Monthly Archives: September 2010

Thinking of Yourself as a Global Commodity

September 6, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Thinking of your work as a global commodity
 
Outsourcing is becoming the way of the world, and national boundaries mean less and less as workers and work cross these boundaries. Most of us work for a boss in our home country and are not aware that our skills are globally valuable commodities.  Perhaps you live in Shanghai and know how to make xiao-long-bao.  Did you know that those dumplings you make have a value in America and France? But, its more complicated than that.  Your income in New York making dumplings might be ten times what you could make in Shanghai.
 
If you work for yourself and have to market your services, you are more acutely aware of what different individuals will pay for your services and how much of your services they will use.  Very few self employed people deal with other countries or even cross language barriers within their own country.
 
I believe that the American Paranoia of outsourcing is based on the fact that we don’t understand our value. If a job can be taken away from us, perhaps we are not the best person to do that job in the first place.  And if we don’t “own” the job, then it is not taken from us, since we never owned it in the first place. Its the boss who owns the job, not the worker.
 
What Americans need to understand is that we in America also receive outsourcing jobs daily.  We just don’t hear about it so much on the news, so we are not aware of it.  America has vast expanses of arable land. Even with the global water crisis, our infrastructure keeps almost all areas hydrated with the exception of Deaf Smith County, TX which has gone dry.  Our ultra-modern farming techniques and cheap land allow us to have the best price for some of the best beef in the world.  America exports shiploads of beef to Japan and other countries every year.  America is number one in the world at weapon construction, and we export our means of destruction around the globe daily.
 
India is losing call center work to the Philippines because the Filipinos have better language skills.  India is losing IT work to China because the Chinese have better infrastructure, speed, and internet connectivity.  America is not the only losing jobs.  But, the jobs that left America, are leaving certain destination countries and going to other destination countries due to differences in worker capabilities and general costs.  The way to get and keep jobs is to be the most capable and efficient.
 
Americans need to know that if we are the most capable player in any industry, we will attract work. The key is to have assets and capabilities which can not be swiped by the competition.  Land and highly specialized skills are America’s ace in the hole.  But, not everybody in America has these skills.  I personally don’t feel that its fair that a laborer in America gets paid $70 per day while one in India might make 50 cents per day.  As the world becomes interconnected, we might find that the Americans with super-specialized skills get $200,000 per year, while unskilled laborers have their wages reduced to $20 per day.  If you slept through math class, you will soon find out what I’m talking about.
 
If unskilled labor is not outsourced, illegal immigrants can easily cross the border to do the work right here.  Currently, the INS makes it really difficult for people to cross over, but if those restrictions are loosened in the next few years, labor prices in the U.S. could go down to $4 per hour.  On the brighter side, with such competitive rates for labor, maybe other countries will outsource their manufacturing to us!  Additionally, many of the services we require might become a lot less expensive too!

Is it safe to do business with someone who doesn’t take credit cards?

September 6, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Is it safe to do business with companies that don’t take credit cards?

Don’t you find it a bit bizarre that some larger companies don’t take credit cards? That gets me wondering. Why do they not take credit cards? Did they lose their privilege due to too many charge-backs? Or, did they cancel their account themselves due to far too many charge-backs?

Think about it. If you are running a shady business where there are many disputes, people will often want their money back. What if you are in some type of software contracting where you take deposits? I have given deposits to many companies who took deposits seemingly to keep me as a hostage. They promised to do work at a particular speed, but, they moved at the speed of a snail after being paid. Taking deposits is a trick to make it too expensive to dump them in the middle of a project if they move too slowly. That way you are invested in them, but they are not invested in you. Very tricky.

If your deposit was made with a credit card you can dispute the charges and claim that there was fraud.

But, what if you pay with paypal?
If you pay with paypal, you can do a reversal on a purchase that has a shipping tracking number. However, the reversal will show up on your profile for everyone to see. Many companies will not do business with you if you have any reversals. If you have paid 100 merchants with your paypal, but only did one reversal for a “good reason”, perhaps others will overlook this transgression. Basically, if someone cheats you after you pay them with paypal, your reputation is ruined the minute you do a charge-back. But, with credit cards, nobody will ever know! In any case, the seller can prevent you from doing a reversal using paypal simply by giving paypal a phone call if there is a dispute.

What if you pay by check?
If you pay someone by check, there are no reversals. The money is gone unless they give it back to you or you sue them. If you pay unknown vendors by check for a deposit, you are just handing them your cash on a silver platter with no guarantees
of anything.

The bottom line
I do business with IT companies, and finding a reputable one that does good work is like finding a needle in a haystack. If I used paypal and did a chargeback each time I was cheated, I would have more reversed transactions than real transactions. So, I just let them keep the money if they cheat me. I don’t want to ruin my credibility over a small dispute over $1500 or $2000.

My recent experience
I found out why a particular company I’m dealing with doesn’t accept credit cards. They don’t deliver on time. I paid in advance and am waiting forever for service. The quality of their service is excellent when they deliver, but their priority are their larger and more steady clients, not me. Be careful!

Social Media Quiz: What types of posts do best on a G+ business account?

September 6, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Social Media | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Many of us love social media and are addicted to it. But, how many of us are good at it? Most people publish unattractive photos, dumb articles, and make useless comments. One social media lover calls this, “Twitter litter.” I have been using social media a lot for the last year and a half and have learned some interesting truths.

Social Media is great for SEO
I run an outsourcing directory. To promote my SEO for my directory, I use a lot of social media. Google rewards people who use social media effectively. What constitutes the most effective use includes having meaningful dialogues with people on Twitter, getting lots of shares, and interactions, but your total number of followers means very little even though that is what we think we want most! So, I created a few Twitter accounts, a Facebook account, Google Plus, Stumbleupon, and will soon do Pinterest and others too. But, what does really well on my Google Plus account?

It is hard getting followers on a business G+ account
I have been using Google+ for a few months. It is hard to get followers on a business account. My personal account is much easier as I am allowed to follow about 200 people per day which is about 6000 per month. About 12% follow me back which makes it easy to gain some fast growth. Growing the personal account is easy, but growing the business account takes real skill. You can’t gain followers by following others with a limit of five follows per day. So, the only way to gain followers is by posting really good content and commenting on other people’s posts.

Interacting, Plussing and Posting, which is better?
So, every day, I plus around 100 interesting posts on other accounts. I also make comments, especially on the posts of people in the VIP circle who are generally interesting. I gain a few followers from my interactions, but that is slow too. Interacting is not enough, so I post interesting content, but you would be surprised which content does the best.

Most of the outsourcing content out there on Google+ is just not interesting. Most is self-promoting nonsenses that isn’t well written and is not informative. Then, there are some boring articles to supplement the “advertising” articles. The outsourcing articles on Googleplus’ feed generally do not get a single plus, and hardly ever get more than one or two plusses or shares. I try to select only the best outsourcing articles, but my articles don’t do much better than the trash out there. So, I turned to other sources. The truth is that there aren’t that many good outsourcing articles out there. Google’s regular search engine search results sometimes have a few really interesting outsourcing articles. I have learned that outsourcing articles written by highly professional entities such as the New York Times are much better written than the other articles out there. However, some of the smaller bloggers have good content too. It is a question of sifting through a lot of content to find the good stuff.

My findings:

Outsourcing Articles
If I choose the top 1% of outsourcing articles out there, I might get a handful of shares.

General Business Articles
For some reason, I get more shares for articles originally posted by Wall Street Journal. I feel that knowing what to share is less than half as important as finding a good source for articles or photos to share. If you have a source that is popular with your users, you would get much more reliable results. General business is semi-related to my main theme of outsourcing, so it is worth posting in moderation.

International Business Articles
The closest thing to an outsourcing article is one about international business since outsourcing is generally thought of as being done offshore. Some international business articles do okay on my profile.

Success Articles
Success is a theme that typically does well on social media. There are success quotes on Twitter, and success articles. Which success article will be the most successful on your profile? You’ll have to figure it out for yourself. Some articles are more business oriented while others are lighter in nature. Try to figure out what type of crowd you have.

Spiritual Articles
I am working on finding out more about this, but I had very good luck with a post about the benefits of meditation.

General News
It is best to publish general news that has some relevance to your main theme, or that might appeal to your audience. I have had mediocre success with general news. I even tried publishing hot news like the Charlie Hebdo disaster and that didn’t do too well either.

Coffee
Coffee has absolutely nothing to do with business. But, since I learn a lot from watching, I learned that some of the top marketing professionals out there integrate coffee, snacks, and pet themes into their marketing articles. I posted some really good articles about coffee with stunning photos and they did really well on my G+ profile! Posting about coffee will really “perk” up your social media campaigns!

Animals
The most popular photos I’ve posted so far were of animals. Cute cats taking naps, or looking in the mirror, kangaroos, meercats, doggies, and other animals are a crowd pleaser. Most people love animals, and marketing experts understand this.

Travel Photos
In general, people like photos of beautiful places. If you want to attract a large crowd fast, find some viral travel photos and post one per day on your social media account of choice. Boring travel photos don’t work well, and photos that include humans generally don’t win a prize, but stunning scenery wins the game time after time with almost any crowd.

Articles that mean something to you
As a general rule, if something fascinates you, your enthusiasm can influence how the post does on your profile through the metaphysical rule of attraction. Additionally, your profile is about you, so publishing a few articles about what you think is interesting do in fact belong on your profile even if they are off-topic.

Summary
Unfortunately, I am very sad to say this, but my serious posts about relevant business topics have not done that well. Although I try to pick the most interesting articles out there to post on my account, at best, they only get a few likes. At first I was worried about relevancy — whether general business would be appropriate on my account vs. purely outsourcing posts. Unfortunately, I learned that articles about coffee, pictures of beautiful animals and photos of stunning natural scenery are more than ten times as applealing to my business oriented audience than practical business posts. So, I don’t fight it. I publish a mixture of outsourcing, international business, general business, and other types of posts. I get tons of likes every day, and hopefully my accounts will continue to grow!

Data Entry India – News

September 6, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Data Entry, India, Popular Posts | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

Data Entry India – News Issues
 
Genpact
As reported by India Knowledge at Wharton, Genpact has moved from merely doing data entry in India, to doing actuary services. This is a significant step up the value chain stairway.
 
Manual data entry
India primarily relies on manual data entry for port related operations such as berthing, logistics, cargo handling and management.  The Indian government wishes to double their cargo handling capacity by 2012, but only with the help of IT solutions will this be possible.  Computerized and IT solutions would allow a port to know exactly what is going to arrive long before the fact, instead of at the last minute. This allows ports to plan ahead and allocate their resources efficiently.  They will know how many employees and how much equipment each boat will need, and when through container tracking. Additionally, this IT tracking will deter the incidence of tax evasion and revenue pilferage.
 
Rural outsourcing hurts Indian Data Entry industry
U.S. companies that had been outsourcing to India are now finding ways to get low cost home grown labor through rural outsourcing.  India is also moving lots of jobs to its rural areas.  Rural outsourcing in India could help the whole country lower costs in general and develop a larger capable outsourcing workforce.  One huge advantage that America has is that land and labor is extremely cheap in parts of the Midwest which can allow American companies to be competitive in a global marketplace by creating new companies in that area.
 
Who are you really doing business with?
Articlesbase.com brings up an interesting point when they say that a company doing data entry in India needs to have the latest technology and updated infrastructure.  If you hire an Indian data entry outsourcing company, you have no idea who they are unless you visit them.  Are they using archaic computers with internet connections that disconnect every five minutes?  Do they have a list of large foreign companies with whom they do business?  Are you hiring a sophisticated company or are you hiring what could be called a “closet operation” otherwise known as a “sidewalk” data entry firm.  Speed and accuracy, training and management style are other factors to consider.  The bottom line is to think hard about who you hire, and hire a really qualified company!

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Steve Jobs didn’t believe in “systems” for innovation

September 5, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Innovation | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

I thoroughly enjoyed reading, “The Innovation Secrets of Steve Jobs.” This book was refreshing and mentally stimulating to read. Steve was a guy who was passionate about the creative process and held his workers to the highest of standards. He made more than a dent in the universe, he changed the lives of billions of people. I can’t live without my i-phone, and my assistant has a desktop from Apple that she swears by.

Innovation Classes?
Many companies who create products try to find systems for innovating, or hold classes. To bring out the magic in a person, you need to fertilize their innate capabilities and help them to develop and shine. But, how do you do this? Steve Jobs didn’t like the idea of having principles of innovation and teaching someone the rules. He thought that would be like someone in school trying to be cool, who was not innately cool.

They started in a bedroom
Steve Wosniak of Apple started his operation in his bedroom, then moved to the kitchen, and finally to their garage. Apple started with a lot of passion, tinkering, and making do with the little that they had. If you want to be a successful innovator, does that mean you should start in your bedroom? Maybe, but the fact that innovation is such a zealous obsession would make it highly likely that you would!

Innovation is about creating new ideas to solve problems
It’s not about coming up with some weird new invention that nobody has seen. It’s about coming up with a new way to solve an old problem. But, Apple seems to do it in a very classy fun way. It is fun to open up the box and get out your visually attractive Apple i-phone. The icons look pretty, and the features are very thoughtful. So, it’s more about solving problems, it’s about offering an experience that people will love!

So, what is the secret of innovation?
Just innovate with an unstoppable desire to create something. You will create your own techniques for experimentation and refinement as you go along. There is no set road, and there are no set rules. Just start exploring and don’t stop when you get discouraged!

Google+ suspended me, but I learned something

September 5, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Social Media | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Google+ has many members because gmail automatically gives you an account attached to your gmail account. So, the number of users on Google+ is deceivingly high if you look at this top-line analytic. The total amount of active members has also been manipulated. The total number of members who login several times a month might be low, and the total number of members with accounts with 1000+ followers would be a much better analytic for comparisons.

Google+ makes it hard to grow
It is hard to grow a business presence on Google+ by using Google+. If you put a G+ button on your already popular website, that is the easiest way to get followers if you already get big traffic. There are many people using Google+ in social media, travel, and programming. But, other industries have a very sparse presence. Basically, there are very few good accounts to follow. Additionally, Google+ limits the number of accounts you can follow in a day. On Twitter to gain followers, you follow lots of others and then they follow you back. On Google+, only 10% of the relevant people I follow, actually follow me back. It makes it very hard to grow.

Moderators can get you lynched
Posting on Google+ communities is a fast way to get clicks. I posted lots of relevant content in the programming, social media, and outsourcing communities. The content I posted was 100% relevant to each community and hand-picked. I published about 20 pieces per day, and was rejected by seven moderators in a period of a week. This was the biggest reason why I feel I was shut down. So, you can’t follow a lot of people without being stopped, you can’t post content without getting in trouble, what can you do?

The Google Gods can shut you down permanently
If you decide to use Google+, it has some nice features like circles. It is fun, and might make a difference for your SEO rank. But, if you invest heavily in your profile, beware! If you do something that the Google Gods don’t like, they can shut you down permanently. They will probably warn you and suspend you a few times first. But, they are the ones in control, not you. Your investment of hours of your time can be completely wiped out on a whim of the Gods! So, use caution.

I wasn’t informed of what I did wrong
I spent two hours on hold calling Google to try to figure out what I did wrong. Nobody answered and no information was furnished. I used the G+ help feature and got an answer from an answer-giver who didn’t sound like he worked for Google although he was knowledgeable. He said that he was once suspended too, and that they refuse to tell you what you did wrong because they don’t want you gaming the system. I was given a list of policies of what behavior they don’t allow — however, I didn’t feel that I broke any of their guidelines. My only crime was following too many people, and not being popular with a bunch of anal moderators.

How, can I plan my future with G+
I am still allowed to use the “+” feature and have gotten a few new followers using it. Maybe plussing is the way to get ahead on Google+, and not following or posting? It is all a big mystery to me. If you have a large following, then posting on your account will get you lots of exposure, but I only have 150 followers. What to do? I plan to share a lot less on communities. The communities I do share on will be ones that have never rejected a post in the past. I will look carefully and un-join any communities that have moderators that block my posts — ever! I will also post more on my own account since that is safe. I will probably do more plussing since that is also safe. I’m not sure how I will reach the magical 1000 mark where your SEO dreams supposedly come true. Maybe my new techniques will work. What I really want is to find an expert. I have been looking around, but with no luck.

A month after the fact: I have been reinstated on Google. I’m being a lot more careful now. I seldom post on groups as that was what got me in the most trouble (I think.) But, I posted a very helpful article from the best social media account on G+ on one a very relevant community page and the moderator removed it. I’m beginning to think that perhaps G+ makes it hard to grow until you get critical mass of around 1000 followers, and then they help your material get noticed a lot more. I guess I’ll find out. I’m at 200 members now.

Do you start emails with: “Dear respected sir?”

September 5, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: India | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Don’t do this!

People in India use archaic British English. They routinely omit the person’s name who they are addressing as they systematically don’t know who they are writing to or why. Don’t do this. If you write to someone, know why you are writing to them — specifically. Don’t write to them about “the job” or “the project.” Know which project or job you are writing about and make sure that job actually exists in real time (which means now.) I get 10 job applications for jobs that I am not offering every day. What a clueless waste of time. No wonder India is a 3rd world country. The labor that they do have is systematically either completely wasted or used ineffectively.

Do your research, and make quality interactions — not spamming people with nonsense job applications. And don’t say, “Dear Sir.” Use the person’s name or at least their job title so the reader will know if they are the one being addressed!

People who make the most serious clients want to chat, do you chat?

September 5, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Marketing | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Are you too busy to chat? Big mistake. How many serious clients are you losing because you are so unfriendly. Higher level business is more about talking than doing. The lower level people do the doing, and you do the interacting. Got it? People who contact you who have more to say, and more to ask, and contact you the most often are also the ones who will spend the most money in the long run even if they are not the richest. This is valuable analytical knowledge that I am sharing with you. I have not seen other blogs with such practical information.

Additionally, others will do more for you if you “chat them up!” If you like someone, take them out to dinner. The closer you get, the tighter your business relationship gets. In business, you will have better luck with people you enjoy being with. They will do better work for you, and you will have a better experience. People who enjoy you want to chat! Do you chat?

If the answer is, sorry, I’m too busy! Then, you are too busy for new clients. If you want new clients, you might not get any. Be open, so that you can interact with critical people as they arise!

Tweet:
(1) People who contact you more often and have more to say are more likely to be the best clients in the long run! Pay Attention!
(2) Are you too busy to chat? How many serious clients did you lose because you were unfriendly?

Turkey BPO Outsourcing

September 5, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Turkey BPO Outsourcing
 
Turkey is trying to get into the international outsourcing market. 
 
One article stated that Turkey took advantage of its low labor costs and created forging factories.  They were able to compete well for price, but experience was a commodity that they were short of.  A large supply of engineering graduates was a positive factor that allowed Turkish outsourcing in forging to grow.  Location was one of the biggest benefits.  Turkey is accessible by road to Europe and the Middle East making it a strategic hub for shipping and perhaps in the future, even warehousing.
 
Turkish outsourcers also offer lower cost steele in large quantities.  Although China offers the lowest prices for steele, they sometimes add “hidden costs”, making them perhaps not the best buy in the industry.  Also, if a steele manufacturer doesn’t want its designs to be copied, it should not manufacture in China due to intellectual property rights infringement.  Indian steele manufacturers often have delivery issues due to the poor quality of India roads.  Turkey remains the highest recommended country for structured steele.
 
Turkish Call Centers didn’t start as an industry until 1996.  Today there are about 150 call centers in Turkey with a total of about 12,000 employees.  Most of the call centers service banks and mobile phone companies.  In the last several years, a dozen or so outsourcing companies have been created in Istanbul totaling roughly 2000 workstations.
 
Turkey has many advantages for providing outsourcing services.  Labor is low in cost, and many people speak German, French, and Dutch as Turks residing in Germany and other European countries frequently relocate back to their motherland.  Additionally, labor laws are flexible, transportation to Europe is fast, and its inexpensive to set up facilities.
 
Turkey is expected to grow as an outsourcing destination, especially with German companies.  Turkish outsourcing companies are welcome to get a free listing on 123outsource.net.  Just visit our contact us page!

Should oil companies create their own nations?

September 5, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged | Leave a comment

I always fantasize about having my own dictatorship somewhere. I could create a beautiful tiny country, have gardens everywhere and a booming economy. People from around the world would want to live in my country and obey my bizarre laws. I like order and safety, so my laws might be similar to those in Singapore or Dubai for example. The public would be safe, but drug dealers might get their heads chopped off faster than they can say “illegal transport”.

But, I am a simple guy with modest savings. I can’t afford land to build a country, let alone the military power to secure it in this crazy world. But, a multi-billion dollar oil conglomerate could easily buy their own turf — and why not?

Oil companies seem to have a heavy hand in manipulating the US government. We fight wars partly for our perceived national interests and partly to defend or secure the assets of these oil giants. It is true that the US wouldn’t function too well without oil, so there is a reason for this madness. But, what if these oil companies had their own countries and their own militaries?

Imagine if Mobil purchased some land off the coast of Canada or Washington State. Maybe they might prefer the Caribbean so their executives could live in style. If they looked around hard enough, for a few billion, they could get a comfy piece of land or a few nicely sized islands. They could spend some more and get some of the US’s cutting edge military hardware and might be able to lease some top special forces as well. Think of the possibilities. They could have a population of several hundred thousand. They would have their own tax base, based on income from selling oil worldwide. That tax money could be used to live in style, and have a nice military to let the Iraqis and Iranians know who is in charge! If the cost of defending their rigs got too expensive, they might seek greener pastures somewhere else and sell their property to someone else. The oil companies could have the power and freedom to solve their own problems without dragging the US into the equation! Wonderful — perhaps.

For those who say, “No blood for oil”, these oil companies could pay the market price for top notch mercenaries. How much is a human life worth? You could look online to get hourly bids for what people would accept in salaries to risk their life fighting for oil. It would all be much simpler — much more cut and dry. Can you think of a system that would be more honest than this?

It might be fun to live in such a nation too. Your income tax would likely be very low, and there would be lots of ex-patriots to keep you company.

Tweets:
(1) I always fantasize about having my own dictatorship somewhere! I want my own country!
(2)… the public would be safe, but drug dealers would get their heads chopped off…

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The art of the email

September 5, 2010 by admin
Categories: Marketing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

The art of the email

People email each other all the time.  There are personal emails, business emails, mass emails, bulk emails, spam emails, and more.  The key here is how to make emails effective.

I get emails all the time from India introducing their company to me.  Most do not even mention my name in the email which makes it IMPERSONAL.  This is bad and should be avoided.

I get emails from clueless individuals stating that they are ready for “the” job. There is no job. I never advertised a job.  It is better to ask where I think they might be able to find “a” job.  Don’t go looking for work where it doesn’t exist.

I get emails from companies who want me to give them outsourcing work.  But, they never seem to ask what type of work I am interested in having done.

Making it personal
The key here is to successfully introduce yourself, and your company, and to create a dialogue with the other party. Most emails get discarded without a second thought.  So, the art you need to master is getting favorable attention and creating dialogue.  Step one is to know the name of who you are emailing and something about their company and their needs.  If you send generic emails to many companies, you will get ignored by all. However, if you make a special effort to get to know an INDIVIDUAL and make it personal, you might get some attention, especially if you are providing exactly what that person needs.

Mass emailing
Emailing for business is highly effective, and almost all companies use this tool. However, there are correct and incorrect ways to use this tool. If you email people materials they don’t want, or didn’t ask for, you are going to get marked as a spammer.  However, if you develop rapport with the people you are sending emails to, THEN you can send mass emails, providing that the particular materials you are sending are of interest to ALL members of the group you are mass emailing.  Mass emails can create a magical momentum for blog marketing, or just keeping in touch with your clients. I use mass emailing DAILY, and I do it correctly, and get 20% response rates from blog promotion emails, simply because I know all of the 7000 individuals I am mailing, and know what they like to read about.

Segmenting
Read any MBA book and they will talk about segmenting.  If you are emailing an individual, you customize the content of the email to please the individual who is reading the email. Answer some of their SPECIFIC questions and you win the game.  If you fail to answer their question, but give them a link to some generic page which touches on similar issues, but doesn’t really answer their question, then you alienate the customer by making them feel pushed to the side.   But, if you are emailing a GROUP, how do you customize your email to please the group?  You segment.  If you have 10,000 clients, you figure out how to divide them into groups according to their interests or needs.  My blog promotion emails are sent to people who are active in a particular directory, and I study their click behavior. I keep track of what types of posts or articles they like to click on, and then I write more articles that are similar in nature, although each article is unique!

Conclusion
Step one is to find a way to get to know your contact person.  Answer their particular questions, and find ways to meet their individual needs.  Once you know a person or a group on an individual level, you can email them regularly with materials which they find interesting. The minute you send them materials that they don’t like, or fail to answer their questions, then you lose the game and alienate your contact!

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Cebu Call Centers in the News

September 5, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Call Center, Philippines | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Call Center Cebu News issues
 
Expanded Broadband for the Philippines
As PLDT completes its expansion of the domestic fiber optic network, Cebu’s potential as an outsourcing destination gets better and better.  Broadband costs could get lower too.  An increase in call center investments is expected to create many new jobs in the Philippines that will likely mean that the 60 BPO companies in Cebu could expand and that new Cebu call centers could arise.  The new network goes through eleven islands and underwater and is expected to ensure uninterrupted broadband coverage for the entire nation.
 
Asiatown IT Park
In addition to Cebu call centers, there is an Asiatown IT Park in Cebu which is the Philippines second largest concentration of IT industries employing an excess of 15,000 individuals.  
 
BPOs including Indian companies are outsourcing to Cebu!
Wipro, a Bangalore based company, set up a call center in Cebu in 2007.  eBusiness BPO is ready to hire 350 employees for its new headquarters in Cebu in December 2010.  Additionally, the Radisson Blu has opened a 400 room hotel in Cebu.  
 
Hoax bomb threat near Cebu Call Centers
There was a false bomb threat that lead to the vacating of a Cebu city Asiatown IT Park building.  An unidentified caller was the individual who made the threat.  Two K9 teams were unable to find any explosives.
 
To summarize, Cebu, in the Visayas region, is a major economic hub in the Philippines which caters to the call center and BPO industry. As time goes on, you can expect large businesses to be setting up branches in Cebu, especially if they need to have a high quality call center.

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