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Zen and the art of pep talks

August 20, 2012 by admin
Categories: Motivation, Outsourcing Articles | Tagged | Leave a comment

Zen and the Art of Pep Talks

Being a manager is more than just about showing up for work and assigning work to your various employees and subcontractors. It is more than just checking up on people, and more than just about shaking hands.  Psychology is a huge factor in being a manager, that can not be overlooked.

Working at a large company or tiny company doesn’t always make sense in terms of who does what and why.  In an entrepreneurship, the sole proprieter does all tasks in the business, unless they require some technical expertise in which case he hires an IT firm to help him. In a larger outfit, workers graduate to be managers if they are any good.  In a way this makes sense, because you need to be an expert on the work you do before you can supervise it. But, supervising is a completely different skill set, and they don’t teach this in school.

At school, if you studied business, you might study marketing theory, management techniques, and accounting. But, try out your skills in the real world with real people, and you will quickly realize that you are up against much more than what the text book said. You need to not only manage the actual work people do, but manage their attitudes as well.  What you might not realize, is that if a particular someone has the wrong attitude, your whole department could be doomed!

There are different types of attitude challanges that an employee might have and as a manager, you need to be able to quickly identify what type of psychological roadblocks the employee has, so that you can give them a pep talk that teaches them not only how to get through their roadblock, but how critical it is that they do.  Many employees don’t realize how serious an attitude problem could be.  It can kill a work relationship, and is contagious as well in many cases.

Imagine that in a room, there is one employee who doesn’t like being there and gives dirty looks to everyone.  Let’s assume that the others are not so pleased to be there either. The negativity spreads and circulates around the room — you can’t have that.  The manager can try to give regular pep talks to the most negative employee to get them to be more cheerful.  You could focus on how well that employee is doing, or how exciting the next project down the line is going to be.  Focus on positive things, and the positivity will spread — by definition. If the negative employee is incurable, or too high maintenance (pep talks don’t come cheap these days), then maybe it is time to say good bye.

What if you have a customer service rep who feels helpless even though they are an expert in their field?  This happens all the time!  I have a phone rep who is amazing, but lets customers walk all over him. Then, he gets all bent out of shape after they walked all over him.  I had a long time with him today and explained that he is the king. He has the knowledge, skill and experience, and these other people who are bothering him can barely tie their shoes. I said, “They should treat you with respect otherwise you shouldn’t even waste a nanosecond with them”.  I asked him if a professor, police man, border control agent, or other authority would let a civilian talk to them like customers talk to him — and he thought about it and said, “I guess not”.  Then, I said, “So why do you get upset when these ignorant types start antagonizing you?”.  I told this guy that HE was the authority, and that he sets the terms, and other people have to conform to his standards — or the discussion is over.  After this pep talk (which actually took over an hour in its entirety), my rep had a completely different perspective, and felt 200% better — just like that.

You might have a third type of situation where a good employee is just not giving 100%.  You could compliment this person on what their achievements have been, and what you think they can do next month.  Let them know that a little more effort could change their whole life — and that this is big.  It could mean promotions, more respect, and a completely different life in the future, and all it takes is another perspective, and a little extra effort.  The main ingredients here are enthusiasm, and the fact that the change you are asking for could have such huge results, that people’s whole lives could be permanently changed as a result.

Pep talks are life and death for a manager. If you don’t know how to do this, you need to study this like you study for a mid-term.  In a sense, giving good pep talks is sales work.  You are convincing someone to do something that they wouldn’t otherwise do, and giving them earth-shaking reasons why it is so important to do that thing you are proposing.

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Marketing and Interaction

August 17, 2012 by admin
Categories: Marketing | Tagged | Leave a comment

Interaction as a marketing technique

I wrote a few other blogs about sales. My point was that a good salesperson is an expert at interaction, and warms up to people before trying to twist their arm into a sale.  Also, instead of twisting the person’s arm, he gives compelling reasons to the prospect why they should by his product that makes the prospect want to buy the product on their own without any arm twisting.  Seasoned salespeople often make many sales very naturally without any resistance from the buyer.  But, I am in marketing, not sales, and I am not very knowledgeable about mastering the art of sales.   But, there are many parallels between marketing and sales.  Interaction is the main parallel that I want to bring up.

Selling right away is unattractive

My complaint about many Indian companies is that they try to start selling right away when they talk to you, and don’t get to know you first.  This is exactly the problem with most Indian BPO websites.  They say who they are and what they do, but they don’t get to know you.  Internet technology has changed in the last few years.  It used to be about having “a” site.  People would ask, “Do you have a web site?”. Then, the focus was on having a “nice” web site, and then we evolved to needing SEO optimization to show up on search engines which was very expensive and a nightmare.  Since around 2009, a new trend evolved in the internet, and it will be interesting to see how long this trend stays around, or further evolves.  This new trend is social media which includes facebook, blogs, twitter, linked in, myspace, orkut, etc.

Getting to know your users

A good salesperson gets to know you before trying to sell to you. He learns what makes you tick, and what you do, and what you care about BEFORE trying to sell you anything.  A good website does the same as much as possible. But, HOW is this possible?  Social media is the answer.  There are thousands of websites in any category, but the ones that get more attention are the ones that develop a relationship with the user.  Social media allows you to get to know your users, or allows your users to get to know you.

Blogging helps people know you

If you have a blog, particularly an interesting blog, then thousands or millions of people can get to know you, and read about what you have to say.  They will remember your site’s URL much more if they are a regular on your blog.  They will also be much more likely to spend money on your company if they feel that they know you and like you.  Familiarity sells, and there is no getting around that point — so get people to be familiar with your company by blogging.

Facebook is another way

Many businesses have a profile on Facebook. Whether Facebook is great or not is another question, but the fact remains that hundreds of millions of people worldwide are on this medium.  If you have a profile on facebook and populate it with regular interesting discussion topics or pieces of news, you might attract thousands of people who find you by browsing around. This is a great way to attract new clients!  They might see you on Facebook for two years before contacting you for a sale.  Or, if they are on your prospect list, you might call them, and they will be a lot friendlier to you if they saw you even ONCE on Facebook, even if it is a distant memory from the past.

Develop your presence

So, be a good marketeer, and develop a presence — preferably a good presence.  Be seen by millions of people, and get known. Familiarity makes it ten times easier to sell to someone — their resistance to being sold to by you will be at an all time low if they know you, know of you, or think they know you from some distant memory of brushing past your Facebook profile.  Most Indian companies are not using this technology, but if you want to be successful, you need to learn how to use it.

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The mystery of the Chinese bamboo tree & your business!

August 11, 2012 by admin
Categories: Marketing | Tagged | Leave a comment

The mystery of the Chinese bamboo tree and your business

There is a species of bamboo that grows in China.  You have to water it daily for exactly five years, but nothing happens.  If you miss one day of watering, the tree will never grow according to the legend.  However, at the end of exactly five years (according to the story), this tree will grow ten feet in a day.  According to what I have read on the internet, some species of bamboo can grow up to three feet per day, so this myth I am relating to you is not so far off.  But, how does this relate to your business?

Business is weird and strange.  A smart business person will have his company very streamlined and well organized. He will go to great lengths (or heights) to see that his business is as perfected as possible.  But, sometimes you have to put in many years of hard work before you ever see any remarkable growth.  In internet businesses, it is common to put in three years of hard work before ever turning a profit, or even a revenue. You have to have faith and love for your business, otherwise you don’t have a chance.  But, how does this relate to me?

The story of 123notary

I remember, back in the 1900’s (I am sounding old now), I started 123notary.com, a notary directory. I started it to market my own personal notary services.  I never made any money until 2002 when I made a trickle. But, I kept putting my time and money into that site out of passion and desperation.  Finally all of a sudden in March of 2003, we started making 10x the income just like that!  It is exactly like this crazy bamboo tree myth from China.

The outsourcing blog story

But, I just had another situation like this.  Our Outsourcing blog (the one you are reading), is something that gives me great pleasure to write. I have a passion for taking a look at business from as many interesting perspectives as possible. I wish I could see more perspectives so I could write more. I have been working on this blog for two years, but with minimal traffic.  I realized that the tags for the blog articles had been “hijacked” by wordpress.  It is their right since my blog was hosted with them.  So, I had to spend $1100 to my programmers to reconfigure the blog on my server, so that I could have my own tags. It took a few months because someone quit, and the programming company was behind schedule.  But, eventually the reconfiguring task got done, and it was formatted exactly how I wanted it. The next step was to create some links from 123outsource.net to the blog.  About a month after the last of these steps was completed, the blog traffic started really going up.  For two years we got less almost neglegable search engine traffic and not much visitation.  Now, we are getting more than 30 visits per day, and the visitation keeps going up. We might be getting 10,000 visits per month in a few months if I keep adding interesting articles!  Also, the traffic on the outsourcing site has jumped by 20% in the last month as a result of the blog’s new success.  I think that it might keep growing really fast if the blog continues to do well.

Secrecy as a business strategy

August 8, 2012 by admin
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged | Leave a comment

How good is secrecy as a business strategy?

I noticed that many business owners I know are very secretive.  There are many things they can’t tell me, and other things that they won’t disclose until a later date.  Many people think that if you tell them too much, you will expose your business secrets and lose a lot.  Many people think that when you go for a business lunch or coffee that you should keep the conversation very limited and hide a lot of information. One company refused to give me any information as to how they operated and asked me to read their FAQ page which also had very little information.  So, is it good or bad to conceal information?

The Feng Shui School example

My best example of this topic is of my Feng Shui teacher.  This teacher was one of the world’s foremost experts in his field, but also a good businessman.  By the way, The ancient Chinese art of Feng Shui, is a topic I love to write about, and it concerns how your building and natural (or unnatural) environment effect your health, life, and business.  This teacher told us how one of those “other” teachers gave out all of his feng shui secrets in the first two lessons, and nobody came back for the third lesson.  So, my Feng Shui teacher decided to only give out a few secrets per class, and really go into detail about his personal experiences analyzing charts of particular houses and businesses who had particular attributes that corresonded to those particular secrets or shall we say, “rules”. In any case, he devised a system where there was class one weekend per month, and you could keep coming back for two years, and then take the entire seminar series all over again to deepen your knowledge.  His school was booming.  The only flaw in his system was that my questions were not adequately answered, and the solution offered was for me to wait a year and retake the particular class I didn’t understand at great expense.  I said good bye.  This strategy of giving out secrets a little bit at a time is very culturally Chinese — fast enough for some — too slow for many.

Giving secrets as a way of developing trust

The business world revolves around trust — or the lack of it.  People give big money to those they trust, but nobody trusts a stranger or a crook.  Knowledge is hard to find, so people like to associate with those who give them knowledge.  If I want to attract a client, my strategy is to solve their problems, and then I will win them over.  People come to me with a question, and I will try to give them an answer that is much better than they expected.  Then, I invite them to email me if they have any more needs.  People love this, and then are very willing to spend money buying a place on my directory.  So, giving out precious knowledge can get you huge returns and helps build lasting relationships.

Giving out secrets helps — but, how many secrets is the right amount?

If you are too secretive, people might not trust you.  In my experience, companies that have secrets, often are hiding a lot of information. I have never had a good experience with companies or groups that systematically keep me in the dark in regards to critical information.  But, if you give out TOO MUCH valuable information to someone, they could steal your business secrets and use them against you.  In my experience, giving valuable information to others will get YOU ahead as much as it gets the recipient.  Just don’t give them any information which could result in them putting you out of business or directly competing against you.  You always have to keep some of your secrets to yourself no matter how generous you are!

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The concept of lower middle management

August 1, 2012 by admin
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The concept of lower middle management

It is a well known fact that labor in India is plentiful, especially technically accomplished labor. But, with a short supply of qualified management to go around, many companies in India are very disorganized.  If workers are not managed properly, they will submit work as completed when many steps in the work were omitted or done incorrectly. This has been my personal experience. American workers do this too, but not quite to the extent that workers in India do.   In India, the salary for a skilled project manager or middle level manager can be the equivalent of US$40,000 per year, or perhaps 1.5 Lakhs per month in India.  This is roughly 7x the rate that a company would pay for a single experienced call center rep or programmer. My numbers could be off because I have not been in India for a few years, but the numbers are close enough to make my point.

So, there is no solution, right?  Not so.  India has plenty of people who love to nitpick others, and mind other people’s business.  Even those who are not techno-saavy might be qualified to micromanage others if they have good organizational skills.  The older generation in India typically lacks technical skills, but many have good thinking and organizational skills, and would be very qualified with a little training to micromanage workers.  Additionally, this new class of micromanagers that I am proposing might  be able to perform work tasks at even LESS than the cost of the programmers or call center staff members since no technical expertise would be necessary.

The key here is to teach these lower-middle managers how to make check lists of what to check. If a worker has a particular assignment, being able to find the records of what was assigned, when it was to be finished, and what the specifications are would be the first step.  Checking to see that everything had been accomplished to specs would be the next step.  Creating evalutaion statistics and saving them would be the most valuable and final step.  These micromanagers (nagging pests) could revolutionize companies by letting them know who the reliable workers are and who the unreliable ones are.  Score sheets could be assigned to workers each month.  Maybe Praveen might be a 90% accuracy rate for his work and get a promotion while Surrendra might only get a 20% accuracy rate and be fired.

A joke to finish this post!

I’ll send this article with a joke — but, a realistic one.  Ramesh shows up at a job interview to be the “nagging representative” or glorified micromanager — whichever you call it.  The boss reviews Ramesh’s resume, has a brief chat with Ramesh, and is not so impressed. The boss says, “Don’t call us, we’ll call you”.   The next day Ramesh’s mother shows up and barges into the office.  She has a checklist of all the things her son is good at and she rattles off the checklist.  She then says, “You were supposed to call Ramesh at exacly 1pm IST today, but we never heard from you, how are we supposed to rely on companies like yours?”.

Needless to say, the boss was very impressed with Ramesh’s mother’s organizational skills and thought she would be perfect to manage his workers even though she didn’t know the first thing about programming.  So, the boss said, “You’re hired! Welcome aboard. When can you start?”  The mother said, “Ramesh will be here bright and early tomorrow morning”. The boss said, “No, I can not hire that clown, I am offering YOU a job — you are perfect.. You are organized to a T, and you don’t allow anyone to get away with a single flaw, not even a missed phone call”.

Then Ramesh’s mom Vidhya goes to have chai with the neighbors — Mr. and Mrs. Reddy.  Vidhya said, “I can’t believe I got a job… I am the head nagging agent for Krishnatech Infosoft!”.  Then Mr. Reddy said, “Oh, I am not surprized, you are excellent at nagging”.  Then Mrs. Reddy said, “Prakash, watch your mouth!”.  Then Mr. Reddy said, “Oh sorry, what I meant was that you are very … assertive and punctilious”. Mrs. Reddy responded, “Please forgive Prakash, he has had a few cups of masala chai too many today!”  Vidhya said, “I know people accuse me of nagging too much, but now I can get PAID for nagging — the boss said he needs this type of personality, providing I don’t over do it!”

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Improving your credibility at a call center

July 28, 2012 by admin
Categories: Call Center | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Improving your credibility at a call center

How to acquire clients for call centers
If you want overseas clients to trust you when you work at or run an Indian or Filipino Call Center, then you need credibility.  If you speak English like someone who has never set foot on American soil, but claim to be in Newark, NJ, who will believe you? We may be bad at math in the United States, but we are not complete fools.    If you are going to fake an American location, then you should be really sound like an Indian who has lived in the United States for a few years, and that will only be possible if you have been working with Americans for many years.  In fact — if you are that good at American English, nobody will question your location in the first place!

Verifying information looks professional
Another issues is presentation.  A guy called me from India trying to tell me that there was something wrong with my computer. He couldn’t tell me which MSN office informed him of the problem with my computer, nor could he tell me my full name or address.  He butchered my first name, and had no clue as to what my other personal information was.  If he had clearly announced who he was, his company name and location, and asked to speak to me, then he would have established some credibility. The next step would be to verify my address, so that he could be sure that my address was the one with the allegedly “infected” computer.  The third verification should have been to ask how many computers were in the house, so he could isolate which one had trouble.  If someone in Pune could accurately tell me what is wrong with my computer in Los Angeles (and be correct about it) without ever having met me, I would be very impressed.

Your phone # should match your claimed location
If you are claiming that your company is in Brooklyn, NY, you should ideallly NOT have a Marathi phone number.  Instead, you should have a phone number that is from New York City — preferably in the 718 area code.  Phone numbers can be bought and sold, so there is no excuse not to have a vanity number!

Long speeches without allowing questions doesn’t work
I had a call center worker call me and he went rambling on for almost two minutes without letting me get a word in edgewise. In fact, he took offense and raised his voice at me when I tried to ask a question. You would gain the good graces of prospective clients better if you engage them in a well rehearsed dance of dialogue.  You ask a question, they answer, then they ask a question, and then you answer. People feel happier when they are a PART of the conversation and not just a sound board.

Seeing if your prospect is interested is a good approach
Many Indians will just push their product on anyone without bothering to see if the person is interested or not.  People can be very pushy in India, and Americans don’t like this at all.  It is polite to first verify if the person at the end of the line is interested in talking to you about your offer or proposal before going on.  It might be good to start with a speech that quickly announces the dangers of not having your product, and THEN ask if the prospect is interested…

Example

Call Center Worker — Hi this is Jack from Computer Verify in Brooklyn, NY.  May I speak to John Doe please?
Prospect — Yes, this is John
Call Center Worker — John, are you still residing at 10 Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90001?
Prospect — Yes, I am still at that address.
Call Center Worker — We have been informed by Mictosoft that a computer at your address has been infected with spyware which can eventually render your computer disfunctional.  Would you be interested in learning how to protect your computer from this type of danger?
Prospect — Gee, that is interesting, my computer runs just find and I have virus protection. Are you sure you have the correct address?
Call Center Worker — Yes, it says 10 Hill Street… But, there was no apartment number.
Prospect — Hmmm. Interesting.  And which local Microsoft office told you that my computer has a problem?
Call Center Worker — The offer that reported to us is located in Sunnyside, IL — they may have obtained this information from a third party.

I recently had a very similar conversation with a call center worker, however he was unable to answer any of my questions, yet I couldn’t get him to stop talking — how annoying!

So, the bottom line is — if you want to know how to get call center clients or find call center clients — develop practices that boost your credibility!

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The Mystery Call Center Caller

July 13, 2012 by admin
Categories: Call Center | Tagged | 1 Comment

The mystery call center caller

Just a few minutes ago I got a call from someone in India.  He told me that my computer had some virus or malware that was slowing me down.  I asked him how he knew that, and he wouldn’t stop talking.  I told him that call center workers need to LISTEN as well as reading scripts, and that they need to give straight answers to questions.  This guy wouldn’t stop talking until I interrupted him harshly.

In any case, he said that he got my information from some database somewhere from microsoft, and that he was in Brooklyn, NY. But, his phone number was from India and had the 91 country code in it. Bizarre.  I asked him where in America I was located in and what my name was.  He could barely pronounce my name and mispronounced most English words which disqualified him in my mind from being employable in Brooklyn.  I had to ask him three times where I was located, but he couldn’t say.

Then, he asked me to go into my open file mode and try to open up a file.  Since I didn’t know who he was, and since he didn’t introduce himself properly to me, or identify me or my location properly, I  didn’t trust him.  He said that he was going to save my computer from crashing, but I thought that perhaps he was going to supervise me on installing spyware or a virus.  Was this guy a scam, or just poorly trained?  I was not going to take chances.

I don’t really understand what the call was about. But, the bottom line is that he didn’t act professional.  A good call center worker introduces themselves, and verifies who they are talking to before commencing on their speech.  This character raised his voice at me and refused to answer simple questions.  His English was spoken in a nasal monotone, and his pronunciation was understandable but far from standard in either the U.S., or England.

Have you ever had this type of experience?

Diversity and a country’s economy

September 26, 2010 by admin
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged | Leave a comment

Diversity and a country’s economy

America is a bizarre country.  The majority of the population is white and has been around for at least five to ten generations.  Most blacks came to America in the 1700’s and early 1800’s. Then, there are descendents of immigrants from Eastern Europe, Italy, and other places whose ancestors came around the turn of the century (around 1880 to 1920).  Lastly, there is a huge new wave of immigrants from Latin America and Asia which became a huge population boom around the 1980’s and the population of their ethnic groups continues to grow in the United States whether the border is open or closed.

The sad fact is that Americans are incapable of doing most of the critical jobs which keep this country going.  If you visit hi-tech companies, you will notice that the majority of the workers are Asians, or children of Asians.  Very few people with lineage in America can handle computer programming, engineering, or other technically demanding tasks.  If you visit factories and farms that involved heavy or hard labor, you will quickly notice, that unassimilated Mexicans, Guatemalans, and a few Southeast Asians seem to often be the majority (or entirety) at many of these types of jobs.

White Americans are now complaining that they are no longer a majority in terms of the birth rate in America. However, without people from other countries and their children populating our country, our economy couldn’t function at all.

Our economy is very ethnically segmented to the point that it is ridiculous. You will see Gujarathi Indians managing a majority of Hotels throughout the United States.  South Indians and Chinese will be doing most of the programming jobs.  Mexicans will be doing a lot of the farm work, painting, gardening, and manufacturing.  Blacks are very prevalent in government jobs and sports.  Jews are dominant in the film industry, law firms, accounting, and the music industry.  In Los Angeles, Persians dominate the textile industry ownership. Gas stations are heavily owned by Punjabi Indians, Arabs, and other groups.  It sometimes seems that one or two ethnic groups is ASSIGNED to each niche in the economy, and without even one of the ethnic groups that makes up America were absent, that the entire country’s economy would grind to a slow and dismal halt.  On the one hand, having too many different groups creates a lot of divisions and discrimination. On the other hand, we would not be prosperous without this odd mixture of people.

If you travel to states where there are 85% or more whites, there is not much properity.  There is very little industry in white dominated areas like Montana, Idaho, Kentucky, Tennessee, etc.   States in the deep South are generally 70% white and 30% black, and they have very little going on economically either.  States like California, Florida, New York, Massachusetts, and a few others, that have a dynamic mixture of types of people seem to have thriving economies and are at the cutting edge of technological development as well. So, diversity is critical to America’s economic survival, but, what happens when diversity becomes the majority, and Americans with lineage here become an inconsequential minority?

What about the lack of Diversity in India?

INDIA is a country that has some diversity, but nothing like America’s.  There is a Hindu majority, and a Muslim minority which has a higher birth rate than the Hindus.  It seems clear that one day the Muslim population will outnumber the Hindus.  There are Sikhs, Janes, Parsis, Christians, and even 5000 Jews in India (most left to live in Israel recently).  But, these population groups are all Indian.  There is racial diversity in the sense that there are some very Aryan looking types in parts of the North and very Chinese looking types in Manipur and Assam. There is diversity in Caste, but modern day urban Indians do not do what their castes are supposed to do.  Most Brahmans don’t pray, most Kshetriyas don’t lead (or at least don’t lead properly), half of all Vysyas don’t sell anything, and perhaps the Sudras are still doing some actual work.  That is one out of four castes who is fulfilling their dharmic purpose in human existance.  But, beyond the superficial home-grown diversity, India has nothing like the diversity that America has.

Imagine an India with Asians. You would be able to get a REAL acupuncturist instead of the fakes that exist in most Indian metros.  You would be able to get real Thai or Chinese food, and not this fake Indianized Chinese food with soupy dishes and rice dishes that use basmati rice and too much pepper.  Imagine an India with a small population of white Americans.  White Americans would be a miracle for India’s middle management shortage.  The Indian economy would be revolutionized by just a few thousand Americans living there.  Imagine if India had people from other countries who started restaurants serving food from around the world.  Imagine if India had African-Americans who joined the Bollywood entertainment industry and shared their dance moves (Indians are borrowing these moves on their own by watching American videos in any case).  India would be five times as good if they had even a little bit of diversity.  Even if 1% of the population was a mix of foreign born people with something to share, it would be a miracle.

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Having a pronouncable name rather than a fake name

September 23, 2010 by admin
Categories: Call Center | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Having a name people can pronounce rather than a fake American name.

If you work at an Indian Call Centre, it might make better sense to have an Indian name which Americans can pronounce, rather than trying to pass yourself off as “Mike from St. Louis”.  If your name is RamaKrishna Subrahanium, it might be hard for Westerners to pronounce your name. But, if you claim to be “Mike from St. Louis”, then people will know you are a fake.  So, what about names like Rakesh, Hari, Ravi, Mahesh, Kumar, Sujata, Angeli, and other easy to pronounce names.  For folks in middle-America, it might be hard for them to pronounce these names, but they would get the hang of it after a while. You need to make Americans feel comfortable with you to acquire more call center business.

I saw a comedy about American call centers.  The call centers researchers had learned that customers are happier if they can talk to the same rep each time they call. So, the call center had all their representatives have the same name. Every single guy there was named John, and each girl was Cindy.  There were 100 Johns and 106 Cindy’s. This is a very comical, fake, and ineffective way to please your clients, however, for Indians there is a benefit.

Americans will never be able to pronounce multi-sylabic South Indian names like Tiravanantapuram (a city in Kerala).  Even Indians call this T-vandrum for short. But, if Americans keep hearing names like Angeli (NO, not Angela, but Angeli), Anita, and Kumar, they will get used to it.  After all, after our unfortunate war with the butcher of Bagdad, we can all pronounce the word, “Hussein”.  And after 911, we can all pronounce the name, “Oussama” (which varies in spelling, but is pronounced the same way regardless).  So, since we heard the word Oussama 1000+ times on the news and can now say it, then if all call center workers in India adopt exactly 10 easy to pronounce Indian names like Krishna, Sujata, and Ravi — then in another five or ten years, every American (Even people in the midwest) will be able to pronounce these names properly! In fact, we might even start naming OUR kids Krishna and Ravi.

If Indians master the art of being the best call center staff in the world — and keep their names — and are honest about being in Navi-Mumbai or Noida; then after a few years, it will be Americans who will be out of work unless they change THEIR name to Ravi, and pretend to be located in Secundrabad. If people think that the ONLY good call center workers are in India, we will all have to pretend to be in India.

Tamilians on this TV commercial get the sale!

September 23, 2010 by admin
Categories: Call Center | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Tamilians on this TV commercial get the sale where call centers fail!

Americans are so resistant to getting calls from Indian call centers, that managers at these call centers often feel that the problem is that Americans don’t like Indians.  This is simply not true!  Americans are a bit squeemish at first if you are from a culture that they are not used to, but if you are charming and perhaps funny, you can easily break through the cultural barrier.  The best thing about America is that cultural borders ARE crossable, and sometimes can be crossed faster than you think if you have the right approach.

There was a recent commercial on TV for cell phones. There were two Tamilian guys who were very funny, and likeable.  An overweight goofy looking freckled American boy named Billy steps up and gets roped by a noose around his leg that hoisted him up in to the air upside down.  One of the Indian guys said, “Silly Billy, you fell in to the contraPT”.  Billy got trapped by a contract that was more like a “contrap”.  This commercial was popular all around the United States.

North Indian call centers and airline workers think that they need to be as fair skinned as Europeans, and have perfectly neutral accents, and discard anything Indian about themselves to do well in the modern economy.  The irony is that these particular dark skinned Tamilians with very Thick, but understandable accents in the commercial became instant hits with Americans, while call center workers who pretend their name is Mike and pretend they are located in New York are NOT very popular with Americans.

The truth is that Americans normally feel threatened by people from the Middle East and South Asia who wear very foreign clothing, and who are perhaps dark, veiled, or have strong accents.  HOWEVER, Americans usually make an exception for Indians, since we perceive Indians as being GENTLE and INTELLIGENT when we meet them in person.

My point is that call center workers need to work harder at being PERSONABLE, instead of working hard to erase their Indian-ness. Americans normally like Indians who are personable — so there is no need to pretend not to be Indian.  Additionally, no matter how hard you pretend not to be Indian, you will still sound foreign to us unless you have been socializing exclusively with Americans for two decades.

I met one North Indian girl who was working on an airline in India. She was so fair, that she could almost pass as a European.  But, her attitude was terrible. She PRETENDED not to know what masala chai was.  Pretending that you are ignorant about Indian culture does not erase the fact that you are an Indian — it only proves that you are confused, and too snobby to accept the culture you were born into.

All you have to do is speak clearly, be helpful, and likeable!  Instead of being fake, focus on your interaction skills, and the rest becomes secondary!

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Discrimination is bad for optimizing your business

September 22, 2010 by admin
Categories: Hiring & Firing, Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Discrimination is bad for optimizing your business

In America, we are well aware of how wrong and harmful discimination is. We hear every day about how people suffer due to discrimination and how lives are ruined.  We hear all about the various legal battles in court that happen because a large company or university discriminates against someone on the basis of race. Minorities are not the only ones being discriminated against, as whites and Asian-Americans are discriminated against by affirmative action policies at universities and especially for government jobs such as post office, bus driving, and other jobs.  Although discrimination is prevalent, or perhaps rampant in the United States, at least we have been educated to know that it is wrong.  In other countries, it is common to discriminate without even a nanogram of remorse or discreetness.

If you run a small or large company, you need the best possible workers for all jobs.  If you have two applicants for a job, and one is a Kshetriya caste like you, and the other is a Brahman — you might be tempted to hire the person of your caste, even if he or she is slightly less talented at the job that you need him or her to do.  Lets say that you hire the person of your caste, and he only functions at 90% of the output that your other applicant could have.  You just lost 10% of your output, but your expenses remain the same.  If you are in a business where profit margins are thin, then you can not afford to lose even 1% of your gross productivity, or you might be in danger of going out of business.

Another more comical reason why you are benefitted by hiring people who are NOT from your community, is that you might have LESS in common.  If you have too much in common with people you work with, you will be tempted to spend all day chatting far too much, and your work will not be done with full efficiency.  Hire someone from a community that has as little in common with you as possible — to the point where there is nothing to talk about other than the weather — this way you will not chat at all, and productivity will be at an all time high. Anti-social people are great to work with.  They are no fun at all, and they will not join you for drinks after work, but you might get your best work done with them.

Another great hiring strategy is to hire people who don’t speak your language. Even if you have a lot in common, there will be no way to talk about it.  Communication will be very basic, and lots of work will get done.

On the flip side, if you hire great workers who are antagonistic to your clients because they don’t like the community your clients are from, then you will find that technical skills do not always make up for negative social interaction traits.

I had an experience with a company that did printing for me.  This company had workers of different races working there.  There were a handful hispanic guys there, two were very polite to me while two regularly gave me dirty looks and made rude remarks to me.  There was a black guy who was slightly friendly, but didn’t have too much to say. There was an Asian-American who was polite, but indifferent and not too friendly to me — not too friendly. I notice that the Caucasians at that company made an effort to be very friendly and warm towards me.  This example is sort of extreme, and unusual in my experience.  Did people treat me well or poorly because of the color of my skin? Or, were those people I encountered just individuals who are just being themselves?

So, if you want to get ahead in business, forget about hiring people who are the same race or caste as you, or “like you”, or who are “the right sort of person”, or “from a good community” whatever that means.  Hire people who get the job done best.  On the other hand, don’t hire super workers who treat your customers with contempt, or you might not have customers for long!

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Chile as an outsourcing destination

September 20, 2010 by admin
Categories: BPO | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Chile is a country that you might not think about much in the context of outsourcing.

India and the Philippines have always been the biggest players with China catching up in many industries.  But, South America has a lot to offer, and in particular, Chile.

Although there are relatively fewer English speakers in Chile compared to many other countries, labor rates for bilingual call center representatives are only about $1000 per month, and rates for hi-tech staff are around $2600-$3100 per month.

In the last few years, Chile has been attracting more and more overseas companies to set up shop there. Additionally, the government offers incentives to companies who engage in outsourcing.

An Indian company called Evaluserve set up shop in chile several years ago and Orion systems also set up shop in Chile in 2008. Many companies like to have the more labor intensive work done in India with more sensitive IT related tasks handled by their Chilean counterparts.

Another super factor in Chile’s favor is that they are on the same time zone as the United States. When dealing with India, you have to be a night owl to stay in touch and answer phone calls or emails in real-time.  Not so with Chile.

It seems that it is best to do business with those who you have synergy with.  That is an individual fit, and hard to predict. But, don’t leave Chile out when looking for your perfect IT or BPO Call Center Match!

Find BPO companies in Chile!

Mexico is America’s #1 choice for near-shoring