If you were Donald Trump, what would you do?

September 24, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged | Leave a comment

Do you ever find yourself in tough business situations where you don’t know what to do. I have a very bizarre, but effective strategy. I like to read books by business geniouses like Donald Trump and Warren Buffet. Of course, everyone has a different opinions of the business brains of this generation, but these two are people who I admire for their thinking skills and refinement, not to mention common sense.

If you live in Asia somewhere, you might not know who are great business thinkers are in America, but it pays to go to the bookstore and read about them. Another great book is from ancient China — Sun Tze’s Art of War. You can learn a lot about war strategy here, and there are many parallels between business and war — especially if you do business with the type of people I do!

So, what about my crazy strategy. What is it?

Simply by putting yourself in the place of a mega-genious, you can pick up some of their genious. Does this make sense? It doesn’t, but it works none the less. If I pretend to be Donald Trump solving a difficult business equation, I will generally come up with a much more refined solution to my problem, than if I try to solve it by being my frustrated self. I picture myself being him, and thinking like him — I mull over complicated equations coming up with insights that he would have and opinions that he would have. I would say, “watch out for that — in the long run that could end your business relationship”. Or, I might say, “The price is right, but how much are you sacraficing in quality — is it worth it in the long run?”. Or, I might say, “This company offers great flexibility — you might have to sacrafice in other areas, but the flexibility is worth a lot”. Who knows what thoughts would come into my head by channeling into someone else’s consciousness.

So, next time you have a business decision or problem, just ask yourself…

If I were (insert name of great business man in your country), what would I do?

The manager took a call from his daughter when a prospect called him

September 24, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged | Leave a comment

It is natural to care about your family. You should ideally care more for them than you do for anyone else! But, my assistant called a manager in India about a job we needed him to do. He interrupted our call to talk to his daughter and then forgot to call back. My assistant waited up for him for a long time. This is very irresponsible.

In India, people have a different idea about responsibility which is why they get in trouble with American clients. Americans don’t want their calls to be interrupted unless it is an emergency. This manager could have talked for 1 minute to his daughter, finished up with my assistant and then called his daughter back. There are ways to handle conflicting commitments without offending or inconveniencing anyone.

The result is that this particular manager in India is now off our list of prospective companies to hire. We think he is irresponsible, or just too busy to be able to handle a job from us.

We also heard another story about a young Indian guy who took a call during an interview. That is insane. That is an extremely unprofessional and disrespectful thing to do. Sometimes people lack common sense, but having sense can save you from losing clients.

The moral of the story is that if you interrupt a call with a prospective client, you will probably lose them. If someone has known you for a few months (a few weeks is not long enough), then you can put them on hold if necessary. You can take a few necessary liberties with people you know well, but not with strangers. Additionally, if you are in hot water with a client, don’t put them on hold. If you are already inches from being fired, putting them on hold for ten minutes could be the last straw that gets you fired for good.

Maid in Dubai Continued: an introduction to Maidalytics

September 24, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

“If Dubai follows my advice, they’ll have it maid!”

Having a maid labor pool in Dubai
I wrote another piece about a strategy for having a government operated labor pool for maids in the Emirates )where Dubai is the largest city.) The basic idea was to have the government import prospective maids and provide dormitory accommodations for these ladies at no cost to the maids. The government would then charge a fee to employers in exchange for paying for the air transportation and interim lodging for these ladies. There might be an up front fee, plus a percentage of the maid fees for the first year or a fixed monthly fee for the first year.

On humorous note, Dubai will probably misinterpret my suggestion about having a maid labor pool and build a four acre, multi-billion dollar luxury swimming pool & Jacuzzi complex for their maids just to show off.

A problem solved
The problem is that currently families hire maids, sight unseen and sign multi-year contracts for maid service. The maid cannot legally leave the arrangement until the contract is over or risk imprisonment. This puts both parties at risk. The families have no idea if they will like the maid, and the maids don’t know how they will be treated by the family. Having a dormitory arrangement paid by the government would allow families to meet maids, and pick & choose. If a family didn’t like a particular maid, they could fire them, and the maid would have a place to stay at the dormitory. If a particular maid didn’t get picked for too long a time, or got fired too many times, the government would have the option to deport them and the airfare would be paid for by the government in my system as a courtesy to all parties involved. The expenses incurred by the government would be roughly compensated for by the fees charged to employers.

Maid Training
Since the Emirates aspires to be the best country that is, was, or ever will be, it makes sense that they might enjoy the idea of going to the next level managing their country. UAE is a country that is managed like a business, and the result is that they are not only prosperous, but very popular with folks from all around the world. It only makes sense that the government might ponder the idea of engaging in value added services that would make the lives of their citizens and upper class residents even better than it already is by using some innovative techniques that no other government has ever thought of.

In the UAE, maids are brought in from other countries with contracts. You cannot legally live in Dubai without employment, and you can’t get in the country unless you already have a job if you are a laborer. Upper class people have the cash to be able to come as a tourist to Dubai and make connections, but poor people don’t have that option. The basic problem is that an employer has no idea how good the maid is at their duties. Language compatibility is not always ideal either. There is also no guarantee that there won’t be personality clashes as well. If the relationship goes poorly, the maid has nowhere to go unless the employer pays for their return trip. Part of the solution is training and evaluation. Which facets should be taught though?

Laundry
This is an easy one. Most people know how to do laundry, but perhaps with a little instruction, their folding skills and ability to handle difficult situations might be enhanced.

Language
Maids coming to Dubai are typically from the Philippines, Pakistan or Ethiopia. They might know some English, but do they know Arabic? It makes sense that prospective maids are taught the language of their prospective employers to ensure that communication is smooth. Special attention to vocabulary relating to maid type duties could be emphasized during this training.

Cooking
Food is cultural. If a lady from Ethiopia is a master chef, but then comes to Abu Dhabi for a job, she might not know how to cook the local specialties. She might not have ever heard of these specialties. It might be nice if a government operated maid dormitory / school could teach them all of the local dishes, and perhaps a few dishes from India or other regions where employers might be from, or popular foreign dishes that they might like such as boeuf bourgignon!

Child-care
I know nothing about this because I am a guy, but there must be some advanced techniques for taking care of infants. Burping 101, diarrhea relief methodology, and crying reduction therapy.

Cleaning
Once again, this is not my department. Come to my apartment and you will be unpleasantly reminded that I’m not joking. Cleaning techniques can be complicated. There are many types of sprays, bleach, and scrubbing brushes. Knowing the right tools to use for particular tasks can be a daunting undertaking.

Maid Testing
Before a maid is given a long term assignment, I think that the government would be doing the community a huge service by testing these maids out, to ensure the highest likelihood of a happy experience as possible. Families who were willing to test maids out could be given a discount on maid service in exchange for their feedback which would be translated into analytics. Families could give a report card for each maid that they tried out for 3-7 days with scores for cooking skills, repetoire of recipes, language skills, personality, how good they were with small children and not so small children, cleaning, reliability, and responsibility. A simple survey with about 20 questions on a scale from one to ten with a comments section would be enough. It is a common mistake in the survey business to ask hundreds of questions and drive the survey taker crazy and leave no room for individualized comments. Short and simple wins the game in my opinion.

If the families testing these maids gave scores that differed drastically from other families offering feedback, they might be deemed to be unreliable in their analytics and dismissed from the testing program. Reliability in analytical feedback is critical, so you need individuals who systematically submit data that looks reasonable. I will note that personality analytics would be the one analytic that could vary extremely from person to person, so there is no way to know if that analytic is “reasonable” since some people get along well and others clash!

Each maid could be tested by four families before being dispatched on a real assignment. Although, I think it would be better if real assignments didn’t have any more than a week to week contract in the beginning, these assignments would be given with the intention of being long term.

Try four and pick the best.
It might even make better sense to let families try out four maids one after the other, and then pick the one they liked best. Each maid could be tried out for between one and four days. Families could even have the option to try as many maids as they wanted if they were willing to pay the associated fees involved in trying them and buying an “option” on the maids they liked. The maids would return to the dormitory for classes after their tryout was done to ensure that they would be available if picked. Once the family had sampled the work of each maid, they could pick the one they liked the most, and that one would be guaranteed to be available! What a system.

Scoring the maids using maidalytics (maid analytics)
Since these maids would have been tried out by many families and given scores, those scores could be tallied up and the maid could be assigned a score. Rather than clunky scores such as A, B, C, etc., it might be better to have scores on a 100 point scale with an explanation of how many percentage of maids are at each score level such as in the 70’s, or the 80’s, etc. If a family wanted a maid, they could request a maid with higher score if they were willing to pay more. Or, they could request a maid who was stronger in communication or culinary analytics if that is what they wanted.

Summary
The basic idea behind maidalytics is to ensure that families in Dubai get a maid that they will be ecstatic about. Why force people to be in miserable contract with a maid you can’t stand when you could get someone you adore? Using my very sensible system, families can get the optimal maid for them with minimal effort and no strings attached. Maids also have the right to quit if they feel a particular family doesn’t treat them kindly enough or works them too hard.

The Indian software trick

September 24, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: India | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

It is amazing how dishonest so many companies are. In America they sell you on 20 hours a week when they don’t have a single hour available. Is it optimistic thinking? Are they just being unrealistic, or just plain dishonest? In India, they have different tricks. In India they have the hours, they just don’t necessarily want to allocate their best software developers to your dumb project.

Indians will try to pass off a beginner as a Senior Developer and charge you a higher rate. The problem for them is that I have them bid on a project as part of the screening. I know how long a senior developer takes on this type of project, so I can tell if they are either giving me a really slow senior developer, or a really inexperienced junior developer.

In any case, Indian companies who care about their reputation, as well as the reputation of their country should realize that India will get ahead much faster if they develop a reputation for honesty. Yes, most of the rest of the world is also crooked, but that doesn’t mean that you should be that way too.

Personally, I feel that government agencies should monitor what software companies do. There is too much fraud and trickery going on and it is just not funny. In the long run, honesty gets you long term reliable clients that you can grow your business with. Trickery gets you disgruntled clients who will dump you fast. How fast will your company grow if you lose your clients as fast as you get them?

You might also like:

How to ensure that the software company you hired will deliver
Click here

It is done — said the outsourced programmer
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2012/10/10/it-is-done-said-the-outsourced-programmer/

They got customers they never knew existed

September 23, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Marketing | Tagged | Leave a comment

Once upon a time, there was an outsourcing company in Mumbai called Cardamom coding. They were tired of being an inexpensive chop shop (or sweat shop — their AC broke.) So, they decided to do something more. Rather than engaging in a pursuit purely for the purpose of making money, they created a system that solved their customers most nagging problem. Service — reliable service with a smile.

The owner, Pratip, wanted to create an outsourcing system so convenient and pleasant that everyone would be happy. Little did he know that his door would be broken down by thousands of clients who he was unaware even existed. But, let’s stick to the story. By the way, this is just a story. There is no Pratip. Okay, there are many Pratips, but none like the one I am describing. At least not to my knowledge. And if there are, then I wish them the best of luck!

Pratip didn’t just do business. He listened.
He talked to his American, Brittish, Australian, and French clients. He learned about what they had to say. He felt their frustration. He empathized with their pain. He wanted to help, and he knew how. There was none of this, “But, how” nonsense with Pratip, because Pratip was a doer, not a talker. Okay, he was a talker, but he was ALSO a doer, and that is what matters. The main complaints that his overseas clients had were that they couldn’t communicate effectively with the workers. The writing and pronunciation skills of his programmers was dismal. His staff in reception were better, but not that much better. Follow up communications were never on time. And sometimes programmers got stuck on easy problems and didn’t follow directions. There must be a solution!

24 hours service — well almost.
Pratip decided to not only solve these problems, but more. He created a company so nice, that people wanted to be there. Pratip’s new company was open 17 hours per day. You could call day or night and there would be people to answer the phone. This was mainly to accommodate the concerns of overseas clients who were on different time zones. The result was that Pratip got twice the amount of labor for the price of his rent, since every work station could be used for two shifts!

Enhanced communication
Pratip hired people to answer the phone who were very smooth in English. Sure, it cost him more, but he wanted to provide an experience. Customers could come visit without even asking, and there would be managers waiting to help. Additionally, there were people there to socialize with clients. You could hang out in the lounge and enjoy samosas while Vikas and Angeli would chat with you. This company gained many clients simply because of the rapport that was gained from the friendly and engaging staff.

He also hired staff to teach his programmers how to write better emails and how to stay in touch better with the clients giving them better feedback. He also hired more lower level managers to keep track of how far along everyone was with their projects so that customers could be contacted with details. In addition to customers receiving regular feedback emails every 24 to 48 hours, they got regular calls from Vikas and Angeli which involved a lot of enjoyable chit chat. These two socialite twins could talk knowledgeably and entertainingly about any topic under the sun, moon, and even topics regarding other planets such as the weather on Titan — that condensed methane rain is really something! He also hired higher level programmers to inspect the quality of coding and to clean up messy code. They had the squeakiest PHP code in all of India and foreign clients were very impressed.

Cardamom became the only company in the history of mankind to get work done on time, and correctly every time, and with a smile and some chatter. Soon Cardamom had more clients than it could handle. I guess you could say that Cardamom became too big for its pod! So, Pratip went that extra mile and started a second office in a resort town in India. His workers could enjoy a relaxed, ideal lifestyle while making a comfortable income. His clients could fly over, and take a vacation while having daily meetings with project managers while their work got done. The entire staff at Cardamom and their clients had loads of fun, and became the largest software company in all of India and the world.

Many years later, Cardamom decided to merge with another company called Cloves & Ginger. They moved to a tea plantation near Darjeeling. They had all of the ingredients of Chai, so they called their new company Chai Software — a software company so caffeinated that it never sleeps!

The End

This story is not real, but emphasizes how it is possible, and highly desirable for outsourcing companies to work a lot more on designing a wonderful customer experience. I get a soothing and calming experience whenever I go to a spa. Wouldn’t it be nice to get the same or even better experience when at an outsourcing company?

Outsource: A special economic zone for “Difficult Workers”

September 23, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Have you ever wondered why there is so much unemployment in the land of opportunity? Is it because of outsourcing, automation, or is it the economy? Is it because the government makes it hard to hire people without paying minimum wage, liability insurance, unemployment insurance, payroll taxes, accounting, etc? What a headache! No wonder people want to outsource to Manila!

But, there are other reasons why unemployment is so high in America! Difficult workers! Many managers simply don’t know how to deal with difficult workers or don’t have the patience! It also might not be economical for them to deal with these stubborn workers. What if there were special government programs that were specifically designed to help deal with challenging types in the work place? Better yet, what if there were a special economic zone where unemployed people could go where they were guaranteed a job! Not necessarily a job they would love, but at least food on the table! Additionally, these impossible humans would be given some specialized education that would help them conquer their bad habits from within!

Types of difficult workers

(1) The late type.
Some workers are just late wherever they go. Maybe they operate on Middle Eastern time. People are always late in the Middle East you know. Maybe these workers should just pack up and move to Egypt? My solution is to have companies that the government pays to hire ONLY workers who show up late. The entire company could be configured to pay these workers based on productivity and NOT based on when they showed up. Or better yet, in order to gently refine the habits of “The habitually unpunctual”, there could be incremental small penalties for tardiness. A few pennies per minute during their first several months on the program. As time went on, the penalties could slowly increase. It takes months and years to reform bad habits, so let’s give these people a chance in an environment that is engineered to understand them.

(2) The argumentative type
Don’t get me wrong. The argumentative types are often late, and then will argue with you about how it is YOU who are the late one, or how YOU never told them that they had to be there at a specific time. With these types, everything needs to be in writing, otherwise you will lose the argument. But, imagine a company who is forced by the government to ONLY hire argumentative types? It might not be a nice place to work — HEY, IT’S a GREAT PLACE TO WORK — be quiet — no YOU be quiet…. but, they would at least not be unemployed and taking up food stamps. Instead, the government would give the company who hires them extra money as a reward for hiring these difficult people, and money for training them to be a little less argumentative — even though they are not argumentative — even though it is YOU who are the argumentative one and problem need the argue-reduction training more than they do.

(3) The careless type
A zone for these people already exists. It is called India. The entire country caters to careless people. You can’t paint a house in Tamil Nadu without spattering paint all over the walk-ways and the leaves of the trees. Has anyone ever heard of a drop-cloth? If people are too careless to hire, they need help! Special companies could be set up and given some funding by the government if they would just hire these careless types and try to keep an eye on them. Maybe they can learn to not make quite so many blunders with a little guidance!

(4) The missing deadlines type
If you have work that is not time sensitive, you might be able to work with these types of people. Some people come to work on time, but they can’t get any actual finished products delivered on time. What can you do? Special companies would be created to give work specifically to people who miss deadlines. That describes 90% of Americans, so this special economic zone will be a place where you won’t be lonely for long!

(5) Liars and cheaters
Good god. This group is larger than you think. Good luck trying to work with them. Special companies that monitor their workers carefully would be set up to hire these people.

(6) The drama type
Do you know people who are always stimulating, creating, or nourishing dramas in the work place? There is always a problem, or a scare with this type. You have to have a degree in Psychiatry to know how to deal with them.

(7) The slacker type
There are people who come to work on time, but the minute you stop watching them, they slack off. Such people need to be paid by the job. If you pay them by the hour, pay them based on what their productivity was the last month. If they did almost nothing, then pay them almost nothing. Minimum wage makes it impossible to hire such people, so our economic zone will not have a minimum wage. If you are worth $1 per hour, then that is what you get paid!

(8) The not following directions type.
You need to keep an eye on these people 24/7. The minute you stop watching them, they are going off on a tangent. Special following directions exercises need to be given to them to keep them sharp. Following directions is a skill that many of us are not good at. Those who are worst at it need to be helped! Otherwise unemployment will be through the roof.

Jobs? What types of jobs could be given?
Any type of jobs. Just because someone is a difficult worker, doesn’t make them any less intelligent than anyone else. I know tons of very gifted people who are like pulling teeth to work with. They all have trouble holding jobs, but they are all excellent at all of the tasks I give them. So, what gives? Quality of work is only one analytic. Coming to work on time, and getting things done on time is another aspect of work. Manufacturing, programming, teaching, writing, office work, and car repair are examples of jobs that could be dispatched in this zone. Ideally, this Special Economic Zone would have every conceivable type of work, so that the maximum number of people could be helped!

The goals behind this zone would be:
(1) To give jobs to people who might be able to function under specialized supervision
(2) To help unemployed people fix the problems that are within them that cause them to be unemployed.
This would reduce unemployment and benefit society in many ways.

You might also like:

Special economic zone for insourcing in Oklahoma
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/09/04/a-special-economic-zone-idea-for-insourcing-in-oklahoma/

A free economic zone in America?
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/08/03/a-free-economic-zone-in-america/

Improper tagging habits have cost me thousands!

September 23, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Social Media | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

After four years, I came to a realization. Improper tagging habits have cost me thousands!

I have been involved in social media for four years. I hired an outside firm to help me with my Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, and other social media tasks. I do my own blogging, and enjoy it thoroughly. I do it myself because others can’t do it. Others can’t think of interesting ideas and write about them. Professional bloggers want to charge an arm and a leg, yet can’t deliver consistent good results. How sad!

After several years, I wanted to become smarter about social media, so I created my own twitter account that only I would have access to. I wanted to experiment with different types of tweets and see what worked. When I give tweets to the marketing firm that handles my Twitter, I have to give the tweets to them weeks before those tweets will be published. So, there is a huge delay in seeing what works, what doesn’t, and why! I typically will give them 80 tweets all at once labeled, “May 2014 Outsourcing Tweets” and arrange them by the day.” This system works well for the operators who input my tweets into the system. But, my personal Twitter lets me get results right away.

I can tweet the same four variations of the same tweet and see which one is most popular. I can also experiment with a variety of different tags and see which one helps the most! After four years of social media involvement, I am finally beginning to understand that my tagging strategy has been horrible. The reason why is that I never got immediate feedback from my experiments. Now, I’m able to get at least double the retweets, favorites, and interactions for each tweet simply due to my optimized tagging strategy.

I learned a lot about tags on Google. You can look up tags for specific industries, try them all out, and see which get you a better following. For the travel industry, the normal tags are #travel and #traveltip, but #ttot and #tbex, #lp, #nomnom for foodie topics, #traveltuesday and a few others worked well. You can look up tags yourself and find out what works. If you get retweeted from someone whofound you on a particular tag search result on Twitter, you might be able to maintain a presence there for a longer period of time, which could help you gain more followers!

One of my biggest problems with Twitter has nothing to do with Twitter. Two of my twitter accounts are in niche markets. The audience for my services are very small, especially since in those two markets, but followers don’t seem to like Twitter (not sure why.) The only way to get followers is to reach out into larger markets. I run an outsourcing twitter for example. There are very few active members in that industry on Twitter. But, by using more general business tags like #business, #marketing, #management, #motivation, etc., I am able to get seen, at least for a few minutes on keyword search results on Twitter, and that has gotten me a lot of retweets! Obviously, don’t use tags recklessly, the tag has to fit the tweet, otherwise you won’t get retweeted on the search results for that tag. But, experiment because you don’t know who is watching the search results.

There are internet “trolls” who sit and watch twitter search result feeds all day long. Some of them might like you and might retweet you regularly — it is a very personal thing. Even if your tweet doesn’t exactly match the tag, if the trolls hold you in high regard, they will retweet you. I sometimes tweet about travel topics and get retweeted by #foodie types. Food and travel are related topics that go together, but are not the same. People who travel typically like to enjoy some good street food, or an unusual gourmet restaurant. So, don’t prejudge – experiment with tags, and have your employees do the same. Make sure your employees document their results so you can see what type of results they are getting.

Outsourcing Attorneys using LPO Companies

September 23, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: LPO | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Outsourcing Attorneys & LPO Companies
 
Legal costs in the United States are high enough to make a grown man cry.   I need to talk to an attorney in Los Angeles, and costs were around $350 per hour and up.  Just to have them give me a quick consultation and write a letter would be $750 and up.  I learned that attorneys were cheaper in Texas at around $200 per hour, and I outsourced work to Texas for some corporate minutes paperwork a few years ago. 
 
Many aspects of legal work are just going to be expensive, and can not be outsourced to an LPO company in India.  Many American clients are unwilling to have inexperienced attorneys do any of their work, which drives the price up even more.  But for a very affordable price, you can hire law firms in Delhi or Bangalore to do document reviews, litigation support, document drafting, legal research, and many other labor intensive tasks. 
 
Another advantage of Legal Process Outsourcing is that you can hire a team in India instead of an individual in the USA.  You can get multiple opinions, and several people could be looking for evidence in a huge pile of paperwork that are working all at once.  The time necessary to get a result might be much faster and cheaper this way.
 
Many LPO companies in India are hiring experienced American attorneys to work for them, so you might be getting very seasoned service from India which you might not be expecting.    If you can’t afford your legal expenses in America, consider hiring a company in Delhi or at least getting to know them a little bit

Looking for Call Center Companies Online Is Not Easy

September 23, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Call Center | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

The need for good directories is no joke. I run several online directories. I see how other directories often have outdated information, dead links, and incomplete information. It is hard to have all of your listings be dynamic, but at least the ones near the top of the list should have some redeeming features. At any rate, to boost the level of content on my directories, I venture out into the world of google to see if I can find new companies in the categories that I cover. For the last few days, I hae been trying to find call centers (call centres) in various Latin American countries. I tried to find BPO, KPO, LPO, Medical Transcription, and other types of outsourcing companies too. What I found, was not what I was expecting.

The search results on google seem to focus on news, blogs, job offerings, and just about everything EXCEPT what I was looking for. I wanted to find sites for companies who actually wanted to provide services. The next sad reality I learned was that the companies that I did find, were often huge international companies that were not exclusive to the country I was looking for. These companies typically specialized in … well … just about everything in the outsourcing world. It was not uncommon to see a MNC have thirty or so specialties ranging from call center, to business analysis, data conversion, medical transcription, and much more! The next type of information I found was company web sites that made it impossible to find contact information for them. It is a cultural trait in Latin America to make it a challenge to contact them. It’s more fun to make your prospective clients have a hard time reaching you. To me it’s madness, but in Eastern Europe, and much of Latin America, it is a business strategy to effectively hide from your clients so they have no way of knowing where you are or how to reach you. Site’s typically have no email address, no phone number, and an impersonal contact form. Contact forms are actually helpful. Clients have a tendency to ramble, and beat around the bush instead of telling you what you need to know to help them. Contact forms herd them in a channel just like you would herd cattle, hence forcing them to tell you all of the pertinent information you need to know. On 123outsource.net, the email field is a required field, so I can not create a listing for someone without an email. So, I have to guess the email. I’ll guess info@nameofsite.com for example. I hope I’m correct. A directory that doesn’t list email addresses is a sad state of affairs. The saddest thing I saw was a brand new contact center in Panama who’s contact us page said, “coming soon”. I guess they were not so serious about doing business. Everywhere I looked there was my blog, other people’s blogs, and other “less-than-helpful” information. I kept reading that call centers were sprouting up like weeds in central america, but try finding them on google. They seem to not exist. Once in a while, one of them will contact us to get listed, but I think we already have all of the good ones!

Outsourcers lose 80% of their prospects due to BAD communications

September 23, 2010 by 123outsource
Categories: Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

This is just an estimate, but my experience leads me to guestimate that the average outsourcing company in India loses about 80% of their prospective clients due to not being READY when those prospects call or email. Most emails get ignored, and calls are either not answered, or are answered by someone too busy to talk, or too incompetent to answer questions.

Companies in America are better in this respect. They will have an uneducated receptionist answer the call and tak a message and MAYBE if you are lucky the manager will call you back when they are ready which is generally a time when YOU are no longer ready to talk to them. I will estimate that Americans lose 70% of their prospects by not getting back to people.

Do you keep track of how many calls your company gets and how many you miss? Do you assume that these people will call you back? If they have been refered to you or know you they might call back. But, if they are just “calling around”, then they will most likely not call back unless you have a web site that is so impressive that they feel that you are “the one”.

Can you put a dollar value or rupee value on the lost business that you incur through neglegence? What is it worth to you? Is it worth training someone who can answer a few questions? Or, are you simply too busy? Your company might be able to go from having 5 employees to 50 in a few years if you simply master the art of not missing calls from prospects, and other aspects of marketing.

Once you have mastered the art of not missing calls, then you can move on to mastering having an amazing website and networking skills.

Good luck! Oh, and by the way, I’m still waiting for you to call me back (hint-hint)….. (sometime in 2013 preferably — no rush, its not like I’m in a hurry).

Having a pronouncable name rather than a fake name

September 23, 2010 by admin
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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
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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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