When you’re ready to officially move forward with setting up an ethics hotline, you’ll want to be thorough about vetting potential partners before making your decision. Here are key benefits to consider when choosing a partner to reinforce your ethics policy.

1. Industry Specialties & Niches

Inquire about an ethics hotline provider’s industry specialties or niches. If your company is in healthcare, retail, service sectors, or another industry, you’ll want to work with a vendor who has direct experience in your segment. They’ll need to understand your company dynamics and be familiar with providing support for businesses like yours.

2. Ethics Hotline Types

There are varying levels of ethics hotline services. And you’ll want to know what each provider has to offer. You can then develop a robust hotline strategy with a mix of a variety of services that best complements your needs. Maybe you need web-based reporting as well as a live operator hotline, as an example.

3. Reviews & References Matter

Before choosing a partner for your ethics hotline, narrow down your search to a few prominent vendors. Then spend some time exploring online reviews. For those you do connect with, ask for references, testimonials, or case studies with clients that are similar in size and scope with your company. If there aren’t references or reviews, it might be time to look elsewhere.

4. Policies & Procedures

Get into the details with an ethics hotline vendor about their processes and procedures for reporting. You’ll want to understand the step-by-step process so you can gauge whether or not it will be a good transition for your company. Use your internal ethics policy as a guide as you inquire about reporting methods and support the vendor is prepared to offer.

5. Available Metrics & Analytics

There should also be metrics and analytics available to you with a new ethics hotline partner. Ask what the vendor can offer in the way of recommendations for the best way to use the hotline. These will be essential in helping you make improvements to your ethics policy and hotline reporting over time. It will also help you diligently track and manage incidents and spot trends.

6. Costs & Affordability (Of Course)

When comparing costs and affordability between ethics hotline vendors, be sure you’re doing so in an apples-to-apples method. Each vendor will add value to the partnership in different ways, too, including some that may be more necessary to your business model than others. To help, compare the flat or fixed fees first. Then you can weigh the remaining pros and cons of other elements in the agreement.

7. Let Ethical Advocate Be Your Guide

Take all the unnecessary guesswork out of choosing a partner for an ethics hotline and let Ethical Advocate be your guide. Our highly customized platform allows our clients the flexibility to develop the system that best suits their business and ethics policies. Our comprehensive compliance solutions will include a robust package of services, training initiatives, and reporting. And we have experience serving a host of various industries.

Keep these considerations in mind when you’re exploring new ethics hotline partnerships. And you can always let Ethical Advocate be your guide when you’re ready to move forward.