How well are your vendors performing? How often do you review the metrics that were established before the contracts were assigned? Does your quality assurance program contain the right metrics that allow you to review and determine a vendor’s performance at a glance?
In the category of quality of service, there are key 14 benchmarks you should always use to evaluate your vendor’s performance. Utilizing a scale of 1-10 (1-being poor/unacceptable; 10-being outstanding), the following questions represent the benchmarks you can implement immediately for your QA program:
- How well does this vendor manage multiple tasks?
- How successful is this vendor at implementing the agreed-upon programs?
- How much innovation has this vendor shown in engaging employees in existing programs?
- How closely has this vendor adhered to the program as outlined?
- Have the programs this vendor offered been successful?
- How many employees have opted to use the programs this vendor has created for us?
The best vendors are proactive about evaluations. They track the success of the programs they’re managing for you and are able to offer detailed reports showing how the webinars, e-learning programs, training, and simulations you have purchased are having an impact. After all, you can’t sell these programs to your executive team if you can’t demonstrate the impact they’re making.
EVALUATING ALLOCATION OF RESOURCES
For your training or operational programs to run smoothly, your vendor will need to purchase additional resources on your behalf. For example, these resources might include flip charts, books, computer stations, software, manuals, etc. Here are some questions to ask:
- Did our vendor of choice use these resources wisely and were they frugal?
- How are the resources we purchased being allocated?
- Are the resources constantly being broken and replaced or are they treated with care?
- Who is using the resources and how often are they using them?
By keeping track of these numbers, your vendor can demonstrate to you how well they’ve managed the resources you’ve purchased.
HOW TO EVALUATE RESPONSIVENESS
No matter how well your vendors deliver the promised programs and services; there is always a margin for human error. What goes wrong should not concern you as much as how the situation is handled. You as the customer want to feel confident that if a problem occurs your vendor(s) will respond quickly and efficiently. Here are some questions to ask:
- How well does this vendor respond when there’s an urgent request?
- Does this vendor respond within 2 hours, 24 hours, or does your phone call or e-mail elicit no response back for days?
- Does this vendor offer a viable remedy or solution no matter what problems or challenges arise?
- What is the process that this vendor uses for handling customer inquiries?
