of some technical issue glitch.
To create a solid plan bring representatives of all functional areas together for a kickoff meeting, face to face if at all possible. Define frequent and clear milestones, all with deliverables attached to them. “90% of training completed” just is not the same as “90% of support reps trained.” Review progress regularly. An experienced project manager knows to look beyond the milestones and to check in with the individuals who are actually doing the work as opposed to simply holding formal meetings with department heads.

Invest in training
Outsourcers typically need much more training than your own team, who has the luxury of relying on teammates. Most outsourcing contracts ask the company to provide the training materials for the outsourcer. If the outsourcer is responsible for training delivery, I heartily recommend that you at least present a master class, and ideally attend some of the training classes to answer questions and to ensure that they are going the way you want. It will also give you a check on the suitability of the outsourcer’s staff for the task at hand.

Don’t forget process training. Is there a knowledge base the outsourcer should use? How should the outsourcer escalate issues they cannot resolve? If you have never worked with an outsourcer before, you will have to create new processes to accommodate the new relationship.

Training is a process, not an event. Think about coaching mechanisms to ensure that the training sinks in. And define how new hires will be trained in the future.

Go onsite
You simply can’t do a good job from afar. Plan to have someone at the outsourcer’s site constantly or frequently throughout the implementation period. Send a team onsite for a week at rollout time to expedite problem resolution.

If you selected an offshore outsourcer, it may be tempting to stay home since the time and expense required for a visit are great. Don’t! The further away the outsourcer the more useful it is to go onsite to get a first-hand view of any communication or cultural issues so they can be resolved quickly.

Consider a staggered rollout
If you’re launching a large program, see if you can use a staggered rollout. Despite careful planning there are likely to be some glitches, which are much easier to contain and fix in a small setting. Don’t proceed to the next step of the rollout until the situation is stable.

If you are replacing your own staff with the outsourcer, it’s a good idea to use retention bonuses to keep your staff around for a safety period after the planned transition date. You don’t want the bulk of your knowledge and experience walking out before the outsourcer is capable of handling the task.

Establish quantifiable goals and targets
The outsourcing contract should already contain some target metrics tied to the financial terms (if not, what were you thinking when you signed it?) Translate the metrics in the contract into reports that can be run from the tracking tools and that you can audit. The audit piece is particularly important when the outsourcer uses its own tracking tools: get access to them.

Create a monitoring structure
During the implementation, define how the relationship will be handled for the long term. If the project manager can transition to a relationship manager’s role, great! If not, prepare the transition to the permanent owner. Confirm the owner on the outsourcer’s side. Set up the ongoing management processes, including metrics, quality monitoring, and regular status and planning checks. Start with daily checks at rollout and gradually decrease to weekly – if things are going well.

Is it a lot of effort to implement an outsourcing relationship? Yes, it is, and it requires a significant investment, starting with the project manager. Management costs can increase the outsourcing costs by 10% or so. Think of the overhead before you decide outsourcing is a good deal for you.

About the author
Francoise Tourniaire is the founder and principal of FT Works, a consulting firm that helps technology companies create and grow their support operations. She is the author of “Successful Outsourcing”, a practical guide to creating and delivering training for support centers. For more information, visit http://www.ftworks.com/success.html or call 650 559 9826.