5 important things call center agents must do

July 19, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Call Center | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Five Important Tips the Call Centre Agents Need To Use To Improve Their Customer Services
Your customer service call centre is generally considered to be the heart of your business and has a direct effect on your customer’s interaction. When they experience long times or ineffective agents customers would then be unhappy with your organization and would begin to look for some other solutions. In a recent study conducted by customer service manager reports 91.5 percent of your customers are unlikely to recommend your company once they have had a bad customer experience. This is why it is important that you improve your call centre operations. Given below are 10 important tips on how you could improve your customer services in the organization.

Clarifying the complaints of your clients and customers:
Sometimes customers are never clear when they are reporting their problems. They would never be sure of their problems and would be frustrated about making a call affecting their communication. And in order to resolve the issues quickly and easily our own communication has to be very efficient. Open ended questions like who, what, where, when and how would always give you the right information while closed questions would deliver confirmation. So try and use closed questions that would help you control the conversation allowing you to proceed towards the right resolution.

Whatever you tell yourself its true:
I once heard someone that the more she told herself how lucky she was the luckier she turns out to be. This simple act of telling yourself something and believing it delivers the right result. And once we believe something it would manifest itself in the body language, the facial expression and voice. This would also mean that when you believe that your next call would result in disappointment then your body language and emotion would also express disappointment. Who would want to listen to someone who always sounds to be disappointed on the phone? No one so your customers here would refuse to listen to you and as a result would refuse your invitation to buy the products and services from you.

Smashing your negative beliefs:
Its quiet amazing of how someone could be positive about making an outbound sales call and as just we are about to dial there is a little voice which sits on our shoulder and says waste your time and they won’t be interested in buying anything from you. Within seconds our motivation tends to disappear and our brains go into overdrive to deliver reasons of not making the call. So rather than focusing on the negative beliefs train yourself and say that this could be the best deal of the day.

Being fast and consistent enough:
Consistency is the key when it comes to the call centre as no one would want to be consistently slow and bad. And not having simple, fast accurate and updated information is often the downfall of the agents especially when it comes to the two customer service blips. It generally stands for a reason that the call centre agents would require one common knowledge base that would work successfully across all the communication channels starting from phones, emails and social media.

Making sure that self-service does not turn out to be a poor service: Always every customer centric environment would have one self-centric form. Operations need to be very aware of the fact that how user friendly it is and how user friendly could it sound. Very basic but something that is vital to the customer satisfaction level.

So what do you think are the best ways of improving your customer service? Do leave your comments below.

Author Bio:
Abhishek Jain has over 10 years of experience within the BPO Industry and Finance and Accounting outsourcing services. Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Services India delivers and manages various offshore/onsite projects in various technologies and domains

Attracting clients to your call center — testimonials

July 18, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Call Center | Leave a comment

We all want to attract more clients to our business. But how? There are so many avenues to attract clients. Some are expensive, and some are cumbersome. We have written many articles on the topic that you can read about if you click on the right on our call center category and scroll.

Missing the Obvious
Many call centers lose clients when they answer the phone. It is common for overseas call centers to have unclear phone lines and people who don’t speak clearly. My take is that you can’t possibly be a decent call center if there are any serious issues with your communication. Others have a dysfunctional web site with links that don’t work. If you can’t function, how can you possibly help others to function?

Getting Testimonials is Easy
Getting testimonials is a great marketing technique. It costs nothing to get testimonials — all you have to do is ask. You can use people as references as well. The question of where to post your testimonials is an even more interesting one. You can have a web page or several web pages devoted to testimonials. It is a common best practice to show the beginnings of a few of your best testimonials on your home page, and then have a “more…” link below that for those who want to read all of your client testimonials. You can also put more testimonials on your services page. A smart business person will put testimonials all over the place.

Review Sites are Powerful
Sites like Yelp, Angie’s list, and many directories have reviews these days. There are new sites sprouting up every day as well. Although these sites are “external,” having reviews on them can be powerful as you can link to those sites. Additionally, you can refer people to sites with reviews about you by using Twitter and Facebook as well as posting links in your blog.

Do You Blog?
Most people in outsourcing do not blog. There are only a handful of companies that do, and their blogs are often quite boring with ultra-short and/or self-promoting content. Others just post about outsourcing deals in the news which nobody wants to read about. People who are interested in outsourcing do NOT want to read about who Wipro and Accenture are buying out, etc. They want to read marketing articles and interesting points of views about the industry. However, you can also post reviews in your blog. If you have a popular blog (which takes a lot of building up to attain) you can post very potent marketing materials on your blog. Don’t try to sell on a blog as a general rule. However, you can publish content about your company, referrals, testimonials, interesting things that happen in your office, etc. The point of the blog is so that people get to know you and respect you as a source of quality knowledge — not to sell. If they grow to like you, they will buy on their own. We get dozens of new clients every month who claim they became clients because they liked our Facebook and blogging which incidentally work as a pair. The Facebook promotes blog posts, and the blog wouldn’t get half as much traffic without the Facebook.

Start Today!
So, go and get some testimonials and post them all over the place where prospective clients will be seeing them. You will get more business and people will feel better about you. You will feel better about yourself as well.

Office in Nature concept

July 18, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Leave a comment

You might also like:
Wouldn’t it be nice to have your office in the Himalayas.
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2011/04/27/wouldnt-it-be-nice-to-have-your-office-in-the-himalayas/

I have proven to myself that working in different environments strongly affects your endurance, and work output. Working in a calming environment helps neutralize the negative effects of stress, while working the desert or forest can be invigorating (depending on which desert and which forest.) Industries that capitalize on cheap labor (like Call Centers ) are desperately in need of more therapeutic offices even though that might not be economically feasible. But, Google capitalizes on innovative office spaces that make you feel good to be there and collaborate with others which better innovation, and drastically reduced turnover. Is your priority to save short-term cash or to have happy long-term workers?
Narrow mindedness could be a bigger enemy than cost as most managers are reluctant to think about innovating their offices.

DESERT

Being in the desert is stimulating in itself because of the dryness and the energies which are often innate to many desert areas. Although the desert is an arid place, not to worry, your ideas won’t dry up there. But, how would you structure an attractive yet practical office environment in this unique local. My friends and I thought of several ideas which sounded fun. Here they are:

(1) Ramadas.
Imagine having open-air structures where you can enjoy the breeze, yet be protected from the oppressive rays of the sun. You can hear the birds chirping, and see the cacti growing while going about your busy day of scheduling meetings, making calls, doing emails, and complicated analysis. Having cabanas is the Cuban alternative to a ramada as cabanas are made out of canvas while ramadas are adobe.

(2) Pyramids
When in Rome, do as the Romans do. But, can you picture a pyramid in Tucson? Actually, I can because half of the mountains in that region are shaped like pyramids. Pyramids are symbolic shapes. They represent the most geometrically stable shapes known to physics, but also represent graves. Having an office in a pyramid might be the best type of feng-shui if you are in a business that requires stability, and also if you’re involved in a Ponzi scheme or perhaps network marketing.

You could build lots of little pyramids around many strangely shaped pools, and then the CEO would get the corner pyramid (of course.) Or you could just have one big pyramid. Mid-level management could go on a middle floor of the pyramid. Some of the programmers might opt to have an underground office. It would be something like a man-cave. Think of the benefits — fewer distractions.

In a conventional office, workers hang out at the water cooler. But, in an desert office, workers can hang out at a mirage.

Additionally, family oriented people like pyramids because there are a lot of mummies there.

Just thinking about the tantalizing prospects of an office in the desert makes my mouth water, except the water is merely a mirage.

(3) Underground
Imagine an office build within a hill in the desert. You would have protection from the heat, but have windows facing the sloping hill where you could see all of the saguaros, barrel cacti, and organ pipe cacti. Your office would be in a garden. We would write more about desert offices, but our ideas have dried up (for now.)

FOREST

(1) American Forest
Imagine having an office park made out of tree houses. As a nature lover, I can’t stand the idea of nailing anything into a living tree. However, the trees (who have feelings of course) might enjoy having some nature loving humans around. You could have a treetop office suite. You could have mini glass enclosed hemispheres with office units inside. I prefer something that is not intrusive on the natural setting that doesn’t require foundations, etc. There could be cabins in a meadow in a forest as well. If your business does well in the trees, you might acquire quite a nice nest egg. But, if your business thrives more in an urban areas, you might be barking up the wrong tree.

There are disadvantages to the forest too. I might be going out on a limb here, but the type of people who work in tree houses are a bunch of saps. Also, when you work in the forest, you are sure to be surrounded by shady characters.

(2) The Himalayas
If you were in the Himalayas, it might be nice to have small huts and have the locals (who have a high unemployment rate) come and bring you tea and snacks from time to time. Imagine the possibilities for pampering. Electricity and conveniences might not be very reliable up there, but things are changing!

BEACH

Having a beach house or a bunch of beach huts might be a nice way to have an office. Houseboats are another great idea. But, top it off with having your office on a boat. I enjoy doing phone calls from my car on a cliff overlooking the beach. Others enjoy working with their laptop right on the beach! You can take your office wherever you want to go these days!

Having an office in the right atmosphere can change the quality of your work. Experiment a little and see how changing your work location affects you!

Millenial job hoppers at India’s BPO companies – and how to harness them

July 17, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO, Software Development | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Millennials are a different breed. Those of us in our 40’s, 50’s and 60’s find them difficult to understand. They are evasive, like to avoid conflict, and job hop like crazy, especially at BPO organizations. On a brighter note, they care about social causes — at least until their short attention span fades and then they care about something else.

In America, millennials jump from job to job. But, in India, the problem is even worse. People who work at BPO programming houses jump boat so often, their management structure was designed to accommodate this type of behavior. Programmers in India are seen as being replaceable parts.

If you are working on a serious project involving ten programmers and Rahul jumps boat because he got a better job offer at another company, it might take a while for another programmer to get up to speed at what Rahul was doing. And if the other programmer doesn’t do the same quality work, or can’t do the work at all, then your entire project could be on the rocks for a while. You could lose a critical client in the mean time because a millennial decided to jump boat on a whim. So, what is the solution?

Screen before using on critical projects
If you are a large programming house, you might have different types of projects. If you have smaller, simpler, less critical projects, and huge team projects, you can choose which programmer you put on which project. If you have someone new, it is advisable to put them on something simple and quick just to see if they do it, and if they can do it, and how punctual they are at meeting deadlines and getting back to people. If a programmer does well on an easy project, you can upgrade them to a more complicated project. However, I would not put anyone on a critical project on salary, here’s why.

Salary just doesn’t work with critical projects, try contracts & bonding
If Ramesh is working on salary on a critical project with a team, the entire team’s work would be compromised if Ramesh drops out. Therefor, it is critical to make sure that Ramesh doesn’t leave the project until it is done, and possibly until bugs are worked out after its completion. The question is, how should you harness Ramesh? Deferred salary is one strategy. If Ramesh gets a small portion of his salary while working on a longer project, but doesn’t get the main payment until its completion, then he would be less likely to quit and begin work for a higher salary down the street at some other hi-tech company. It might also make sense to take it a step further and penalize the programmer for jumping boat as he would not only be failing at his part of the programming, but his failure would influence the timeliness and quality of the final output for all ten programmers as his piece of the puzzle might be critical interfacing with others. Not all programmers would agree to this type of contract, however, without a contract, the programming house is doomed.

Paying more for reliability makes sense
Many BPO companies in India want cheap, but don’t calculate the cost of people leaving. If you add up the damages incurred when a critical player leaves, you might realize that it is cheaper to pay good people more, and also to pay mediocre people more if they can guarantee reliability with a contract and perhaps a bond. Reliability is the key factor in programming project failures — so, if you can eliminate reliability issues such as leaving bugs around, leaving project half-done, and missing deadlines, you can excel as a programming outsourcing company!

A case study from a courier company
I used to work for a courier company when I was fresh out of college. I was started out doing “distribution.” I delivered people’s fake teeth to dentists and back from dentists all over Massachusetts. The work was not ultra-time sensitive and the materials I was handling were not life-threatening if lost. They put me on this type of work until I proved myself. Then, they tested me on time-sensitive work for a few months. After I had proven myself, I was awarded with a route. I went to seven banks in Boston (generally in bad neighborhoods) and delivered the checks to Providence, RI. I was handling millions of dollars in checks every day and had keys to go into banks at night. I actually set off the alarm once (oops!) In any case, the moral of my delivery days story is that I was not put on a critical task until I have proven that I was a reliable and trustable candidate. I was put through two types of reliability tests for months before given any meaningful work. Programming houses need to find some type of short-term work to give to people while they are proving themselves. That way, when someone is put on a critical job, they will be less likely to screw up or leave — especially if they are under a bonded contract!

Business: Will power vs. decisive will power: what’s the difference?

July 17, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Motivation | Leave a comment

When you are involved in a business, you will be acutely aware that certain problems are hard to solve. Some people just don’t cooperate, and some nuts are just hard to crack. What I have found in life is that will power simply isn’t enough. You need to unleash the power of decisive thinking. I remember meeting an Israeli guy twenty years ago. He was playing a game of ping-pong. His words were, “We gonna win and that’s final!” I’m not sure if he won or not, but when your back is to the sea, you fight good… or well (if you use correct grammar which Israelis generally don’t. Israel would be wiped off the face of the planet if they didn’t decide that they were going to survive and prosper. They don’t hope they will survive, they decide they will survive even if it is against all odds. So, why should you be any different in your business.

I had a non-business type of a problem in my apartment. There was a faint noise of a stereo playing techno. It sounded far away, but the boom boom boom of the subwoofer and the bass were audible when I was very quiet. I called security several times. They looked around, but couldn’t find the noise. They didn’t bother knocking on doors until I asked them to. The long and short of it was that I had to supervise each step of the process because they couldn’t do their job on their own. I am a manager, but why do I have to manage other people’s business? In any case, it took me seven calls to security to resolve the issue. They couldn’t stop the noise unless they knew where it was coming from, but the one thing I had a lot of trouble getting them to do was to invest a little time to do detective work to find out where the noise was coming from. After security talked to the guys above me, he learned that they also heard exactly the same noise, but neither of them knew where it was coming from. I went to all 12 floors of my building to try to find the noise.

The problem finally got solved when I stopped monkeying around and decided that I would get the problem solved that day. I would harass the hell out of security until they did what they were supposed to. I had to call them during the day, and again in the early evening. Finally, they got the noise stopped.

The sad part of the story is that this noise got so into my head that I started going crazy. I had trouble sleeping because of the noise even with ear plugs. The minute I woke up in the morning, I heard the noise all over again. I went so crazy that even when I was blocks away, I still heard the techno melody. I thought the sound might be coming from far away, but my brain had gone haywire in the meantime. It took three days for the noise in my head to completely go away.

The moral of the story is that when I was decisive about stopping the noise and decided to stop it no matter what, it finally went away! Maybe you should find issues in your business that require serious will power to fix as well.

8 profiles of “caring” workers. But, which type are you better off with?

July 16, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Hiring & Firing | Leave a comment

Your success in business could be determined by having workers that care. But, how do you differentiate a caring workers from one who does not? In real life it is not so easy as there are many levels to caring. There are many profiles of workers and each one is different.

Also See: Good Sign Bad Sign: What to look for in newly hired workers

The Drone – The worker who just does their job
There are many people who just do their job. They don’t care if the work is good and they don’t even double check or look for feed back. They just don’t care, and it shows. Miraculously many bosses keep this type of worker and don’t look for better which results in very mediocre output!

The Nice Person – The worker who is pleasant to all
There are some workers who are very polite and pleasant. They are so considerate that you might be fooled into thinking that they really care. Don’t be!

The Good Communicator – The worker who will have detailed conversations with you
There are other workers who will have long talks with you about work. They will suggest their own ideas which are often good ones. They will make sure work gets done. But, this type might slack off starting a few months before they quit, so beware!

The Loyal Worker – The worker who sticks around
Some people are quitters while others show loyalty to the boss. This doesn’t necessarily mean they care about their job, but they value the stability of the work.

The Selectively Caring Worker – The worker who cares about some aspects of their work
Some people care a lot about the parts of their work that they relate to, but don’t care at all about many other parts of the work that the boss tries to get them to put more emphasis on. These are “selectively” caring workers.

The Undependable Caring Worker
I know people who care tremendously about their work and its results. They care so much that if one person calls them back, they will look through the trash to try to find the data to associate the person’s number with their name. They will invest twenty minutes calling someone back who didn’t even leave a message and then go to the beach when they are supposed to be at work the next day. This type of worker will waste endless time on something that is completely meaningless and completely neglect the bigger picture.

Also See: What does Warren Buffet look for when he hires?

The Limited Availability Freelancer
With freelancers, this is a regular problem. You might have a very caring and conscientious worker who just won’t do more than a few hours a week for you because their other work is a priority. At least they didn’t leave you completely in the cold. This is a type of worker you can work with in the long run because they are panning out even though they always leave you wishing for more!

The Midnight Toker
Ideally, you need a worker who will care about all of the aspects of their work. You need someone who will stay until midnight if necessary. You need someone who is constantly trying to improve upon themselves. And finally, you need someone who is loyal and won’t quit on a whim.

Perfection is Not Always Possible
It might not be so easy to find perfect workers every time. But, if you are constantly interviewing people all the time, you might get better at finding them and keeping them on board. The perfect company has perfect workers, so keep perfection as your goal.

As my friend Chung-Ho who owns a Chinese bakery always says, “Reach for the moon cake!”

You might also like:

A 20 minute office visit reveals the character of a company!
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/12/12/a-20-minute-office-visit-reveals-the-character-of-a-company/

The 2% rule; Only 2% of companies are worth hiring
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/10/21/the-2-rule-only-2-of-companies-are-worth-hiring/

Philanthropic ideas for your business – are you giving enough back?

July 16, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Giving back to society is a common theme for many business schools, business owners, and regular folks as well. We all talk about it, but we sometimes don’t know the best ways to give back. Some people just give to particular organizations while others make a big show about how 1% of your payment to their company will go to a charity to feed starving penguins in Antarctica and help pay for late fees for their tuxedo rentals too. But, there are many ways to give back. And it doesn’t matter if it is broadcasted or not. When you give to others, the universe will do more for you. Giving strengthens your relationship with God — or if you are in India, then it strengthens your relationship with the Gods!

When you make money and keep it all, you create an energetic short circuit according to Kabbalistic thinking. Giving opens up your incoming channel. You really can’t become wealthy unless your metaphysical intake valve is open and has a vacuum effect. Giving creates this exact phenomenon. Try it and see what happens. Not all giving is the same. If you give $10 to a homeless man, he will probably use it to buy alcohol. Give the same $10 to a homeless shelter, they will use it to buy beds, toothbrushes and soup to help battered women and other homeless people who desperately need help.

Ways to give!

(1) Give to charities!
There are many charities to give to. Not all are reputable, and many charities embezzle or are inefficient in how they handle money. So, do your homework. The Red Cross, and many homeless shelters are where I would give first. Spiritual organizations tend to be corrupt — I should know as I hang out around them. Giving to a group that is part charity and part for profit will not gain you buddy points with God, so find organizations that have no hidden profit agenda!

(2) Give first & don’t only give leftover money…
Some organizations give their leftover money to charity. They wait until their accounting for the month or quarter is done and give some of the remainder to a good cause. Don’t do this. Give first. Make giving a priority, and God will make your business growth his. Giving establishes a partnership with God. Who better to create a partnership with. After all, he created you, and controls the universe — at least most parts of the universe!

(3) Volunteer & have your employees volunteer too
Volunteering is a great way to meet others and develop compassion. You create jewels within yourself by helping others who really need it. Sure, nice people help their friends and neighbors, but helping those who you don’t know who are in distress means so much more. Having your workers volunteer on company time can develop good qualities in them as well. If I had an army of workers, I would want them to develop caring and compassion, wouldn’t you?

(4) Provide free job training
Many young people can’t get jobs because they have no experience. You run a company, right? What if you trained those people? Then, they could get a job and you would not only be helping a single person, but helping your entire society using the skills you have! Having internships is similar. You can teach college kids the ropes of how your company works and they will benefit from that knowledge for the rest of their lives. Giving mentoring is another form of training, and I’m sure that some aspiring business people would love for you to be a mentor!

(5) Show kids how your company works
Not everyone is ready for job training. But, some of the younger kids might be inspired to spend some time at your office and witness how all of the various jobs work. They could spend some time with the CEO, the janitor, and some of your other staff, just to get the feel of business in their bones!

(6) Pro-Bono work
If you have some poor clients who really need help (and deserve it) then you can give discounted or free work to some selected people.

Summary
Giving is a wonderful way to help others while developing your spiritual side and learning from the experience as well. According to Christianity and Judaism you should give 10% of your earnings to charity. The Muslims are less demanding and only require a 2.5% Zakat of your wealth. Either way, don’t over do it or under do it. Giving is an important part of life! Additionally, strange things happen when I give. I just gave a chunk of money to charity and people have been giving me discounts on lunch, dinner, car repairs, and all types of other things since! Once I even found $2 in loose change in the dryer right after giving to charity. Give and see what happens to you!

6 pitfalls in hiring outsourcing companies that could cost you millions

July 15, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged | Leave a comment

It is easy to interview outsourcing companies. However, there are many things that a client might overlook while hiring a company.

Also See: Outsourcing work for $2 per hour?

(1) You interviewed the salesperson, not the workers
If you hire a company because they did well at the interview, you are missing the point. You are probably interviewing the salesperson who is trained to talk well. He is not the one doing the work and couldn’t care less if the work gets done. If you interview the technical manager, you are beginning to be on the right track. But, the technical manager is also educated and will present himself well, although not quite as colorfully as the animated salesperson. Interview the lowest level workers and see if they seem like functional people. In my experience, 95% of the time, they cannot function in a simple conversation and also cannot do their work even marginally correctly.

(2) You were fooled because the interview went well
Let’s say that you were smart and asked a variety of personality, logical, and technical questions to your new prospective hires and they did well. You still don’t know if they are reliable at getting work done. You don’t know how tightly the company schedules their work and you don’t know who will quit and when. You need to test them out on some smaller projects before giving them a big project to see if they manage their work well. Workers will come and go, but if a technical manager has a handle on his work, you will get consistent results.

Also See:
Good Sign Bad Sign: What to look for in newly hired workers

(3) You were lured in by a low price
If an outsourcing company doesn’t charge enough, you can be absolutely guaranteed that they cannot afford to hire decent workers. If a company hires substandard workers, your work will not be done well, and you can bank on the fact that nobody will care either. Don’t get the lowest price or you will be sorry.

(4) You assumed that because someone charges more that their service is better
Companies that charge more usually, but don’t always deliver more. But, the “what” that they deliver is not necessarily better work. It is more often than not better customer service. Good customer service might make your life more pleasant, but if paired with really horrible outsourced work, you will not be satisfied with the results. Quality work comes first and good customer service is the icing on the cake!

(5) Failure to give two test jobs
If you are an experienced outsourcer, you know that it is imperative that you test out companies before giving them any serious work. But, testing them once is not enough. They are trying on the first test job. You need to see how they function when they are just being themselves. The first test job should be short and test ability, but the second one should be long enough to test their scheduling skills and to see if they meet deadlines on a job that is 10-40 man hours.

(6) You stopped watching & they started slacking
Nobody wants to micromanage others or babysit outsourced workers. But, you need to keep a close eye on them. The problem is that after they gain your trust, you will be tempted to stop watching them. Don’t! The level of scrutiny and intensity in which you watch outsourced workers needs to be high in the beginning, and then go to medium after a while. It is very common for workers to really slack off in their fourth or fifth month. It is also common for workers to slack off right before they quit. That means if you had the same trusted person for two years without issue, they might start slacking off when you least expect it. So keep an eye on them!

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Judge a book by its cover: Judge a company by its office
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2014/05/26/judge-a-book-by-its-cover-judge-a-company-by-its-office/

“You’re fired” is NOT when you start looking for a replacement!
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2014/08/17/youre-fired-is-not-when-you-start-looking-for-a-replacement/

Which countries are the best to outsource particular tasks to?
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2014/04/07/which-countries-are-the-best-to-outsource-particular-tasks-to/

Should big business run the school system or Universities?

July 14, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged | Leave a comment

I am tired of the idea of college. Everyone in America thinks that “you should go to college.” It sounds more authentic if you say it in a nasal tone. Now, the democrats are promising to send everyone to college for free. The problem with college is that it takes four years out of your life. You study all types of non-essential subjects that enrich you culturally. At the end of the ordeal, nobody will hire you because you don’t know how to do anything useful. I think that a four year college program is appropriate for the upper class. But, for the rest of us, learning a trade might be more appropriate.

Which jobs matter?
These days, the important jobs are computer programming, engineering, nursing, and robotics is a growing trade that will define the future of the United States. If we have good robotics engineers we might maintain our economic lead in the world. Without them, the Asians will swallow us up very quickly. So, what is the solution? There are many big businesses which have all types of jobs. The problem is that Americans are so dumb, that it is hard to fill the complicated jobs. Smart people know that the solution is to hire a smart Asian kid. But, we are running out of smart Asian kids. Now, what? We need to teach our home grown kids how to do intelligent jobs — and perhaps have a few additional Korean and Chinese kids with technical skills immigrate to America as well.

Imagine if the large companies had universities…
Big businesses can teach people how to do technical jobs. They could teach advanced level math, and engineering. The problem is that the technology keeps changing every few years or every several months. In my mind, the important learning is the logic of the programming. If you know one programming language well, you can most likely learn another one in a quarter of the time if you know the logic well. Big businesses can teach all types of robotics technology, programming, and other skills to children. The real benefit is that college kids would be able to get a job from the host company immediately after graduation or better yet — they could intern while they were studying. Nothing beats work study as you get technical skills and get to use them too. Nothing beats being in practice.

The world is changing
The world is always changing. Economies change, technology changes, and global power structures charge. In the long run the Asians will be in charge. Right now it looks as it China is falling on its face in many ways, but in the long run they are hard workers with a strong desire to succeed and they will get far ahead of America. The only way America can compete in the long run is to have smarter children who know how to do some very potent jobs and do them really well. This can be achieved. It is just a matter of America deciding to succeed instead of slacking off as usual.

Inventing weird words for the workplace

July 13, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Humor | Leave a comment

“There’s no place like Google, There’s no place like Google” was a line in the Internship about a school that Google created for its interns. In the movie, there was a weird outdoor game where people rode broomsticks like witches and tossed a ball around. I loved that because it was so childish, delightful and creative. But, the most creative thing was all the weird terms they created that were integral to the game which is called Quidditch. There were terms such as quaffles, bludgers, snitches, and seekers.

But, how can you make your company culture more like Google’s? Should you make up some weird words?

A samosa seventeener…
Research shows it is good to take breaks regularly. Some feel that seventeen minutes is optimal for peak performance. But, what if you have a samosa during your seventeen minute break? What would you call that type of break?

My daily rick! My scuffle?
The commute to work is an arduous task. But, what if this part of your daily routine had a different name? Since in India, people take rick-shaws, your commute could be referred to as your daily rick. I heard one British born India talk about his commute in Mumbai as “Two ricks and a train!” In any case, don’t forget to ask your co-workers, “How was todays rick?” If you don’t like “rick” you could call it a teleport to prepare yourself for life in 2050! Or you could just scuffle your way to work unless you are Yiddish speaking in which case you might schlep!

Lunchquet time anyone??
What could a weird term for lunch be? Perhaps a twist of words relating to banquet or feast? Perhaps lunchquet.

What about tasks around the office? In my business we have welcome calls, second welcome calls, newsletter calls, and calls to verify if someone is still alive. There there is order processing, email time, and blog writing in the evening. How can we come up with fun terms for these boring activities? How about, “Red carpet time” for welcome calls, and “Order time” for order processing?

Creating an atmosphere of innovation at your workplace might make your day more fun, and more productive. It could change how you think and make your business a lot more successful too. Part of innovation deals with the types of words we choose to use, and another part has to do with modifying processes and routines that we take part in daily. What’s your new word of the day?

Learning to profile the accounts you follow on Twitter can triple your growth!

July 12, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Analytics, Social Media | Tagged | Leave a comment

I used to have a simplistic following strategy
I just experienced something of a miracle. It was actually an example of the effective use of simple analytics for Twitter. In the past, my strategy was to follow people on accounts that typically got me a high follow-back rate. Since my main Twitter account focuses on marketing, my best “follow” accounts were mostly business, marketing, and one guy who did business, social media marketing and travel all in one. He had some very interesting and lively followers as you can guess. After a while, I wanted to pump up the volume a bit and follow even more people per day. Twitter allows a single account to follow up to 1000 people per day. I was getting about 500 people a day to follow from my best accounts and followed some less than optimal accounts for the remaining 500. The results were not very efficient. I was getting only 50-80 new followers per day after a lot of work!

I crunched some numbers
My number crunching was very unsophisticated and very ball park in many ways. I wanted to take a closer look at who was following me back on Twitter and who was retweeting me. I learned that marketers showed the highest rate of following me. Now, I did not take a close count of how many percent of the people I was following were in marketing. I estimated that perhaps 10-20% of those I followed mentioned marketing while about 25% of my new follow-backs were in marketing. I also noticed that CEO‘s represented about 3-6% of those I was following but about 7% of my follow-backs. I also learned that Entrepreneurs liked to follow me and accounts that were business profiles of various types of businesses liked to follow me.

Entrepreneneurs
The other day I had an argument with a friend about what an entrepreneur is. He claimed that an entrepreneur has to invent some new methodology or technology and learn to market it as a sole proprietor. I disagreed and insisted that any sole business person is an entrepreneur, although perhaps in pop culture, his definition might be more glamorous. My stats told me that entrepreneurs were fast to follow me, but didn’t retweet my content hardly at all. After seeing the dismal underachievement in the entrepreneur sector of my followers I began to doubt the way the word was used. I began to associate entrepreneurs as “wanna-be’s,” failures, or pretenders. People who were real business men portrayed themselves as founders, co-founders, CEO’s, or had other more formal titles. I also learned that those who followed Entrepreneur Magazine were not as “deep” in many ways as the followers of some of the other more serious business publications such as Bloomberg or Harvard Business Review. My bottom line is that I want people to retweet my content and entrepreneurs were not doing this. So, now I stopped following entrepreneurs altogether even though my biggest passion in life is entrepreneurship!

I tripled my growth rate
Now, I am getting 150-200 new followers after an active day of tweeting and following others. I am much more selective about who I follow. I follow business accounts as they tend to be more active. Business accounts are recognizable because they have a business name as their twitter handle account name. I am not sure which type of business favors me most, but I do know that the Real Estate crowd is the most dormant even on content that is specific to their industry!

How can you analyze your followers?
There are various ways to profile your followers. You have to break them into groups somehow. You also have to assess them in a kind of a level playing field. If you notice that 50% of your followers are web designers, but 80% of those you follow are web designers, then web designers might be a reasonable profession to follow, but not the most efficient. However, if you notice that managers of Flash programmers represent 20% of those who follow you, yet represent only 3% of those you follow, they would be a group to pay attention to. Identify your best segments for following you and retweeting or favoriting your content. You can triple your growth rate for obtaining Twitter followers too! You might be surprized.