I oversee a training department in a customer service call center environment. My company has decided to have some of the incoming calls handled by a third party company. The third party trainers would have our materials to train their employees on our programs, however would not report into my department.

I'm developing a "statement of work" on what level this company's trainers would be held to (they would be certified on our programs yearly, have audits on class size and participation) but being new to this type of interaction, I'm a little lost.

Does anyone have experience to share when working in this type of environment?

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Yes. We have.

One of the keys is to go beyond just what's happening in the classroom and to look at how on-the-job training, coaching and monitoring will be done. Look at holding them to the results you get as far as proficiency of employees.

LPC is right on the target - basically you should evaluate their program as if it were your own (Level I, II, III, IV, and even ROI - how much are you paying them and what are they providing in value)

In addition, depending on the SOW is set up and how you are paying them for the training (i.e. are you paying for ramp-up/start-up only or are you paying for attrition training, are you paying them per training hour or per completed FTE of headcount, etc.) will also guide your KPI's that you want to ask for.

At a minimum, they should be providing a scorecard for each class that rolls up into a monthly/quarterly wrap-up (depending on how many classes they have).

We have extensive call center training experience - feel free to email me directly at mark@addiesolutions.com with some specifics such as how you are paying them, how long is the training, what type of training and certification process are you using, etc. and I can provide some more ideas if interested.

Not to get off track, but one major gap we typically see when this happens is the third-party not keeping updated on the changes - as you know the call-center policies and procedures changes hourly - how will the third party vendor receive these changes and more importantly, how is it being communicated to the third party employees (those in training and those on the floor)?