Outsourcing Tip: How to Make Your Data Entry More Efficient
In business, outsourcing is a merely a method entrepreneurs use to grow their bottom line. What makes a huge difference for others are the techniques and approaches they use to get to their goal.
Outsourcing your data entry does not guarantee a huge victory for your company, but it does give you a lot of rewards if you’ve done it right. Here are a few tips on how you can make your outsourced data entry more efficient.
Provide a Good Work Environment
Outsourcing firms have their own offices to house your outsourced data entry specialists. Even though it will be the responsibility of the service provider to provide all the equipment, software and other office supplies to your outsourced staff, it is still your responsibility to ensure that their work environment and physical conditions are perfect.
Your data entry specialists will be encoding data all day long, and a tired data encoder makes the most mistakes so it would be nice if you make sure their:
- Office chair is comfortable enough;
- Keyboards, mouse and computer monitor are working well;
- Breaks are well scheduled; and
- Workload is properly managed.
Check for Updates and Upgrades
Assuming that the outsourcing partner you’ve chosen specializes in data entry, software upgrades will never be a problem for you. All you have to do is review and approved such upgrades.
In case your service provider is not a data entry firm, it does not mean that they’re not tech inclined with data entry software and upgrades, keep in touch with them about the latest technologies available in the market and software upgrades that can benefit your outsourced staff. If necessary, take time to discuss it with them.
Set a Realistic Time Table
Some people think that outsourcing data entry, especially offshore outsourcing, gives you employees that work faster than anyone else. Well, quantity is way different than quality. If you want both, you need to set a realistic time table. Managing the workload of your outsourced data entry specialists is also important, because there’s a limited amount of workload one person can do in eight hours straight. So it’s important that you do not overload them.
Consider Using Optical Character Recognition (OCR)
Although it’s not a 100% guarantee to be accurate data, it lessens the time of encoding and provides more time for your data entry specialists to review and proofread their work. It would also help if you provide them with the original PDF files or scanned document so they can use it to double check the accuracy of their work.
In reality, data entry is a very important function of any business. Whether it’s a small, start-up business or a well established one, everyone in the office relies on data. So to make sure that outsourcing data entry will be efficient for your company, establish metrics on your service provider not just the outsourced staff. If you feel that you need a better outsourcing partner, look for another one. There’s also a thing called trial-and-error with outsourcing, no perfect combination or formula.
