What Does an Outsourced Call Center Contract Include?
The specific clauses a service agreement should contain, and the promises that should never appear in one.
A quote is not a contract, and a handshake is not a service agreement. This is what should actually be written down before an outsourced team starts working your campaign.
Scope and team
- Exactly which services are covered — inbound, chat, email, outbound, or a specific combination
- Team size, and the process for changing it
- Coverage hours and shift pattern
- Whether agents are dedicated or shared — stated explicitly, not implied
Pricing
- Rate per agent-hour, or whichever pricing model applies
- What is included, itemised
- What is billed separately — telecom above all
- Billing frequency and payment terms
- The process and notice period for rate changes
Notice and flexibility
- Notice period to increase team size
- Notice period to reduce team size
- Notice period to terminate the agreement entirely
- What happens to invoiced-but-unworked hours, if any, on cancellation
Reporting and quality
- What reports are provided, in what format, on what schedule
- Whether QA is included and, if so, the review frequency
- Escalation contacts on both sides, named specifically
Data and confidentiality
- Confidentiality obligations, covering both directions
- How system access is granted and revoked
- What happens to data on termination
- Any data-residency or handling requirements specific to your industry
What should never appear
- A guaranteed number of sales, appointments or leads converted
- A guaranteed revenue outcome of any kind
- A blanket compliance guarantee for outbound campaigns — compliance responsibility should be explicitly divided, not assigned entirely to either party
- A universal service-level commitment set before the provider has seen your actual volume
Where this comes from
This guide reflects how we actually run campaigns and what we see go wrong. We have tried to be useful whether or not you ever work with us — including where that means recommending you do something other than outsource.
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