Archive for the ‘Outbound Call Center’ Category

Customer Service 101

Wednesday, May 16th, 2012

Good customer service is the foundation of any business such as Philippine contact center. In today’s world, business competition is harder than ever and consumers are willing to spend more in exchange for excellent customer service. Most businesses realize the importance of being committed to customer service that’s why they outsource and make use of inbound call center services and outbound call center services.

 

A Philippine call center must know that they not only need to meet their customer’s expectations, but they must strive to exceed them. For inbound call center agents, there is more opportunity in exceeding customers’ expectations even when they’re complaining. The important thing is that you listen and don’t tell them that they’re wrong; then acknowledge the issue, try to reach an agreement, and do your best to keep them happy. They may not be right, but at least you listened to their point of view. Usually people just want to be heard. You must use this complaint as a positive thing to help you grow and improve.

 

In an outbound call center setting, you need to be flexible in your approach. Don’t just make a sale but rather, offer solutions in the best interest of your customer. You also need to let customers drive how you interact with them. Though you may not always be able to offer the type of communication channel your customers want, you can still be responsive to their behavior. Lastly, honor your word. If you tell someone you’ll follow-up with them by end of day, you have to do it. There’s nothing worse than having someone tell you they’ll contact you later, then having to track them down again. Keep in touch with customers and check if the products or services are good.

 

Good customer service results to repeat guests while bad customer service drives customers away taking their friends, family and workmates. It is very important to have a good customer service not just to make the customers happy but to attract potential customers.





Outbound Call Center: Basics of Telemarketing

Monday, March 5th, 2012

Because of high competition in the global market, organizations around the world are looking for more cost effective way to reach their customers. It is a way to link the efficiency of automation to the real marketing needs of highly competitive business world. Telemarketing is the systematic use of the telephone by trained people to increase profits and reduce selling costs. It is all activities connected with, anticipating, identifying and satisfying customer requirements by phone.

 

To succeed in telemarketing, you should also be fully aware of the main purpose of the call as well as what you want the recipient to do after the call. It is also best to set a secondary objective that seems realistic. When it comes to generating sales leads, you have to remember that time is money for both you and your potential client. Be concise, clear, and spell out your intentions before the client gets the chance to hang up on you. However, you should also be ready to listen to what the he is trying to say. If he does not seem interested in the products or services you are offering, you have to respect their decision and thank them anyway. It is also important to ask meaningful questions that will illustrate problems that your clients may be experiencing. Do your best in sounding natural because there is nothing worse than listening to someone who sounds like he is reading straight from a book. A good telemarketer is a good listener but also someone who can make others disclose in him or her to a degree from the onset. That’s because the telemarketer must get his/her prospect talking. And that’s not possible unless the telemarketer’s manner evokes some trust in the other person. This is a vitally important make-or-break point of telemarketing.

 

 

 





Inbound Call Center : Understanding Customer Engagement

Friday, February 3rd, 2012

In this newly social online world, it can’t be denied that it’s the age of smarter consumers wherein customers are really challenging. They incorporate new technologies into their daily lives and their philosophy is they want to be served, listened to, known and empowered. They see consumption as far beyond a transaction with a more experiential view and seek through this experience to fulfill their needs.

 

All this has had a significant impact on how brands are now positioning themselves, and how they re approaching their customers. In this period of intense competition and fleeting customer loyalty, the ownership of the relationship is now with the customer.  Companies need to strengthen customer relationships and optimize business outcomes by proactively engaging customers with the ideal customer service through any channel the customer favors. Interaction is an important factor. Every interaction with your company creates a lasting impression on the customer that’s why social media is providing an empowering platform for customers to very publicly discuss your company’s product and brand. In achieving your business goals, you also need to optimize your resources including inbound call center agents, business process outsourcing, back-office and automated systems. Legacy infrastructure and disparate hardware and application systems must be integrated to empower every employee responsible for customer service, sales, and support.   Another is every customer interaction incorporates an underlying customer process to ensure that the back office achieves similar efficiencies as its contact center counterparts.  Performance management and analytics will also increasingly play an important role in helping business executives determine customer engagement effectiveness and guide the decision-making process.

 

Customer engagement involves developing and fostering a sense of trust, emotional commitment and an ongoing involvement with your company. Your brand is not just viewed therefore as a functional benefit to be purchased for a price rather its a relationship partner in your customers life.





Call Center in the Philippines: Building Strong Relationships at Work

Friday, December 9th, 2011

Every Philippine call center is a relationship business. The quality and impact of your work, and the profitability of your business, depend upon relationships — with customers, co-workers, and competitors; with suppliers, distributors, and support services; with direct reports, senior managers, and boards. Being customer service and telemarketing agents is so tedious that in most cases, stress eventually takes its toll on them. That’s why it often affects an employee’s productivity and relationships at work. However, the way you manage key relationships with even the most difficult people will determine your level of success. Building strong relationships with others heightens your ability to gain support for your work and manage barriers that will inevitably come up along the way. There is also a personal benefit with effective relationships in that they can make you feel more engaged with your work which can lead to greater job fulfillment.

 

When you take the time to understand another’s’ feelings and positions you can create strength in relationships, both parties allow each other to communicate without being judged. Effective relationships require parties to openly express their feelings and positions on all matters pertinent on the level of the relationship. Respect is the key to relationships, you can show respect just by listening to the other party and by trying sincerely to understand what is important to them, you can also look at their communication style and personality to better understand what makes them tick, a person can also show respect by reinforcing the person when they are doing something well or offer to help when they are needing some extra help.

 

Respect, communication and working toward a win-win situation are the very foundation for a great relationship. When parties fail to express whatever is on their mind or their feelings, it can get in the way of building an effective relationship.





Philippine Telemarketing: Guidelines for Choosing the Right Lead Generation Service

Friday, November 25th, 2011

Good lead generation is critical to the financial success of any company, whether large or small.  With the growing popularity of internet marketing, several different b2b lead generation companies have appeared on the internet.  That’s why if you opt to use an outbound call center for lead generation services, it’s very important to select one that gets you qualified leads. In so doing, you get to customers who will probably buy your products or services instead of those who will throw your marketing materials away without even looking at them. Below are great tips of a great lead generation service.

 

Choose an organization that has knowledge. If you choose an existing firm for lead generation services, you can also assess their history and discover wherever they are successful and where they’ve got battled.

 

Your outbound call center needs to work with you to definitely build a policy for lead generation. This helps to ensure that their services are part of your current marketing and advertising strategy. Interact to ascertain goals and then have them produce a plan that will allow you to reach these targets regularly. Your telemarketing agents will have to be associated with this method as they will be the methods ultimately get in touch with the leads.

 

Personal references must be requested and checked into. A professional outbound call center is often more than thrilled to provide this info. If the lead generation services firm hesitates to provide references, you need to keep looking.

 

Locate an organization which provides customer service when you need it most. If you find that your leads aren’t exercising, you might want someone you’ll be able to speak to. Will you be estimated to pay for leads which might be remote or will the organization give you new leads to make use of? This needs to be proven up front.





A Positive Approach to Call Center Stress

Tuesday, November 15th, 2011

Stress indeed has been regarded as a major threat to call centers in the Philippines. The cost of workplace stress is a serious matter in a company. How do inbound and telemarketing agents react to increased job stress?  They are more likely to use sick time, have low morale and experience interpersonal conflict on the job, and this stress leads to decreased productivity, increased injuries, accidents and even workplace bullying and violence. Your employees are working longer hours and you need to take some steps to ensure they don’t burn out. Disengaged employees cost you even more when they leave. Philippine call centers that are sensitive to the importance of how stress can affect their workers as well as their workplace as a whole need to do what they can to be proactive in helping employees deal with stress, instead of waiting for problems to happen. Being pro-active rather than reactive is the key to having a healthy workplace. Promote a sense of justice and fairness. You need to convey to the employees that they have a place to turn to if they feel like they are not treated fairly, and this information will be confidential and handled without retaliation. Coaching is also a good way to inspire your employees. Effective workplaces offer coaching from either in-house or outside consultants to supervisors who need help in learning how to manage and lead effectively, thereby improving their communication skills.

 

A workplace that is proactive at recognizing employees at risk, and not turning their heads when problematic behavior occurs, will be more effective at limiting workplace stress. Find out what’s eating your team, and figure out how you can make changes to re-inspire and re-energize them so they can contribute their fullest to your business.





Call Center in the Philippines: Principles of Leadership Coaching

Wednesday, November 9th, 2011

Leadership qualities in professionals at all levels of the management hierarchy play a key role in success of Philippine call centers. It is not something with which you are born, it is not inherited–it is something you decide to do. Leaders are those who are bold enough to make a decision when they are faced with a defining moment.  To build a successful business, you have to be a leader and being a leader implies you must be a coach. Leadership coaching therefore; is the art and science of helping individuals to develop the necessary traits and skills required to become a good leader.

 

Be a good listener. Good listening skills are critical to the coaching process. Being a good listener and being an active learner go hand in hand. Ideal candidates understand that listening is like throwing a ball back and forth. One person listens while the other talks and vice versa.

 

Trust yourself. Your behavior as a leader can either change or inspire it. To guide your team successfully, you have to follow your intuition and practice fundamental leadership skills. If you trust yourself, you can be a better leader whether you’re an inbound or outbound agent.

 

Empowering people. A great leadership coach should know how to empower other individuals and as well raise high performance individuals and consequently high performance teams. A good leadership coach must have confidence in other players in the organization, so that they become empowered to unleash their true potential.

 

Taking Responsibility. Leadership begins by setting a direction and developing a vision for the distant future. Leadership is much more strategic and looks toward what could be. Leaders focus on aligning the right people against their vision. You must ensure that you clearly communicate your vision and that it is understood and that people are committed to it.

 

 

 





Importance of Self-Care in a Hectic World of Call Center

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011

Many Philippine call center transactions are doomed from the outset as the agents are just as stressed as the people calling to complain. If you have ever worked as a customer service representative, then you know that stress simply comes with the job. In addition to that, inbound call center agents usually encounter pressure from working schedules, company policies and procedures and quotas. Well, it is simply the nature of the business.

 

That’s why it’s so important to take time to do nice things for yourself. Self-pampering is not about being selfish. It’s about taking proper care of yourself and treating yourself as kindly as you treat others. You need to make caring for yourself a priority, otherwise you will continue to put it off. Set an appointment with yourself every day, or at least once a week. Block the time out in your calendar and do not let anything interfere. As much as you do for others, you deserve this time for yourself. It doesn’t have to be a huge amount of time, even an hour or two will do. Here are some self-pampering ideas. Treat yourself to lunch or dinner at a nice restaurant. Take a bubble bath by candle light. Spend time in nature. Get a manicure or pedicure. Have a massage. Listen to soothing music or nature sounds. Go window shopping. Relax with a cup of calming chamomile tea. Watch a comedy or read something funny. Go for a quiet stroll in the evening, or early morning. Buy yourself something new. Get a new hairdo. Visit a spa and have a facial. See a new movie. Dance. Take a nap. Curl up with a good book.

 

Keep in mind, there is nothing more important than your well-being. The better you feel the more you can do the things you need to do and the more you can live the life you want to live.





Call Center Career: Understanding Job Interview

Monday, October 24th, 2011

If you notice, most jobs featured in a jobs listing website are positions for business process outsourcing (BPO) companies. Among these jobs are customer service assistants and Philippine call center agents which are in fact, high paying jobs. That’s why it’s very important for job seekers to understand and prepare for job interviews because this maybe the beginning of your career path. You might be one of hundreds of people who respond to a job opening. However, most of the people who respond won’t get interviewed. They’ll get screened out through a process of elimination by an individual or committee which will determine the final candidates. Typically, this is how you’ll be scored during interviews:

 

Good chemistry.  Can you “fit” into the organization? This can be shown by your grooming; if you communicate and listen well with co-workers, customers and management; if you have personal interests and beliefs consistent with the company’s goals and objectives; if you have leadership potential and has a positive and upbeat with a can-do attitude, follows directions and accepts criticism.

 

Competence and ability.  Can you do the job? This implies your technical skills; expertise or if you have the background and experience to do the job and education or if you have the required knowledge.

 

Willingness and enthusiasm. How willing are you to have that job? This signifies your ambition or if you have the desire to learn, grow and excel and your being motivated, energetic and team player.

 

It is also important to understand the employer’s perspective, to make a good impression and focus on what you can do for the company. Remember, your value is what makes an employer want to hire you.

 





Improving Productivity in Philippine Call Centers

Thursday, October 20th, 2011

It is definitely the people are the greatest assets of a company and they are the moving force behind call centers in the Philippines. It doesn’t make any difference whether the company’s inbound our outbound. A call centre is only as good as the people it keeps.

 

As we all know, business nowadays is all about productivity. The place of work is not just a setup where people get paid for their presence and attendance of a few hours. The salary is in return for work done and the amount of work completed reflects the worker’s productivity; which in turn is determined by a series of factors besides qualifications and experience. The level of the employee’s productivity in any organization is largely responsible for the profit making ability of the organization and its survival in the long run. There are many ways to increase productivity in a company. You need to set clear goals with your team members. Assign each member with specific duty to identify their capabilities and weaknesses. It is also important to follow up with them about progress at various stages. Develop a system where each member needs to document his or her steps on a progress map. Stay responsive and open to new suggestions that may come from team members. Outstanding leaders go out of their way to boost the self esteem of their employees. It makes an employee feel important and that employee will strive to do better each day. You also need to encourage team work for better results. You must teach your employees the importance of inspiring each other even in your absence. And best of all, make sure that people enjoy their work and are happy to come to work every day. In fact, make your working environment a happy environment and influence enthusiasm among your Philippine call center agents.