Telephone conversations are bad enough, but email and communicating via some instant messaging program online takes even more time. You'll have to put up with an endless amount of emails to be sent and received. Besides, if you are dealing with an overseas vendor, the time zone problem will surely arise - the difference between your vendor and you may be seven hours or more. Just imagine: you arrive at the office at the same time when your vendor's employees are going to leave. The best way around this problem is to set the mutually acceptable time for online meetings and to require that your vendor should stick to the schedule. In fact, you can even benefit from the difference in time zones between your overseas vendor and you. For instance, you transmit a rush order to the vendor at the end of your working day, the vendor receives it in the morning (their morning) having those seven or more hours behind, and by the time you arrive at the office, a considerable amount of work will have been done.

Standards of correspondence may be different to the extent of misunderstanding. If you are having any problems like that while corresponding with your potential outsource service provider, you should try to work out some standards that both of you will find easy to follow, or you'd better start looking for another vendor.

Language and/or cultural problems might contribute to all kinds of mix-up. For instance, a lot of people knowing some fundamentals of English are sure that when they ask your opinion about something and you say, "It's okay," it means you like it a lot. Don't waste your time on foreign vendors communicating in something like "Pidgin English," and even if the person you're contacting has a fairly good command of English, ask for the resumes of those employees who are going to be responsible for each part/stage of the project to make sure they are fluent in English.

An outsource service provider might be trying to diversify the business so zealously that achieving progress in one particular area becomes questionable. The solution to this problem lies in the company's portfolio. Examine the relevant case studies and success stories, ask the vendor for references, and, if you are still uncertain, do not hesitate to check these references.

Some vendors advertise services and even take up projects having little or no experience in the corresponding areas. Apparently, they intend to farm out at least some parts of such projects to subcontractors - which certainly doesn't look very attractive to the customer. This problem resembles the previous one, and the recommended solution is the same.

Almost all outsource service providers place the highest emphasis on the most advantageous projects. It's only natural, but it surely doesn't make the life of the customers with lower profit potential easy. In order not to become a neglected customer, you should:

Insist on appending to the contract a project implementation schedule that includes as many milestones and deadlines as you find it necessary;

Stipulate for tough financial sanctions in case the vendor fails to meet any of the deadlines;

Agree on some incentive payments for completing the project on schedule (or even ahead of schedule);

Last but not least, build partnership relations with the vendor whose work you are satisfied with and whose high-value customer you want to become.