Ensuring Quality Customer Care When Outsourcing Your Depot and Field Services Support

Keys to Success Include a Quality Management System, ISO Certifications, and Clear Communications

Now that you’ve decided to outsource your depot and field services support to gain cost savings, flexibility, and peace of mind, it’s important to ensure quality customer care from your outsourced partner.

Here are the top keys to success when outsourcing your depot and field services support:

Set and Implement Goals and Objectives - Critical to successful outsourcing, understanding and setting specific objectives — such as ensuring customer complaints are below a stated percentage — as well as standards, policies, and procedures to ensure quality service to your customers, including:
External communication policies: how your customers will be addressed
Internal communication policies: how your partner’s team will communicate with your internal team
Employee training: how your partner’s employees will be trained
Documentation: how records and reports will be kept, including traceability
Confirm that your partner holds critical ISO certifications. Partnering with an ISO-certified partner offers many key advantages, including:
Quality assurance: ISO quality certifications, such as ISO 9001 and ISO 13485 (medical) quality management systems, ensure that your outsourced partner follows standardized procedures, resulting in consistent service delivery and quality control.
Data security and privacy: ISO 27001 cyber security certification indicates that your partner has implemented robust information security control to protect sensitive data and ensures compliance with data protection regulations.
Risk mitigation: Certifications demonstrate that your partner has a structured approach to mitigating risk and ensuring uninterrupted service.
Environmental responsibility: ISO 14001 certification showcases your partner's commitment to minimizing its environmental impact, aligning with sustainability goals and practices.
Ensure clear communication. Implement a process to ensure frequent and precise communication between your relevant team members and outsourced partner. Regular meetings and reports will ensure the highest possible customer support quality with the lowest possibility of errors.
Take advantage of best practices. Your outsourced partner has established proven best practices based on diverse client experiences and can help elevate customer service by utilizing tried-and-true procedures to ensure customer satisfaction.
Prepare for unexpected challenges. Create a plan to handle issues in advance so that small concerns don’t become big problems.

By managing your outsourcing, your business can reduce service support costs while boosting your bottom line. In fact, according to a 2023 Deloitte survey, 83% of companies reported cost savings when they outsource, with 23% receiving savings of 20% or more.

Interested in Learning More?

If you're an OEM looking to improve your operations and better serve your customers, contact us today to explore the benefits of third-party services. At Quest International, we specialize in providing OEMs with a full range of support services, creating peace of mind that customers and devices are well supported. Learn more about our OEM services here.

Whether you're looking to outsource a single aspect of your operation or your entire support process, Quest has the experience and expertise to help you achieve your goals.

Contact us today to get started.

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