A vendor site visit can get you a wealth of information about a call center company that may be hard to gather otherwise. Visiting the actual call center can give you a sense of how the company treats their employees. Are staffers energetic and pleasant? Enthusiasm and friendliness in a person carries over to phone calls. This will also be a good opportunity for you to look at sample scripts, meet some of the agents who may be working for you, and get a sense of the scale of the operation. Compare services from our call center company network for free.

A site visit also gives you a chance to conduct in-person interviews with the agents. In addition to basics like how happy they are, their tenure at the company, and the projects they have worked on, questions such as "What is your next job going to be?" can help you get some insight into their commitment to customer service. You should also feel free to ask for HR records to verify claims about tenure and training.

Another important test is listening to actual calls. Ask to listen to live calls of the type you are planning to outsource: inbound sales, customer support, etc. Pay attention to how well the agents know their material, the overall image they project, how well they can improvise in unusual situations, and how they deal with upset or problematic customers. Also check how the call center supervisor coaches agents to improve their call handling. This the most direct way to evaluate call center companies, so plan several listening sessions with multiple agents to make sure you get the information you need.

You can also make your own sample calls. Get phone numbers for some of the vendor's other clients and call them unannounced, as if you were just another customer. Ask a few questions - hard questions if you like - and see how the CSR responds. If geography or timing prevents you from making an on-site visit, sample calls become even more important.

As with any major business purchase, you should request references of both current and former clients. If possible, ask call center companies for references to clients in businesses similar to yours, both in industry and size. Some questions you may want to ask when contacting references:

• Did you accomplish your overall goals when working with this company?
• Were you able to track all the metrics you needed around activity and results?
• What was the best/worst part about working with this company?
• What were the agents' biggest strengths and weaknesses?
• Has this outsourcing impacted your customer satisfaction ratings? How?