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If you've been through or even just started the process of searching for an outsourcing provider for your company then you understand that it is a daunting task.  It sounds cliché, but looking for the company that fits your exact needs is just like searching for a spouse.  It's because a successful outsourcing relationship is based on the same principles as a successful marriage. 

Trust - First, foremost, and distantly the most important is trust.  Just like you trust your spouse to be there for you, you must be able to trust your outsourcing provider to complete the task you hired them to do.  A good strategy for discovering the trustworthiness of a company is to talk to their customers and ex-customers, and not only references given by their sales team.  Ask about their ability to deliver on promises and how reliable they are, especially in crisis mode.  Be sure to ask for specific instances. In my experience references are often more than willing to give you feedback whether it's good or bad.  As this is a fine strategy for outsourcing, I don't necessarily recommend going through your fiancée's phone book and calling up old flings to see how he or she handles prospective in-law visits.

Communication - Communication is key to any successful relationship.  During the beginning phase of marriage, there's that initial excitement and constant text messaging, emailing, and calling.  The same should be with your outsourcing relationship.  If you email the outsourcing company inquiring about their services and they respond to you within twenty-four hours, I'd say they are a solid contender.  Obviously on the converse, if they take forever to respond, that's a pretty good indicator of what the relationship will be down the road.  In addition to response time, cultural differences must be noted.  If a company responds in ten minutes, but the responding email is written entirely in hieroglyphics or the grammar of a seven year old; that should throw up a red flag.  If the outsourcing company is overseas, the cultural barrier can pose a problem, but many companies have very effective methods to ensure the best possible communication with English-speaking firms.

Respect - The basis for all the other aspects of a relationship is respect.  As a husband and wife must treat each other as individual adults, there must a mutual understanding that both your company and the outsourcing provider are professional businesses with different goals.  If a company communicates with you and works fervently to get your business, they'll probably work hard for you if you hire them.  If a company neglects to comply with deadlines you've placed or fails to communicate despite a history of satisfied customers, they are probably not interested enough in your business to respect your requests and probably won't work well with you in the long run.  There is no guaranteed technique to uncovering a company's level of respect except treating them first with respect and evaluating how they respond.  Again, as with marriage, it's a two-way street.