Outsourcing Customer Support Service – Reduce 60% Cost

ITMatchOnline.Com - Leading online B2B marketplace having a vast list of customer service freelancer/provider who have been in the customer support service businesses since last several years. Get outsourcing customer support service at affordable rates.

We have thousand of services providers/freelancers ready to work on your projects and generate high quality work and to budget. Find and hire reliable and affordable customer support service providers for your entire projects needs at 60% cutting rates.

For 99.98% accuracy, world class quality and rapid delivery of customer support services just outsource your requirements to us on: projects@itmatchonline.com and Save 60% costs on your project.

We have huge number of customer support service providers and they are fluent in various languages such as English, Spanish, German, French and other major languages of the world. They have accent and conversation skills, technical skills, certifications & degrees, competence, call center etiquettes, internet skills, sales skills and products & services domain experience. They have adapted international quality and security standards. Their telecommunication network enables instantaneous high-speed transfer of voice and data across the globe.

Having vast experience in outsourcing customer support service, They are able to serve critical Computer Telephony Integration and Interactive Voice Response systems regardless of the customer's PABX, ACD, computer or database. They deploy the best of telecom infrastructure with various redundancies at every critical juncture to provide uptime commitments of over 99%.

Each of their technical support representatives has direct access to the Internet to allow them to access client’s on-line problem tracking system, FAQs, knowledge base and account information. You can also get 24/7 and 365 days customer support due to availability of quality manpower in multiple work timings, uninterrupted power supplies and constant back-ups. Outsourcing customer support service providers can offer customer support services at competitive costs compared to the same services in other countries.

Find and hire customer support services provider by directly posting your freelance projects to us at: https://www.itmatchonline.com/

post-projects.php without any financial obligation. For more information about our services, solutions please feel free to visit us at: https://www.itmatchonline.com/ or http://www.itmatchonline.org/

# # #

ITMatchOnline.Com – Leading, fastest, reputed & well established business-to-business (B2B) portal has helped thousands of company in locating trustworthy services provider for their outsourced works. Post your outsourcing projects FREE & save 60% cost.

Source: http://www.prlog.org/

How to Be a Good Customer Care Executive?

As customer service representatives are the key strength for any successful organization, and keep you connect with your potential customers. So customer care executives should have excellent verbal and interpersonal skills, including being receptive to other's views and opinions.

In the recent time, it can be difficult to provide excellent customer service for each of the calls, especially when they have to deal with angry customers who might had to wait on hold for an hour or more before they even reach you. Often, the customer care executives will only have to answer the phone to listen to an immediate escalation of a customer angry voice.

Its very tempting to put on the defensive, it's much better to let the customer continues to say what I mean. Angry customers who feel as if they were really being listened cooled off faster than customers who think that the customer care representative is not really concerned about their needs.
Customers who are angry are going to blame anyone for the problem they have, do not take it personally, instead, ensure them that their struggle has been ended now and issues will be resolved at the earliest. It is the responsibility of customer care representatives to make their customers happy and satisfied before hang up the phone.

It is important to realize that the customer believes s\he is talking to the particular company. they are unaware or not interested that they are talking with a very good lady named Gelsey or some one else who has her own family problems. All they know is that they have a problem and you caused it, that's why want to know what to do about it from your end. And this is you responsibilities to resolve all their issues till hang up the phone.. All customers don't h same type of attitude, many customers are very nice and just have a question about your service.

The key, however to provide best customer service, in spite of the situation is completely focused on the customer who is talking. Customer Service Representative is the key person who represent the image of any organization, and help the company to make a faith in the eyes of your business assets i.e Customers. If a customer has angered hard before, you should be able to let go of the anger before speaking to the next customer or notice through the call.

Source:http://www.callcentersindia.com/

How to Ensure International Call Center Success Through Best Practices in Hiring, Training and Management

Introduction
With today’s uncertain economic forecast and the constant pressure to reduce costs, many companies have outsourced their call center operations to off-shore or “near-shore” facilities. By off-shoring, these companies can save money and find a highly educated – and frequently, a highly technology-skilled – workforce. However, cultural differences, heavy accents, inadequate training and insufficient hiring practices can lead to poor customer satisfaction experiences, causing a loss of customer loyalty and ultimately, a loss in sales.

This best-practices article focuses on the issues faced by companies who currently have international call center operations or are considering it in the near future – as well as what can be done to address those issues. It discusses how to improve the customer experience and thus customer loyalty through better hiring, management and especially, training practices.

When it comes to customer service, U.S.-based customers expect a certain level of customer experience. When they make a call to handle a denied credit card, dispute a discrepancy on a bill, solve a computer problem or make a change to an already-booked airline ticket, they are often frustrated before they even pick up the phone. So when they reach a customer service representative with an indecipherable accent who can’t even solve their problem — requiring them to speak to a supervisor or worse, call back a second, third or fourth time — these customers are justifiably angry at the entire corporation. And the next time they have to make a purchasing decision, it’s likely they won’t choose you.

Read More Article...

BigPond announces 200 new call centre jobs for SA

The BigPond Customer Care Centre, located in Telstra's SA headquarters in Pirie Street, provides a wide range of customer assistance services including email and web-based responses to customers' technical and service inquiries, through to assistance for customers visiting BigPond's islands in the virtual world "Second Life".

Premier Rann said the new jobs were a welcome recognition of South Australia's booming Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector.

"It is also a vote of confidence in South Australia's competitive advantages over other States.

"And these jobs come on top of Telstra's announcement earlier this year that it will create and invest in 15 fully-funded scholarships at Australia's first foreign private university, Carnegie Mellon's Heinz School of Public Policy and Management here in Adelaide.

"So I congratulate Telstra on this expansion and all those involved in making this centre a success.

"This Government has worked hard to give our State the competitive advantage over other States in terms of our low cost, high skilled, innovative, creative, ICT and education city that has a strong record of industrial peace and low rates of labour turnover," Mr Rann said.

Justin Milne said the BigPond Customer Care team in Adelaide, established in July 2005 and until now staffed by 185 customer service staff, was one of BigPond's great successes and the decision to boost its staff would bring even higher levels of service for BigPond customers.

"Top quality customer service is essential as the number of new customers grows exponentially.

"BigPond's email-based customer support team has been independently reviewed and ranked as the best in any industry in Australia. So it was logical for us, in looking at how we expand the service, to choose to boost the Adelaide team.

"This announcement is an endorsement of the quality of work the Adelaide team is achieving and our confidence in Adelaide as a source of talent for this very important service. As a member of the SA Economic Development Board I am profoundly aware the state definitely punches above its weight in the digital sector, and that's why we want this centre located in Adelaide," said Mr Milne.

Source: http://www.callcentrenews.com.au/

Smart Ways To Build Customer Loyalty

There is saying “customer is god”, “customer is everything”, “businesses are from customers, customers not from business”, “if you don’t care your customer then other will do”. All these sayings are leads to only one conclusion, all businesses needs customers, the more customers you attract – the more your business grow. In all this often business and corporate forgets the existing customer’s value. You've read the studies that show it costs many more times to win a new customer than to retain an existing one. You know the secret to making use of this statistic is to increase customer loyalty. But since customer loyalty is not something you can go to OfficeMax and buy, you may be racking your brains trying to figure out where to start improving the loyalty of your customers.

Some of the facts might surprise you. According to some researches the reason most customers leave has nothing to do with the product. In fact, most customers say they are satisfied right before leaving. According to Allegiance, Inc., a provider of enterprise feedback management (EFM) solutions, companies need to go beyond customer satisfaction to build loyalty and engagement. To keep companies from having to spend the extra money to replace lost customers there are some simple ways, methods to retain the customer loyalty in your company and product.

Read More Article...

Checking unsolicited calls

Register, Centre tells telemarketers

Legal Correspondent

In order to put a check on unsolicited business calls or SMS to mobile phone users, the Centre has made registration for every telemarketer compulsory with a provision of fine up to Rs 50 crore for violation of the telemarketing licence agreements.

Detailed guidelines formulated by the Department of Telecom (DoT) on the direction of the Supreme Court, were placed before the apex court with a commitment that a three months’ time had been given for mandatory registration.

Read More Article...

Is the Customer Always Right?

The answer to this headline is both "yes" and "no." Customers are not always right, but they are always the customers even when they're wrong. Too many practices have rigid rules and policies. How many times have you heard the answer, "this is our office policy"? This can only be described as rigidity. Every situation calls for some flexibility and leeway. By making your staff adhere to rigid rules, you prohibit them from providing customer service that will benefit your practice and image.

Read More Article...

Outsourcing of Customer Services & American Labor Force?

Outsourcing cannot be considered a new phenomenon even though the rising attention toward this subject has brought lots of important issues into the daylight. Lots of service and even manufacturing companies started creating jobs overseas to gain wider access to foreign markets. They act as consultants auditors and perform other functions where their customers are. Putting it in other words, they have found customers and came to serve them. Another reason for a big number of emerging foreign companies oversees is saturation of the domestic markets. Approximately 60% of the profits of American information technology companies are estimated to come from overseas. This practice is not unique in number of industries ranging from banking to consumer products to. The leading firms in foreign markets state that their overseas revenues exceed their domestic sales.

In most cases a great many companies focus their efforts on their core competence, in other words things they do better then their rivals. They delegate most of their activities to domestic suppliers. Looking at this issue from that perspective, overseas sourcing is not a major part of the trend to decentralize business operations. Outsourcing often helps a company operate in an increasingly competitive international marketplace. The key factor for the firm's position in the modern global economy is the ability to maintain costs low. Another positive feature of outsourcing is enabling a business to provide 24/7 exposure to the customers, especially for those who need around-the-clock support. This is one of the core issues in today’s business world, whoever gets customer happy wins.

The secret to the customer’s love and devotion lies in good and most important always available customer service. Regardless of whichever industry a business is a part of, customer care is of primary importance. With growing competition worldwide, new technological innovations and constantly improving services and products, consumers are being attacked with too many attractive offerings and to win them over it is vital for the company to ensure that customer loyalty programs are being implemented. It’s important to understand that acquiring new customers is essential but holding on to existing ones is crucial. It is obvious that if existing clients are satisfied they will spread the word about your company’s outstanding customer service.

Some of the main problems customers have are of unresolved complaints, pricing issues, competing companies offering better deals, or simply they just feel that they are not being taken seriously enough. Thus companies have to be constantly tuned in to a customer's needs. Determining what they want is an important factor in organizational success. Since the market is in constant movement a consistent and dedicated approach is needed in order to determine and understand the changing moods of a consumer. The problem occurs when customer care is not one of company’s core activities, as often firms lack the expertise, resources, and finances to ensure good customer services. Then outsourcing to skilled and dedicated customer care professionals would be a great option; one that many global companies have adopted.
Although outsourcing sounds appealing and in most cases it is that way, there are number of problems that American businessmen have to take into consideration. They probably will bump into a variety of difficulties dealing with unfathomable legal systems, in protecting their intellectual property, and meeting the requirements of different tax and regulatory agencies. Corruption in public sector also might be a problem.

Many people have been speculating on the concern of overall disadvantageous impact of outsourcing on the national economy. Looking at this problem in-depth provides however a different picture. The visible part this concern is extensively discussed by the masses and it states that U.S. employees lose their jobs or get transferred to less desirable locations. In past years because outsourcing has gained such popularity that this issue may have been lost its real origin. Any serious analysis of this matter must be taken to another level, where all pros and cons would be evaluated. In reality much more of U.S. employees keep their jobs because outsourcing helps the company stay competitive on today’s demanding market. Taking for instance call centers which can be defined as a place of doing business by phone with combined and centralized database and automatic call distribution system. Recently call centers have grew to become sophisticated business entities which provide incorporated services that are vital for the success of the corporations they were created to serve. Major call centers’ goal is to become the encouragement for business transformation while freeing up businesses from a number of routine tasks in order to focus on their core activities. When establishing a huge call center which could be a reservation center for airlines or hotels, or a big telemarketing center it is often believed that people who used to work in those areas in the States are simply laid off. In reality though many of them get new and even better positions because the firm enhances its financial strength, and focuses on the competitive advantages. For example, as companies upgrade their software systems, there may be less local demand for basic programmers, but higher for better paid systems integrators. In most cases companies simply change their mix of corporate needed skills. Currently they emphasize more managerial experience, enhanced knowledge of business processes, and understanding the domestic customer an essential point which cannot be outsourced from oversees, but has to be researched on the spot.

Cost reductions from outsourcing also opens up new market opportunities for U.S. companies and helps create additional work places here at home. Stating the benefits of service outsourcing in a common way yields more resources for the business which allow it to improve its performance. With implementation of outsourcing and the reserves it produces is the beginning of the modification processes in the company. Outsourcing permits firms to buy new equipment and expand training programs for the personnel thus investing in further development and growth of the business. Also American higher labor costs can be offset by higher worker productivity.

Outsourcing does not only bring immediate results for any one given company in form of lower costs and higher productivity, it has overall positive influence on the national industry. For example service outsourcing brings positive feedback in a number of ways. As developing countries such as China and India build up their economies, new markets are created for U.S.-made products and services. China in two recent decades has become a major importer of industrial and consumer goods and soon India is likely to do the same. Another reaction of the economy is the rise in salaries firms are paying to those countries providing outsourced services. For instance compensation of IT personnel in India is reported to be growing at 15-30% a year thus quickly reducing the financial gap between Asia and America.

Over the past few years far more new U.S. jobs were created than outsourced. Labor market in the States is one of the most open and that is the major cause of the nation’s economic strength. Approximately 1,000,000 workers quit each week and just about equal number is hired in their place. In contrast with European and Asian labor market, American employers are much more willing to hire new working force, because they cannot afford their business to stand still. Also many foreign companies are hiring American professionals to work at their offices, when setting up new businesses abroad or for other functions. It becomes clear that outsourcing especially in customer service sector can hardly be a cause of stagnating American labor market. In case of professionally set up activities and presence of trained workers in oversees locations, Americans only win freedom for undertaking new strategies for further development.

It also has been researched that the foremost causation of huge layoffs as well as new hires, is the technological breakthrough. Due to innovations and its implementation on the market many jobs have been eliminated while many new created. Again we have returned to the point that constant movement of the labor market is the best coordinator of resources; when someone is fired, another is hired. It’s a never ending process which brings about positive results just as outsourcing does.

Jeff Stats is a writer at essay writing service Mindrelief.net. Order quality custom essays from our essay service.

Source : http://www.articlewise.com/

Insurer to hire for call center

Atlanta insurance company ZC Sterling plans to add 120 jobs at its Triangle call center by the end of 2009, a company executive said Wednesday.

The company, which provides real estate tax services for borrowers and hazard insurance to homeowners, is boosting its local ranks to handle more customer-service calls, said Tracy Siler, the company's vice president of administration.

Read More Article...

Call Center: A Deeper Glimpse to It

In the business of outsourcing, call center is the one mostly credited. Primarily, it is because it makes up the largest part of outsourcing services.

But what actually is a call center? A call center is an office where a company's inbound calls are received, or outbound calls are made. They are progressively more popular in the society today, where many corporations have unified customer service and support functions. Call centers provide work for many staff in customer service, sales and support functions.

Commonly, call centers are large offices staffed with representatives. These representatives are those who either make or receive phone calls. A single office could be operated anywhere with a few dozen to hundreds of telephone staff depending on the size of the call center. Depending on what the company needs, call centers can make either incoming or outgoing calls. Some call centers gives focus on answering inbound calls. While other call centers focus on outbound calls.

A number of advantages to companies can be provided by call centers. By means of unifying telephone-based service and support in one location, companies can easily adjust staffing to fit call volume. Call centers can be situated almost anywhere, allowing companies to take advantage of time zones and more low-cost labor rates in different states and countries. Also, call centers consolidate the technology needs of companies, allocating major telecommunications setups to be installed in a small handful of call centers instead of a number of smaller offices, thus making upgrades and training easier to achieve.

Numerous call centers make use of a number of various technologies to alleviate performance and customer service. There are types of calls which are usually subdivided into inbound and outbound calls. Automatic call distribution is often used by inbound call centers. In this kind of technology, incoming calls are appointed to representatives on the order they are received. Other call centers use call monitoring, wherein customer calls are randomly monitored by quality assurance staff to ensure that phone representatives meet customer needs. Call center technology evolves constantly, helping call center staff assist customers more competently and successfully.

As outsourcing grows, call centers become more recognized and appreciated. As a result, many companies will be benefited for they will be able to lower their costs and be able to focus on their competencies.

Source : http://www.global-sky.com

Call Center Performance Management

Call Centers, or customer services receiving and transmitting multiple requests by telephone, were introduced as offshoots of telecommunications providing streamlined service for consumers of large companies with extensive customer support needs. Normally, a call center is able to handle a considerable volume of calls at the same time, i.e. to screen calls and forward them to skilled support staff, where most issues can be resolved. Organizations starting from mail-order catalog companies and telemarketing companies to computer product help desks use call centers. Typically, there are two types of calls ? inbound and outbound. The latter suggests the agent's calling potential customers with intentions to sell or service which is amply used in telemarketing. Apart from it inbound calls are made by the customer to get information or ask for help reporting malfunction of the product.

That's where the problem of management performance is acute. Performance measures and benchmarking are indispensable to any well-run call center to eliminate criticism of call centers on common themes such as non-expert operators, poor training of agents incapable to process customers' requests effectively, automated queuing systems resulting in long hold times, operators working from a script, etc. Benchmarking, typically associated with strategic management, presupposes evaluation of business processes in relation to best practice and helps to develop plans with the aim of increasing performance levels. At large benchmarking reforms all the levels of the company ? from the state of mind of the employees to that of top managers, penetrating into the whole hierarchical organization of the organization. The gist of benchmarking is to break the resistance to change by employing methods different from the currently used ones that might be less effective in order to increase certain aspects of performance.

The most conspicuous performance measures include the mean conversation time, or Average Talk Time (ATT), the time of delay a caller may experience waiting while queuing, the mean dealing time, or Average Handling Time (AHT), the number of calls (%) answered within the limited period, or Service Level (SL%), the number of calls per hour the operator handles, the number of calls (%) with the customer's problem completely resolved and others.

A variety of different technologies enables companies to measure and monitor the performance of the workers. The Balanced scorecard, introduced by R.S. Kaplan and D. Norton in 1992, is a concept for measuring a company's activities to make managers focus on the important performance metrics that lead to success. It's not only financial outcomes that are in focus, but the human issues that drive those outcomes. Thus, it is said to balance the financial perspective with customer, process and employee perspectives. Since the time of the original concept the scorecard metrics have been revisited by Kaplan & Norton with regard to more than a decade's experience.

Typically the following processes are on the move when the scorecard is implemented: translating the vision into operational goals, linking the vision to individual performance, business planning, learning and adjusting the strategy according to the feedback. To improve the performance of call centers one should know what metrics are best qualified. The right metrics should be performed on a call center to fulfill the scorecard.

The hallmark of a good call center is the staff's call management skills and that means interactive training can help achieve excellence at different levels ? for the agents, supervisors and managers. It is essential for managers to know how to recruit and train the staff to reach the strategic goals of the company, to manage the key metrics and consequently improve performance.

Different programs are designed to deliver training to call center teams. They might include practice, role-play, feedback and coaching. As keeping customers satisfied is a primary concern of any call center training courses feature quality programs which enhance the performance with respect to one of the most urgent demands ? training skillful professionals. It means they employ different training methods to evaluate current training processes and measure and improve training effectiveness. Fertile training leads to reinforcing the appropriate skills for performance improvement and achieving higher levels of customer loyalty.

Source : http://ezinearticles.com

Call Centers In The Rec Room

Call Centers, or customer services receiving and transmitting multiple requests by telephone, were introduced as offshoots of telecommunications providing streamlined service for consumers of large companies with extensive customer support needs. Normally, a call center is able to handle a considerable volume of calls at the same time, i.e. to screen calls and forward them to skilled support staff, where most issues can be resolved. Organizations starting from mail-order catalog companies and telemarketing companies to computer product help desks use call centers. Typically, there are two types of calls ? inbound and outbound. The latter suggests the agent's calling potential customers with intentions to sell or service which is amply used in telemarketing. Apart from it inbound calls are made by the customer to get information or ask for help reporting malfunction of the product.

That's where the problem of management performance is acute. Performance measures and benchmarking are indispensable to any well-run call center to eliminate criticism of call centers on common themes such as non-expert operators, poor training of agents incapable to process customers' requests effectively, automated queuing systems resulting in long hold times, operators working from a script, etc. Benchmarking, typically associated with strategic management, presupposes evaluation of business processes in relation to best practice and helps to develop plans with the aim of increasing performance levels. At large benchmarking reforms all the levels of the company ? from the state of mind of the employees to that of top managers, penetrating into the whole hierarchical organization of the organization. The gist of benchmarking is to break the resistance to change by employing methods different from the currently used ones that might be less effective in order to increase certain aspects of performance.

The most conspicuous performance measures include the mean conversation time, or Average Talk Time (ATT), the time of delay a caller may experience waiting while queuing, the mean dealing time, or Average Handling Time (AHT), the number of calls (%) answered within the limited period, or Service Level (SL%), the number of calls per hour the operator handles, the number of calls (%) with the customer's problem completely resolved and others.

A variety of different technologies enables companies to measure and monitor the performance of the workers. The Balanced scorecard, introduced by R.S. Kaplan and D. Norton in 1992, is a concept for measuring a company's activities to make managers focus on the important performance metrics that lead to success. It's not only financial outcomes that are in focus, but the human issues that drive those outcomes. Thus, it is said to balance the financial perspective with customer, process and employee perspectives. Since the time of the original concept the scorecard metrics have been revisited by Kaplan & Norton with regard to more than a decade's experience.

Typically the following processes are on the move when the scorecard is implemented: translating the vision into operational goals, linking the vision to individual performance, business planning, learning and adjusting the strategy according to the feedback. To improve the performance of call centers one should know what metrics are best qualified. The right metrics should be performed on a call center to fulfill the scorecard.

The hallmark of a good call center is the staff's call management skills and that means interactive training can help achieve excellence at different levels ? for the agents, supervisors and managers. It is essential for managers to know how to recruit and train the staff to reach the strategic goals of the company, to manage the key metrics and consequently improve performance.

Different programs are designed to deliver training to call center teams. They might include practice, role-play, feedback and coaching. As keeping customers satisfied is a primary concern of any call center training courses feature quality programs which enhance the performance with respect to one of the most urgent demands ? training skillful professionals. It means they employ different training methods to evaluate current training processes and measure and improve training effectiveness. Fertile training leads to reinforcing the appropriate skills for performance improvement and achieving higher levels of customer loyalty.

Source : http://ezinearticles.com

Catalogers lead in call-center satisfaction

Catalog call centers ranked highest in satisfaction among consumers, and offshoring was found to affect customer satisfaction across all industries, according to a study from Claes Fornell International Group.

The first Call Center Satisfaction Index surveyed customers of call centers in six industries using the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index, which rates satisfaction on a 100-point scale.

At the top of the list by industry are catalog call centers, which received a customer satisfaction rating of 80, and banking call centers, which posted a 77. The call centers for these industries typically provide superior customer service and good first-call resolution, according to CFI, Ann Arbor, MI.

The call centers for cell phone service received a 69, cable and satellite television a 68, insurance a 68 and personal computers a 64. Nearly a quarter of callers hang up on PC call centers with their issues going unresolved. PC-customer-service representatives rated much lower when it came to solving problems.

The ability to resolve issues is one of the key drivers of customer satisfaction and therefore their loyalty and likelihood to recommend, according to CFI. The report indicates almost one-fifth of callers across all industries hung up with their issue unresolved. Of those, 43 percent said they would definitely defect from that brand and 25 percent weren’t sure.

Offshoring also has a big effect on customer-satisfaction levels. According to the study, customers who think the contact center is outside the United States rate their satisfaction with the call-center experience 26 points lower and are almost twice as likely to defect compared to those who assume the call center is in the U.S.

Part of the problem is that customer-service representatives outside the U.S. are rated lower on communication skills. When communication skills are poor, customers’ issues remain unresolved. Representatives with poor communication skills are able to solve customer issues 45 percent of the time, compared to 88 percent of the time when representatives speak clearly.

Source : http://www.dmnews.com

Five9 Introduces Two On-Demand Call Center Tools

The California-based, Five9, a provider of on-demand call center services, has introduced two call center packages designed for small businesses: The Five9 Call Center Suite, Small Business Edition and the Five9 Inbound Call Center, Small Business Edition.

According to Five 9, The Five9 Call Center Suite, Small Business Edition and Five9 Inbound Call Center, Small Business Edition are out-of-the-box tools that provide inbound and/or outbound call center functionality designed specifically for small teams that spend the majority of time on the phone as part of their daily activities.

The packages include four concurrent seat licenses, twelve phone lines, supervisor and administrator applications, as well as additional customer support and training features.

"The majority of small businesses don't think of themselves as being big enough to have a call center; however, when you speak to the owners of small businesses, they all have sales, collections and service departments. Five9's specially packaged on-demand call center offering for small businesses offers them the most affordable way to offer these business-critical capabilities," commented Brian Silverman, CEO of Five9.

"The comprehensive features in Five9's on-demand call center offering, can boost the bottom-line of a business by increasing customer contact, supporting employees who work remotely, and offering long distance rates of 50-85% lower than traditional rates, to name a few of the benefits."

Source : www.callcentermagazine.com

24/7 plans overseas buyout

Business process outsourcing service provider 24/7 Customer is planning to increase its headcount from 2,600 employees to 6,000 by the end of 2004.

The company is also hoping to complete an overseas acquisition over the next six months.

"Our expansion plans will be executed both through the organic and the inorganic route. We will set up new centres in the south and we also hope to complete an overseas acquisition over the next two quarters," said Shanmugam Nagarajan, chief operating officer of 24/7 Customer.

The company will recruit another 400 people by the end of the current fiscal, Shanmugam added.

24/7 Customer which has been a pure-play call centre so far, started offering non-voice support services and solutions this year.

The company is offering its BPO services in the banking and finance, insurance, logistics and telecommunications verticals.

The BPO activities are being carried out of 24/7's Bangalore center. It is also scouting for acquisitions to expand its presence in the overseas market.

24/7 will utilize the finance secured from Sequoia capital to fund its expansion and acquisition plans.

Last year Sequoia Capital picked up a 20 per cent stake in the company for $22 million. Sequoia Capital has invested in several IT and ITES companies like Cisco Systems, Apple Computer, Yahoo!

24/7 plans to continue its focus on being a south-based service provider. In its future expansion plans, though, the company has identified Pune as a possible destination for new centres. It currently operates two call centers in Bangalore and one in Hyderabad.

24/7 Customer ended the previous fiscal with a turnover of $30 million and currently services 15 clients in the US and the United Kingdom.

Source : www.callcentersindia.com

What employees expect

A RECENT study by Hill and Associates, security and risk management consultants, on the attrition rate in the BPO sector, threw up some interesting insight.The study was conducted on targeted respondents that included the young population employed in the outsourcing business and with undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate education and who had changed their job at least once in the past three years.

Key findings

The survey revealed that most people join a BPO to gain exposure to an international level work environment and the infrastructure that BPO provided.
Not for `quick money', a `luxurious lifestyle' at a young age and a `career' that requires no particular educational background.

Exits from BPO happen because of reasons like lack of growth avenues, expectation mismatch, dissatisfaction with organizational policies, and the quest for a better job profile.
Not night shifts, monotony of work and lack of salary hikes. Where the HR department took steps to deter exits such as giving salary hikes, promotions, shift changes and other incentives, it did not succeed completely.

The survey revealed that respondents were overwhelmingly in favor of better career growth opportunities and improved company policies.

The survey indicated that more than 60 per cent of the employees join a BPO after seeing job advertisements in newspapers or through manpower consultant references. The study found that the communication pattern of advertisements positioned the BPO job at a level much higher than its real delivery.

An overwhelming 75 per cent of the respondents were financially independent of their families.
Yet, a sizable section among them turned to their families for support if they felt the need to quit their jobs. This cushion provided by the social support system often drove the respondents to quit their jobs at the first hint of any inconvenience on the job.

The study says that the steps to manage attrition are not yielding the desired results because of the mismatch between the aspirations/expectations of the employees and the very nature of a BPO job.

It concludes that there is need for a higher degree of due diligence at the hiring stage.

At the hiring stage itself, companies need to make the prospective employee aware of what the job exactly entails and make an assessment of the potential response of the candidate in such job settings.

Source : www.callcentersindia.com

Customer Service Outsourcing Market to Hit $12.2 Billion

The worldwide market for customer service outsourcing is set to grow from $8.4 billion in 2004 to $12.2 billion in 2007, but the offshore component will remain small, according to Gartner Inc.

In addition, Gartner found that:

*Through 2007, 80% of organizations that outsource customer service and support contact centers with the primary goal of reducing cost will fail.

*Up to 2008, 60% of organizations that outsource parts of the customer-facing process will encounter customer defections and hidden costs that outweigh any potential savings they derive from outsourcing.

Originally published in Direct Newsline

* Despite the hype surrounding offshore call centers, offshore customer service outsourcing only represents a tiny fraction of the market - less than 2% in 2005, increasing to less than 5% in 2007.

Source : www.callcentersindia.com

Telemarketing of insurance may be the next big thing

Regulators the world over are coming down hard on companies selling insurance through unsolicited phone calls, yet telephone retailing appears to have a bright future in insurance. According to management consultancy firm Watson Wyatt which specializes in the insurance business, direct marketing through telephones is turning out to be the third largest alternate channel for insurance companies.

“In the UK and Australia, telemarketing and the Internet are the dominant channel for distributing non-life insurance products. Telemarketing is already significant for some companies in Asia and there is rapidly growing interest in this channel,” said John O’Rorke managing director, distribution consulting practice, Watson Wyatt. According to Mr O’Rorke, companies are looking at in-bound customer calls to sell insurance in many markets. He added that companies would either run an advertising campaign inviting callers to phone in or they would attempt to cross-sell to customers who had called in with some other inquiry.

In countries such as Korea, telemarketing, as a channel, is the mainstay of distribution for personal lines. And today, the law in that country recognizes recorded acceptances. Telemarketing is not a new concept in insurance. It was introduced way back in 1984 by UK non-life insurer Direct Line, which was built around the concept that insurance could be profitably sold through telephone. In India, newly-formed Star Health and Allied Insurance has started selling its products through telemarketing.

For insurance companies, which have traditionally been selling their products through agents, any other sales channel is described as an alternate channel. Among the alternate channels, bancassurance is the most dominant followed by telemarketing. However, banks themselves are using telemarketing to sell to their customers.

According to R Krishnamurthy, MD (distribution consulting), Watson Wyatt, some of the banks in India that are entering insurance business are looking at combining their sales force with insurance arms to create telemarketing teams. Although there is a regulatory requirement that every individual who sells insurance needs to go through the 100 hours of training stipulated by IRDA, banks have made representation to ease this requirement for bank employees selling standard products, he said.

Banks are better placed to engage in telemarketing because of the quality of data they have, coupled with the relationship of trust. It is because of this that banks have been more successful than retailers and departmental stores who started out trying to sell through the shop-in-shop route, but are now engaging in to selling to their loyalty card base.

Among private insurers, there are four companies which have a telecom company within their groups. However, the quality of data possessed by telecom companies is not all that good. It is, therefore, not possible to achieve segmented selling. At the same time, most of the mobile owners in India are pre-paid subscribers, which makes billing difficult.

Source : economictimes.indiatimes.com

Outsourcing not limited to call centers - NEDA

Call centers are at the forefront of the outsourcing industry and the business process outsourcing as the way to go for the highly educated workforce of the country, other big BPO firms are following suit.

National Economic Development Authority Director-General Romulo Neri revealed in a statement that companies like HP Global delivery Center, Manulife and Deutsche Knowledge Services and others are starting to enter and expand their operations in the country.

With the entry and expansion of the outsourcing firms, this means job for the educated workforce of the country. These companies are taking advantage of the language-proficient professionals in Information Communication Technology and finance in the country compared to other countries in Asia.

"We should indeed diversify our outsourcing work beyond call centers," Neri said.

In 2006, forecast from the Board of Investments, Business Process Association of the Philippines and the Commission on Information, Communication and Technology that outsourcing jobs will rise by 44 percent, revenues by 52 percent and investments by 42 percent. To date, around 233,000 are employed by outsourcing companies. In 2010 it is expected to reach to 1.2 million according to the forecast.

Based on a study by McKinsey Global Consultancy there are at least 120 outsourcing companies in the country today. The same study projected that by 2010 the revenues from BPO will reach to US$ 10 billion. While according to industry estimates, the country's revenues from BPO in 2006 will bring in US$ 3.8 billion, close to four times higher than in 2001 at US$1 billion. In 2001, the revenues from BPO amounted to US$ 349 million.

In this city alone, three call centers are starting their operation this year. Teleperformance, I/O Asia and Focus Communications are among the first three call centers to be put up in the city while others are signifying interest to invest in the city.

According to Councilor Jocelle Batapa-Sigue, chairman of the Bacolod IT Team, call center agents are not only the ones who are in demand but at the same time the other workers for BPO companies such as accountants, data encoders and software developers.

Neri added the country should aim to get 10 percent of the market for medical transcription. "Think of all the high-paying jobs that will provide our medical professionals," he said.

Reports said that in the United States there are 150,000 medical transcriptionists, which is below the requirement of 230,000, with the Philippines occupies just a one-percent share of the US market of US$ 12 billion.

Source : www.offshoringtimes.com

Call Center Performance Management

Call Centers, or customer services receiving and transmitting multiple requests by telephone, were introduced as offshoots of telecommunications providing streamlined service for consumers of large companies with extensive customer support needs. Normally, a call center is able to handle a considerable volume of calls at the same time, i.e. to screen calls and forward them to skilled support staff, where most issues can be resolved. Organizations starting from mail-order catalog companies and telemarketing companies to computer product help desks use call centers. Typically, there are two types of calls ? inbound and outbound. The latter suggests the agent's calling potential customers with intentions to sell or service which is amply used in telemarketing. Apart from it inbound calls are made by the customer to get information or ask for help reporting malfunction of the product.

That's where the problem of management performance is acute. Performance measures and benchmarking are indispensable to any well-run call center to eliminate criticism of call centers on common themes such as non-expert operators, poor training of agents incapable to process customers' requests effectively, automated queuing systems resulting in long hold times, operators working from a script, etc. Benchmarking, typically associated with strategic management, presupposes evaluation of business processes in relation to best practice and helps to develop plans with the aim of increasing performance levels. At large benchmarking reforms all the levels of the company ? from the state of mind of the employees to that of top managers, penetrating into the whole hierarchical organization of the organization. The gist of benchmarking is to break the resistance to change by employing methods different from the currently used ones that might be less effective in order to increase certain aspects of performance.

The most conspicuous performance measures include the mean conversation time, or Average Talk Time (ATT), the time of delay a caller may experience waiting while queuing, the mean dealing time, or Average Handling Time (AHT), the number of calls (%) answered within the limited period, or Service Level (SL%), the number of calls per hour the operator handles, the number of calls (%) with the customer's problem completely resolved and others.

A variety of different technologies enables companies to measure and monitor the performance of the workers. The Balanced scorecard, introduced by R.S. Kaplan and D. Norton in 1992, is a concept for measuring a company's activities to make managers focus on the important performance metrics that lead to success. It's not only financial outcomes that are in focus, but the human issues that drive those outcomes. Thus, it is said to balance the financial perspective with customer, process and employee perspectives. Since the time of the original concept the scorecard metrics have been revisited by Kaplan & Norton with regard to more than a decade's experience.

Typically the following processes are on the move when the scorecard is implemented: translating the vision into operational goals, linking the vision to individual performance, business planning, learning and adjusting the strategy according to the feedback. To improve the performance of call centers one should know what metrics are best qualified. The right metrics should be performed on a call center to fulfill the scorecard.

The hallmark of a good call center is the staff's call management skills and that means interactive training can help achieve excellence at different levels ? for the agents, supervisors and managers. It is essential for managers to know how to recruit and train the staff to reach the strategic goals of the company, to manage the key metrics and consequently improve performance.

Different programs are designed to deliver training to call center teams. They might include practice, role-play, feedback and coaching. As keeping customers satisfied is a primary concern of any call center training courses feature quality programs which enhance the performance with respect to one of the most urgent demands ? training skillful professionals. It means they employ different training methods to evaluate current training processes and measure and improve training effectiveness. Fertile training leads to reinforcing the appropriate skills for performance improvement and achieving higher levels of customer loyalty.

Source : www. ezinearticles.com