Will my vendor be helpful and easy to work with?

The level of service and support you can expect to receive is an important consideration when selecting an offsite document storage vendor. Because your customer experience can differ significantly from one vendor to the next, you may wish to ask questions upfront that will help determine whether your experience will be a good one after you become a client.

Startup assistance

If you need help organizing your existing records before sending them offsite, find out what your prospective vendor is willing to do to assist you in getting organized upfront and then staying organized.

Some companies will help you pack up your records into boxes, label and move the boxes to the records storage facility, and then data enter your box details into a searchable database. Your account can then be set up so that in the future all new records submitted are required to be data entered with the same informational fields - enforcing consistency across all of your records.

If you need help setting up records retention schedules and figuring out which of your records can be destroyed, your vendor may be willing to provide assistance on this front as well.

Ongoing support

Find out if there are multiple ways to place orders for service: for example by phone, fax and email, as well as online. Some companies don't offer online orders, while others will only accept online orders. Make sure your vendor will allow you to place orders the way you want to place them - and that you won't be charged extra.

Find out if the vendor handles customer service through a call center, or if you will have a single point of contact who will be directly accountable to you.

If your vendor will route your calls to a call center, find out what the issue escalation process is. Most of the time call centers deliver satisfactory service, but when something goes wrong and needs fixing you will want to be able to quickly get to someone who can solve your problem.