How fast can someone extract an answer from your company? It is like pulling teeth dealing with you? There are different ways to get information from a company. You can call and try to get ahold of the right person. Or you can email. Calling gets an immediate result if you are lucky, but more be aggravating if you have to talk to a dummy who puts you on hold only to be disconnected which is the standard way of doing business in India.
On the other hand. sometimes I email people to get information from them. The behavior I see varies extremely, and I judge overseas companies partly based on how good their phone manner is and how fast they get back to me.
Excellent Behavior
Some companies will respond to an email within minutes and give detailed answers to all questions. If I ask for rates, they’ll give all of the breakdowns for various types of services and correponding rates based on levels of experience of their workers, etc. Over the phone, a good company will have a rep announce his personal name and the company name. The rep will NOT put you on hold without permission and will give good recommendations as to who the ideal contact person is for your question.
Acceptable Behavior
An acceptable company will get back to me within 48 hours by email and answer my question. How much do you charge for Data Entry work? We charge $2,80 to $4.30 per hour depending on the job. A simple question and an answer that gives you the range of possibilities. Over the phone, such a company would have reps who could conduct an intelligent conversation and get questions answered.
Evasive Behavior
Unfortunately, in many types of businesses, there are many evasive types. I’m not sure how an evasive person can hope to catch clients, but then I’m not sure what is going through their head. If I email them asking for rates, they email me back asking twenty questions regarding the nature of work necessary. I have to put in more work than they do just to get some simple infromation. If I’m emailing 100 companies for the same rate, I’m going to hire the company that gave me the information willingly and quickly, and not to an evasive company who makes me work for basic pricing. Over the phone, evasive companies don’t like to tell you anything. They prefer to make you go to the trouble to make an appointment to speak with a contact person. It is four times the work trying to deal with evasive people, but at least they talk to you.
Bad Behavior
There are various types of bad BPO behavior. Answering the phone with a dull “hello” is typical for Indians. Putting people on hold without permission only to have someone else answer the phone saying “hello” only to be transfered again. You’ll hear three dull hello’s, one after the other and will have to ask who you are speaking to. Then, instead of answering, they will ask who you are, then you ask again who you are speaking to only to be asked to repeat who you are. How exasperating — Indians really have a bad attitude over the phone and their bad attitude is part of the reason they live in poverty. If you ask for a rate, the answer is usually, “Manager not here, call back later” — and then they hang up on you. Maybe you’ll get a manager and maybe you won’t, but you won’t be treated like a valuable person. If you email a bad BPO, you will either not get a response, or get a response five days later, or get a response without an answer to your question. My suggestion to bad BPO operations is to learn to train your workers to answer the phone gracefully, ask permission to transfer people, and try to learn to answer questions. Additionally, state your name when you answer the phone so people don’t have to ask.