Monthly Archives: May 2011

Call Center Directories

May 20, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: Call Center | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment
Call Center Directories
 
There are many call center directories out there, but which ones should you use, and why?
 
This directory specializes in a dozen or so outsourcing specialties.  The second most popular category is it’s call center directory.  This directory lists call centers in India, the Philippines, Canada, and others spread throughout the world.  Although this directory is newer, and currently has less than call centre 200 listings (which is less than some of the other directories), the information is generally quite useful, easy to query, and “fresh”.  You will NOT find many disconnected numbers, and the site is easy to use and doesn’t have annoying advertisements all over the place.
 
Callcenterdirectory.net
This directory is the easiest to use and has call centers throughout the world.  They have many in the Philippines, India, Canada, USA, and many other places as well.  Unfortunately, this directory mixes the call center titles with pay-per-click advertising which makes it less pleasant to use this directory.  Also, some of the companies are long gone and have been out of business for a while with disconnected numbers, etc.
 
Callcenterdirectory.biz
This directory helps you to find call centers with various specialties and sizes. However, you will not be able to choose the location of the call center.  There are filters for onshore, near-shore, and offshore, but the search results are in the USA, and Canada.  It is better to let the browser choose their country.  The Philiipines is the most popular call centre outsourcing country in the world, and they deserve their own special page in my opinion.
 
Callcenterindia.com
This site focuses exclusively on India and has many listings. Spelling mistakes abound, but you will be able to find many good contact centres on this site.
 
Findacallcenter.com
The listings section of this directory only list a handful of companies, generally in the United States
 
Specialtyansweringservice.net
This site allows you to find answering services that are specially trained for your industry.  You can find answering services that specialize in working for accountants, tax preparers, biotechnology, the fashion industry, banking, finance, advertising, agriculture, and more!  How unique! Unfortunately, no companies are listed in their directory, so you will have to email them and hope that they respond.
 
Callcenterplanet.com
Google ranks this site quite well, but when I do a search, I am informed that the site has been hacked and that no search results are available.
 
So, what makes a good call centre directory?  Should they have many listings? Should they have up to date information  Should the site be easy to use? Should there be different pages for different countries?  Should they have a page where they help you find a job?  These are all interesting questions.
 
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How to attract more clients to your call center part 2

May 19, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: Call Center, Popular Posts | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

How to get more clients for your call center part 2
 
Part 1 of this series about marketing your call center was very nuts and bolts.  Basically, you contact companies who might need your services, be receptive to their questions and needs, and offer them a few hours sample of your work if you think they are serious about a long term relationship.  The several hundred dollars you lose giving a free sample could come back to you 1000 fold in the long run with repeat business and referrals.
 
Hiring the right staff
There is a spiritual law that says that if you have the right people, business will naturally come to you.  Isn’t it funny how some businesses grow without putting a dime, a peso, riyal, or rupee into advertising?   This always frustrated me as a child while I put endless hours in sweat equity marketing my lawn mowing business while other people just got the business while they were sipping iced tea.  Although, I eventually got referrals, and was good at certain tasks concerning the manual labor that I used to do, I did not have the refinement necessary to be someone’s first choice.  I also didn’t have a marketing system for getting referrals. Its much easier to build your business through referrals than it is by getting clients  through advertising.  What I learned later in life, is that it is not a crime to spend a fortune on advertising, but it is a crime not to have a good “offering”, and a good system for gettting referrals.
 
Hiring the right staff that comprises the perfect blend of personalities to handle your clients and future clients is imperative.  If you have a call center with a bunch of pushy salespeople, and customer service reps who mumble, you are going to have a hard time growing at any price.  Remember, that the cost to a company for losing them a client is much greater than whatever they are paying you! Outsourcing is a great way for companies to save money, but let them save money without the headaches that are associated with outsourcing.  Give them the best service in town and a great experience that they will remember
 
Can you imagine if XYZ company hires a call center, and the service was mediocre, but dealing with them was a pain in the neck? The manager at XYZ will have a bitter taste in his mouth with all of the bad memories of XYZ company.  It is a far better plan to give companies who work with you as wonderful an experience as you can while still maintaining a good price.  When all is said and done, and all of the numbers are crunched (analyzed), giving people a pleasant experience counts for 50% of their decision of whether they are going to use you again, even if your actual work is not the best.
 
Having polished staff members
There are call center companies where the employees speak clearly, are patient, polite, and explain things well.  These are the call centers that are going to get the repeat business. I spoke to a call center rep who was the most polite person I have ever encountered.  He worked for a fancy bank, and it is no surprize that they value that individual, as he brings professionalism to their already very professional organization.  On the other hand, there are nightmare call center staff members who hang up on clients, lose their temper, or are always transfering them to someone else who may or may not be there.  You could lose a million dollar account with behavior like that.  The quality of your staff = the security of your future success in business!
 
Training and mentoring
Nobody starts out perfect, except perhaps today’s call center rep from Well’s Fargo. Most call center emplyees just don’t have their act perfected.  It is critical to spend more money on middle level management who walks around and moniters people.  You have to make sure people are performing at an optimal level.  If someone is not answering questions clearly enough, give them a coaching session.  If someone is too quiet, or rough, give them a mentoring session.  If someone has a pronunciation problem, give them a training session in clear speech.  Nobody is perfect, but through molding, amazing improvements can be made. If you do not start out with assets, you can turn someone into an asset in a few months!
 
It’s the experience
My favorite experience with a call center employee was a young lady I talked to many years ago.  She was working for a credit card company and she was located in the Philippines.  She solved my credit card issue quickly and efficiently, but she also had a nice personality too.  We talked about my flight to India.  She commented, “Oh, you flew right over me.. next time you fly over the Philippines, say hi, okay?”.  I’ll never forget her.  If you have staff members who are so charming and pleasant that people would actually like to meet them and get to know them, then you are in business. You will be discovered soon enough.  You can have the best marketing department in the world, but a charming staff member is much more potent than the best salesman on earth!  Remember, you only talk to the salesperson at the BEGINNING of your relationshp with a company.  After the sale is made, you see the regular employees.  If they make your day, you will stay with the company forever!

You might also like:

Part 1 of how to get more clients for your call center

Finding a lucky feng shui spot for my office

Pune City Profile

May 18, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: City Profiles | Tagged | Leave a comment

Pune City Profile
 
Pune is a bustling medium sized city in Maharashtria, roughly 99 miles Southeast of Mumbai.  There is a highway and railway connecting Mumbai and Pune, and both arteries go all the way down to various parts of South India. Pune is famous for its IT industry.  New IT parks have blossomed in the last decade or so, with new IT companies opening up daily offering various software servicies and other services as well.   Pune is not as well connected by air as their airport does not have regular flights to foreign countries — yet. It seems, as Pune is one of the fastest developing cities in India, that flights to Singapore, and possibly to UAE will eventually be available. 
 
West and South
Pune is a relatively small, yet very comfortable city.  You can walk from one end to the other.  On the Northwest, the road to Lonavala leads into the hills.  There is a large IT park in that vicinity, and some nice residential areas where you can purchase a 2BHK (two bedroom) dwelling and live in comfort.  The pleasures of urban life are not too convenient to the Northwest yet, but as time passes, perhaps things will evolve.  To the South, a highway that is several years old stretches around the city.  This highway is less than optimally efficient with pedestrians crossing, and slow vehicles clogging up both lanes. Perhaps they should consider having a fast lane and a slow lane, and have a speed minimum in the fast lane. It wouldn’t cost much to create a system like that.  Deccan Gymkhana is one of the relatively exciting parts of town.  There is a law University in that general area, as well as the Pyramid mall which is an exciting place to spend a few hours on a Sunday.  There is another huge University on Ferguson Road which is an area wiht a real College flavor, and lots of cafes and restaurants lining the road. 
 
East Pune
To the East, there is the train station, and famous Koregaon Park where the blast occured in the German Bakery. Koregaon Park is a wonderful place to take a stroll, and engage in a nice Chinese, Iranian, or other international meal.  There is a cafe on every block, and the locals are very cosmopolitan and friendly.  Hard Rock Cafe is one of the more recent players in Koregaon Park near the outskirts of town.  Enjoy a glass of imported wine, or a beer, and listen to your favorite 80’s hits from America!  The SOB burger is the best burger in the world for beef eaters out there. For vegetarians, there are many choices too (although the choices are not anywhere as good as the burger).   Camp is another hip area of town.  There are cafes, night clubs, restaurants, Islamic tea houses and more!  
 
Museums
The Raja Dinkar Kelkar museum has wonderful artifacts and a breathtaking courtyard.  The Pataleswar Cave Museum has some caves, and a temple.  Its worth a quick trip, but don’t expect too much here. There is a good kabob restaurant around the corner from them, so go with an appetite. Shaniwar Wada is another worthwhile to go for about half an hour. Walk around the humongous inner gardens and tour the palace.  Honesly, Agra, Hyderabad, Darjeeling, and Rajastan  are much better tourist destinations than Pune, but Pune is a great place to live and work.

Hyderabad City Profile

May 16, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: City Profiles | Tagged | Leave a comment

Hyderabad City Profile
 
Hyderabad is the third most important city in South India and the sixth most important city in India.  Hyderabad has a thriving IT industry and is the second most popular  software hub in the country with Bangalore as the first and Pune as the third (although these titles could change at any time).  In addition to having a great software IT park near Banjara Hills, Hyderabad has many other things to offer.  Hyderabad has museums, landmarks, pubs, restaurants, spas, and more!
 
Attractions
The Salar Jung museum has many historical artifacts including swords, antiquated pictures, and much more.  It is worth spending about 90 minutes there, and then enjoying some lemon rice in the snack bar.  Char Minar is another fantastic place to visit.   Enjoy some tea from a tea stall, and then climb the stairs of the famous Islamic landmark located next to an equally beautiful masjeed (mosque).  Gol Konda is the best place to go in Hyderabad and is the Western part of town.  It is a huge Islamic fort, and you can find a choice of independent tour guides there for an affordable price.  One part of the fort allows you to hear the echo of what is going on in a very distant place due to superior engineering that happened hundreds of years ago.  Film City, or as the locals call it “Filim City” is a wonderful place with at least a dozen gardens, and all types of film sets of all varieties.  You could spend hours there, and it is fun every minute of the way.  Just get on the tour bus, and away you go. This is the Indian equivalent of Universal Studios. Last, but not least, try an Ayervedic spa.   Aalankrita, located in the outskirts of the city offers a lovely resort spa with Ayervedic massage, great food, and more. Just tell them to take it easy on the air conditioning or you will freeze and turn into a popsical for sure.
 
Transportation
Traffic is bad in Hyderabad, but not worse than any other Indian metro. Cabs are not cheap, but are more likely to stick to the meter there. The airport and connect you with other parts of India easily, but international flights to Singapore, UAE, Europe, and other important destinations are not yet possible.  Maybe soon they will have a few flights. 
 
Lifestyle
While in Hyderabad, you can sample a few hip bars and nightspots.  There are also many decent restaurants offering local cuisine.  Hyderabad, although located in the South of India, is very dominated by Muslims who have their language and ancestry in Northern India, but with a lot of Persian and Pakistani influence. This influences the language (many speak Urdu in additon to the state language of Telegu), but the food has a definitive Moghlai influence.  You can enjoy a spicy Hyderabadi chicken dish with a splended blend of spices, and a tablespoon or two of yogurt to balance it off in the recipe.  Or enjoy some kabobs.  Biryani is a famous dish of Hyderabad, but Biryani is not Indian in origin.  Biryani is a Saudi Arabian dish called Kabsa which was slightly adapted when it came to India with the Muslims.  Chicken, lamb, and vegetarian biryani are all popular dishes and it should be a legal requirement to try one while you are in town.

How to find a data entry job!

May 14, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: Data Entry, Getting a Job, Popular Posts | Tagged , , , , | 22 Comments

Where to go to find data entry jobs. 

There are many places you can go to find data entry jobs on the internet, and many places you can find data entry jobs in your city. It is safer to find a real job where you work in an office. That way you meet the boss face to face, and they can not run away when its time to pay you. There are many sites on the internet that can help you find work, but some of these are scams. It is important to find legitimate companies who really need your services and who really will pay you.

Tell-tale signs of scams
If a company wants to use you, but doesn’t test you thoroughly, it is likely that they are not professional, and a potential scam. If a company wants to charge you money for being on their list, there is no guarantee that you will receive a single inquiry. This is risky business. You should not pay money to a company unless they were referred to you by a satisfied customer.

Internet sites
Some sites list job openings, while other sites have opportunities to work remotely. Some sites will help you start your own business. A few sites specialize in helping you get freelance jobs. If you have no business background, it is not advisable to attempt to start you own business doing anything. Data entry is a serious business and clients will not want to hire someone working from home who they don’t know unless you come highly recommended. If you are going to do remote data entry, make sure the company spends time checking you out. If they don’t invest in scrutinizing you, they are likely to not be a good company to work for.

Our recommendations
Find real companies in your metro, or at least within a few hours of your home. Try to meet with them in person, and see if they can either hire you or offer you freelance work. Sometimes, the bosses of these companies will be able to refer you to their colleagues who have similar companies. If your skills are not up to par, you will spend a lot of time job seeking, but without finding much. If your skills are excellent, then you should start off by contacting data entry companies in your area and talking to the HR staff over the phone or in person.

Sites that list job offerings

Indeed.com
This site has a long list of job openings for data entry clerks world wide. It is a good place to look for openings.

Naukrihub.com
This Indian based site can help you find work in many types of professions including medical transcriptions, BPO, and data entry.

BPOjobsathome.com
This site helps you work from home in India and has many types of data entry, and data conversion jobs that you can do.

Careerbuilder.com
Lists Data Entry jobs all over the United States

dataentry.in
This site offers information about data entry jobs in India including medical billing, data processing and many other specialties.

careerguru.com
This site offers a holistic job search. They have many data entry jobs being offered in the United States.

gofreelance.com
This is a fun site, but they don’t have that many actual data entry jobs being offered.

Sites offering work from home opportunities

my-data-team.com
This site offers work from home data entry job opportunities.

online-home-jobs.com
This site caters to people all around the world, including India, the Philippines, and many other countries. This well organized site has a well explained process of how you can find and do data entry work. They even offer online chat with an attentive clerk at the other end.

ourdollars.com
This site offers work from home data entry job opportunities. Get paid by automated funds transfer technology as often as you want to get paid!

online-data-entry-jobs.com
This site allows you to gain employement working from home anywhere in the world. You can be an outsourced data operator, marketing typist, data-collection research assistant, data proofreader, general audio transcriber, response typist, and more!

homeworkers.org
IHA offers many types of jobs where workers can work from home including medical coding, photography, writing, data entry, product assembly, and more germiny.com This site does a thorough job of describing the real work opportunities verses the scams. clickonlinejobs.com Offers work from home data entry jobs.

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Training for outsourcing jobs
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2011/07/12/training-for-outsourcing-jobs/

Data Entry & Data Mining basic information
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2010/12/27/data-entry-data-mining-information/

How to write a resume for an outsourcing job
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2016/01/01/how-to-write-a-resume-for-an-outsourcing-job-2016/

Training for outsourcing jobs
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2011/07/12/training-for-outsourcing-jobs/

The winning traits to get an outsourcing job!
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Judge a book by its cover; Judge a company by its office
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2015/12/16/judge-a-book-by-its-cover-judge-a-company-by-its-office-2016/

People who take the first job they find might be unhappy in the long run
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2015/08/26/people-who-take-the-first-job-offer-they-get-might-be-unhappy-in-the-long-run/

Top employees get poached

May 8, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: Hiring & Firing, Of Interest | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Top employees regularly get poached

This is a common theme in India, where highly skill employees are a commodity that companies will die for — or poach for.  One of the recent episodes of the television comedy “Outsourced” was based on the theme of poaching call center employees.  Someone got laid off at the call center, and someone new needed to be hired. There was a line of two-hundred people, but only one was well qualified, and was hired immediately.  This new employee was of Indian ancestry, but grew up in Texas and understood the American culture and American expressions well which made him a dream employee.  Unfortunately the girlfriend of the manager of the call center also liked this new employee and offered him double the salary.  The manager, Todd, who first hired this Texas raised dream call center employee decided to get even. Todd and his friend, a manager from American Hunter, found a way to get into his girlfriend’s office, find the resume and  salary information for the new employee, and forwarded it to another fancy company who was in the same building.  The fancy company who had very well trained workers who showed up in suits and had snooty attitudes quickly swallowed this new employee and got him in uniform immediately — a suit and a mobile phone which is permanently glued to his ear.

Outsourced is America’s most interesting and endearing television comedy, but the theme of poaching employees is a nightmare for Indian bosses.  India’s economy is growing so fast, that employees are getting better and better offers by the day.  Its common in places like Bangalore and Mumbai for employees to jump from company to company.  If they have a job at one company in Koramangala at a particular salary, they might jump to another company in Whitefield because they have a nicer looking office, better benefits, or nicer females working there.  If you heard the reasons why employees jump boat in this employees market, your jaw would drop.

It is expensive to interview, hire, and train new employees.  If an employee is so bad they need to be fired, or jumps boat prematurely, this causes a huge loss to the boss.  It makes more sense for the boss to think ahead.  If you hire someone good, its like having a really good looking girlfriend. You will not be the only one who likes her, and your offer is not likely to be the best offer either.  If the girl is not the loyal type, and girls these days rarely are, then she will quickly wander off with some guy who offers her more.  It makes sense to pamper a good employee.

Get to know them?  Sure!  If you get to know a good employee, and develop a good personal relationship with them, they will feel happier in that environment and be more likley to stay.  This is true with customers too. It pays to get to know your customers.  Don’t spend all day with them, but a simple phone call makes all the difference.  Give them some freedom.  If your star employee needs to have a dental appointment during business hours, let them go!  Just have them make up the hours some other time.  As long as they are on schedule, let them work from home a day or two per week two.  Find out what they like, and cater to them.  It might take a bit of research, but its easier than hiring someone new which costs lakhs in lost productivity! Giving raises every three months makes sense too.  Having regular evaluations costs money, but is cheaper than losing employees to poachers.  Or, giving employees an incentive plan giving them a percentage of their output. If the market is growing fast, their percentage will grow fast too.

Caring for your star employees will reduce poaching by leaps and bounds.  People today are obsessed with numbers and overworking.  This is important.  But, caring about relationships is even more important. Business is based on relationships.  People will spend money on a service provider they know and trust.  Nobody wants to do business with a stranger in any country.  People want to leave business relationships where the personal relationship is not good.  Emotions speak louder than rupees.

The authoritarian culture.  India and Arab countries have a very authoritarian culture.  Bosses often like to treat their employees as lesser and employees traditionally have to bow down to their employers.  As an American, I think that class and position is overemphasized in India.  It seems like it would be more helpful if less emphasis was put on position, and bosses treated their star employees with the same care they might a family member.  I am by no means suggesting that the boss let the employee run all over them, but a caring attitude without compromising authority seems like a super idea to me!

123outsource.net’s growth

May 7, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

123outsource.net’s growth

123outsource.net outsource directory is growing, but not the way we thought.   When 123outsource was created, we thought we would cater mainly to India with a strong presence in South Africa, Philippines, Argentina, China, Pakistan, and Bangladesh as an outsourcing directory.  The surprising fact is that Filipino call centers and other companies in the Philippines did not respond to our internet presence.  Pakistan and Bengladesh responded, but in a way that was far less efficient than  was necessary to continue advertising in those areas.  Additionally, South Africa and Argentina did not respond well to our web presence.

Countries that responded well
We always knew that India would be the star of the show, and Indian outsourcing companies respond very well to us. We get new sign ups from Indian companies daily.  But, the other countries that responded well to us was a surprize.  United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Singapore are some of the lead countries that use our site.  We got some good responses from Costa Rica as well.  Singapore is our leading browser country with browser volume that surpassed the United States on many weeks.  They did so well, that we separated Singapore from our regular advertising campaign, so that we could manage them more carefully. But, why do these particular countries do so well with us?  I believe its because they have huge populations of Indian nationals who are closely tied to the motherland.  America has many Indians too, but our Indians have business or jobs that are not connected to India.  Our Deshis are tied to the local economy.

Turkey anyone?
We have just started marketing outsourcing services in Turkey.  Turkey has many startup call centers and other BPO operations, primarily in Istanbul.  We are not sure if they will respond well to our advertising, but we will see.  Advertising in India averages one sign up for every 300 clicks, so it will take another month to see if Turkey gets a sign up in its first 300 clicks.

China, the next frontier.
China is huge, and will overtake India in the Software outsourcing niche by 2015 according to current trends.  Unfortunately, the Chinese have never been as linguistically adept as the Indians, so communicating with them is not always easy.  We will see if China responds well to our new advertising presence for software outsourcing and other specialties.  We got 10 clicks from China on our first day of advertising, so we expect the click volume to be higher as time goes on, and as the next business week begins. We hope that many companies in China will sign up to be on our directory.

Costa Rica
Most people don’t even know where Costa Rica is.  Its a tiny country in Central America with a thriving web design and call center industry. We will start advertising there shortly.   The language difference is an issue though. The national language of Costa Rica is Spanish, and we speak English.  Luckily, I have a staff member who speaks very clear Spanish as a second language, but our ads are in English, and the search terms we advertise for are in English to.  We could try to use a few Spanish terms and see how it goes. We did that for Argentina, but with no lucky. Argentinians are talented in art, but not in business unfortunately.

How to get more clients for your call center

May 5, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: Call Center, Popular Posts | Tagged , , , , , | 21 Comments

Getting more clients for your call center part 1
 
Call centers are everywhere!
There are many call centers throughout the world.  The United States and Canada are filled with them.  The Philippines is the most popular outsourcing location for call centers, while Kenya and South Africa offer a good command of British English and are in the same time zone as Europeans.  But… not all call centers are created equal.  Many new companies want more clients, but they don’t know where to start.
 
It’s about relationships!
BPO Companies typically get business because they have the right contacts. No contacts; No contracts; But, how do you get connections when you don’t know anyone? A call center might know a potential client, or could be referred to a client from someone who knows them.  Often, they will know other people in the business, who give them their overflow or take a commission on BPO business sent their way.  But, what if you are sitting in a building in Navi Mumbai, or Cebu, and you see others succeeding in the call center business when your phone is not ringing with interested prospective clients?
 
How do you get to know people when you don’t know anyone?
We all start out with empty Rolodexes in this life unless we are born into the right family.
But, how many of us are born into a well connected family?  I’m from America which is a meritocracy. Your success is still based heavily on “who you know”, but we generally are not born with good connections like the upper class British or Indian families might have.  We make it based on merit and hustling — otherwise we don’t make it.  Some of us are talented, while others are average but work harder than our competitors.  In America, many of my friends were from affluent families, but didn’t have the drive or dedication to achieve, and they are working for minimum wage in many cases.  By the same token, many people who were raised in slums are now prospering.  So, get out there and hustle and get to know people. You can meet prospects through cold calling, Linked In, networking meetings, or through existing contacts.
 
Getting to know people
If you want to drum up BPO business, you have to contact companies who might be able to use your service, as well as contacting competitors. Competitors might be able to refer you jobs that they don’t want or don’t have time for. They might charge a commission for offering you work. You could get to know agents and brokers as well, but be careful as many of them charge up front and don’t deliver! You can get listed on outsourcing directories and have a broad social media presence as well. In terms of contacting prospective clients, who do you call, when, and where? Pounding the payment is on my perpetual to do list — my company contacts 400 new companies per month every month, on schedule at the beginning of the month whether we need new clients or not, just to keep the momentum going.
 
Email
Email is a wonderful tool, and it has its place in society. It’s a very practical way to contact people who already know you and are happy (smiley face or not) to hear from you.  However, if you send emails to strangers that are trying to sell them something, you will get ignored.  If you use email to contact people, you might get a 0-1% return rate if you offer them some sort of free trial period. If it is just an introduction to your company, you will be ignored 9999 out of 10,000 emails which makes the whole process futile. Writing to a specific contact person and perceptively addressing their unique needs increases the chance of you getting noticed 100 fold!
 
Cold Calling
Calling companies is a royal pain in the neck. It’s often like pulling teeth to reach the decision maker, and each phone call can carve 10 minutes out of your day only to be put on hold and then ultimately rejected.  Phone calls are tedious, so plan on having someone who is patient and dedicated to manning this essential lifeline. On a brighter note, a dedicated caller can realistically reach up to 30 decision makers on a busy day of cold calling.
 
Meeting people’s needs
The mentality that separates a salesman from a pest is their ability to anticipate their prospective client’s needs.  If you call someone trying to force your service down their unwilling throat, you will have wasted your call.  Even if they need your service, they won’t like your style.  If you are polite, make nice conversation, and ask them about their needs, you will get your foot in the door.  My experience has shown that a female with a nice voice, an even nicer personality, and a good technical understanding of call center work will excel at this type of cold-calling.  Gentleness and suave are the keys that open the doors. On the other hand, my personal experience running my own call operations is that a man with a very feminine voice is just as effective as a girl.  My best caller was a guy with a folksy high voice, and everyone liked “her”.  I hired him to offer free listings on one of my directories, and he got seven listings per hour, while the other male caller averaged only four! Of course — everybody thought that he was a she!!!
 
Smoothness and getting to know people
People hire other people they know. Its not about what BPO company you work for, or even what company they work for.  If a person at a particular company likes a person at another company and gets to know them, you establish trust. Trust = Sales or at least has the potential to lead to sales.  People entrust their money to people they like and trust. If your salesgirl cannot only sell, but makes great chit-chat with the decision makers, they will develop a type of relationship with your company.  In five minutes, you went from a non-relationship, to having a warm and fuzzy relationship. You are no longer doing a cold-sell now. You are working in a warm market.  Your sales girl melted the proverbial ice!!! One sales lady conveys such charm, that clients who have never laid eyes on her are regularly sending her flowers. When you interview your salesgirl, ask how many flowers her clients sent her on her last job. There’s your clue as to how successful she will be!
 
Free samples
Many people are stingy and selfish and don’t want to give away even a minute of their time for free. But, if you are starting out, you have to establish a reputation. If nobody knows you, then the only fast way to GET people to know you is to offer a few hours of work at either no cost, or at a reduced cost if the person will commit to a contract once they are satisfied.  If you have a star employee who will impress your potential clients, you will gain many others from offering free work. Not all of them will hire you. But, always remember that business is about relationships, ideally long term ones. If you sacrificed a few hours of a star employee’s time, but got a client who stuck with you for twenty years and referred you to ten other companies who used you, do you feel that your sacrifice was worth it? You give away a penny, and get a million in return. I like that exchange very much.

Have a professional web site
People judge a book by its cover and a web site by its professionalism. A professional web site that clearly states all of your specialties and contact information will attract business, especially if it is easy to find on Google. Please see our article about having a professional web site for your business.

Pay-Per-Click
An astute web marketer will be an expert at using pay-per-click programs. Google’s adwords is the most effective in this category. Pick the keywords and keyword variations that are well targeted to your business and geographical terms mixed with professional terms, i.e. “Bangalore Web Design”. Twitter, Facebook, and Linked-In also have PPC programs that can help you grow your social media presence quickly and effectively providing that you have popular content. Going to a $100 party wearing a $3 shirt is the equivalent of spending hundreds promoting poorly written blogs or web pages. Write good content and promote it using PPC. However, you should track your results and terminate promotions that don’t yield positive results. Using PPC involves a lot of trial and error, so try many approaches and keep your eyes open. Please read our article on Pay-Per-Click promotion of call centers.

Summary
Hire a nice girl who makes smooth conversation, knows her technical stuff, and can anticipate her prospective client’s needs.  Get to know companies and offer them a certain amount of free work if you think they are serious. That way, they will be confident about working with you in the future since they had a good experience with your company.  On the other hand, if you hire the worst staff, your free sample will just be a waste, because nobody wants to work with a rotten bunch of employees!!

Stay tuned for part 2 of getting call center work.  You will see a completely different point of view on marketing in that blog entry.

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You might also like:

How to get more clients for your call center (compilation)
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2015/08/20/how-to-get-more-clients-for-your-bpo-or-call-center-compilation/

How to get clients for call center — contracts!
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/04/05/how-to-get-clients-for-call-centers-contracts/

Marketing your BPO from A to Z
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2016/05/22/marketing-your-bpo-outsourcing-firm-from-a-to-z/

How to find clients for call centers — good salespeople
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/04/08/how-to-find-clients-for-call-centers-good-salespeople/

How to get more clients for your call center — get an agent!
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/09/14/how-to-get-more-clients-for-your-call-center-get-an-agent/

How to get more clients for your call center using Pay-Per-Click
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/08/01/how-to-gain-clients-for-your-call-center-pay-per-click/

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Tweets:
(a) When it comes to business, it is about who you know.
How well do you know yourself?
(b) In business it is about who you know. How well do you hustle to get to know new people?
(c) In business, it is not who you know — it is who knows you and thinks highly of you.
(d) Get to know prospective clients by calling them.
Interact with existing clients by emailing them.
(e) Emailing prospective clients has a really low response rate. Ask your Nigerian uncle. Try cold-calling prospects.

(f) Hire the right girl to talk to decision makers & they will develop a warm & fuzzy relationship w/your company.
(g) 1 sales lady conveys such charm: clients who’ve never seen her regularly send her flowers.
(h) When u interview a salesgirl, ask how many flowers her clients sent her on her last job. There’s your clue as to how successful she will be!
(i) The best things in life are free. Give a free sample to a prospect, do great work, and win a client!

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New Signups are Coming in Fast

May 4, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , | Leave a comment

New signups are coming in fast
 
123outsource.net is relatively new as an outsource directory, and just started being promoted in November. At first, sign ups were very far and few between.  We would get inquiries from people wanting a job, and a few inquiring about the directory, but hardly any signups.  Then, after a while ,we started getting more serious inquiries after we had been around a bit longer. The breakthrough was ridiculously simple. We added a sign up form instead of asking people to email us.  Sign ups tripled overnight on our outsource directory.  We highlighted the sign up button with red.
 
Sign up today!
If you want to sign up to be on our offshore outsource directory, we offer free listings to any serious outsourcing company.  We get hundreds of visitors daily from Singapore, USA, Canada, UK, and many other countries, so companies who need your services will be able to find you.
 
Categories
Our most popular categories are Data Entry, Call Center, Accounting, Programming, Medical Transcriptions, and Medical Billing.  Up and coming categories are LPO, Web Design, SEO, and KPO.  BPO is a strange category because every type of outsourcing is in a sense a BPO, but because we have such specific categories, we use the BPO category more as a miscellaneous category.
 
Countries
India is by far the most serious country, with Pakistan in second place.  We have yet to have any signups from the Philippines, South Africa, Bengladesh, or Nepal.  To my happy surprize, we got on call center in Costa Rica.  Lets hope we get more Latin American companies on board!
 
Placement
We are happy to give free listings away, but to get ahead in your internet presence, we recommend having a listing in two or more categories with high placement. Browsers tend to search from the top of the list on down.  Just ask us what we charge for higher placement and we’ll give you a customized quote.
 
Future
What is the future of our directory?  We have more than ten years in the internet directory business, so we are very familiar with the evolution and optimization of websites.  We are actively promoting our twitter and blog which help in promiting our site.  Additionally, we are always working on optimization and our pay-per-click search networks too which gives us fantastic exposure which is only going to get better.  The more listings we have, the better we will show up on search engines.

Interesting pages on 123outsource.net

May 2, 2011 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Interesting pages on 123outsource.net

123outsource.net is a growing and interesting BPO directory.  The main offering we have is good search results for outsourcing companies in many categories throughout the world, particularly in India.  But, we offer more.  We offer a wide variety of blog posts, a twitter profile, and many resource pages.  This entry will introduce some of our more interesting pages on our BPO directory.

Sign up page
http://www.123outsource.net/user_signup.php
This page enables any company anywhere in the world to sign up to be on our directory.  We scrutinize all applications to weed out those that are not companies. We get many individuals seeking employment, but we regret to inform them that we are not  in a position to hire them (even if they could spell correctly which is never the case).  We generally won’t post anyone’s information unless they have a legitimate web site too.  A company without a web site is a losing proposition in my web-centric mind.

About us page
http://www.123outsource.net/aboutus.php
This page tells about how we started out, what programmers we use, and how I visited India many times to get this operation going.  The about us page of 123notary.com is also interesting as it tells how I got into the web business to begin with.

BPO, KPO, LPO Outsourcing
http://www.123outsource.net/BPO_KPO_LPO_Outsourcing.php
This page not only has a lot of information about BPO companies, but also has many links to additional resource materials at the bottom of the page.

Data Entry Jobs
http://www.123outsource.net/data_entry_faq.php
Find out where you can get data entry jobs, BPO, and call centre jobs. This is a FAQ page, so there is a lot of question and answer material here.

Data Entry Glossary
http://www.123outsource.net/data_entry_outsourcingglossary.php
This section is still in the works as of 4-03-2011, but will be completed at the end of April for sure.  We have definitions of many data entry and transcription terms of which there are many.  I’m not sure if this page will be at all popular, but it is generally good in the web business to have a lot of free resource materials, so you will look useful.

Social Media
http://www.123outsource.net/Social_Media.php
This page explains how to use social media such as Facebook and Twitter to expand your business’ exposure.  The positive attributes of social media including “real time interaction”, democracy, and exposure are discussed.  Find out what makes social media tick.

Web Design Information
http://www.123outsource.net/web_design_resources.php
This page has basic information about internet jobs, and what web design involves, picking a company, and more. At the bottom of the page, there is a link to even more information.

Data Entry India
http://www.123outsource.net/1data_entry_india.php
This is our fastest growing page.  We get more data entry companies signing up with us, than any other category. Some prefer to be listed on our BPO India page, but most stay on the data entry India page.

BPO India
http://www.123outsource.net/1bpo_india.php
This is our second most popular content page on the directory.  India is the most popular country to look for a BPO, so if you run a BPO company, sign up with us on our BPO directory ASAP, so you can get exposure to find new clients!