Tag Archives: bpo

Working the night shift at BPO’s damages your body!

June 30, 2017 by 123outsource
Categories: Uncategorized | Tagged | Leave a comment

It has been found that people who work the night shift at a BPO or call center experience health issues in the long run. Cardiovascular problems, obesity, type 2 diabetes are common. Damage to the worker’s social life are also common as agents work long hours under severe stress and at the wrong time of their 24 hour cycle.

Some people doing this grueling work prefer to work rather than make friends. It is also common for people to make friends on the job with others who have the same inhuman lifestyle. Inappropriate relationships between managers and customer service representatives are common. At call centers lesbian relationships are common, and a high percentage of the staff are normally transgender at least in the Philippines. Rampant parties, loose sexual behavior and drinking are also common. I read that at Accenture, one worker reported that you get ostracized if you don’t come to their work gatherings / parties.

It seems that once you become a night shift BPO worker, you enter the realm of a dual society. A society apart from main society. A new society where drinking, fried chicken, stress, partying, and sleeping around are normal. This is the case in Delhi as well as Manila which are places very far from each other with different religions, languages and cultures — yet, the same exact maladies happen! So, if you join the ranks of a night BPO worker, prepare to have a lot of new friends who share your plight and lose your family and old friends. My only question is — is there a way around this insanity and — is it worth it?

BPO Directory — find BPO companies with us!

February 16, 2017 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Do you need to find a BPO company to outsource some back office tasks to? You’ve come to the right place. 123outsource.net has 800 highly qualified BPO companies all around the world. We used to have over 4000 companies, but we filtered out the lower quality companies and kept only the absolute best companies. We have BPO, KPO, and LPO companies in India, The Philippines, Central America, Eastern Europe, and many other places.

We update the information in our BPO directory every month, so you are assured to find highly accurate and useful information whenever you do a search! 123outsource.net gets abgout 30,000 visitors per month. Your company is welcomed to join us and create a profile. Just visit our sign up page! The link to sign up is on the left of the home page in red!

What hard or soft-skills do BPO workers learn on the job?

February 4, 2017 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO | Tagged | Leave a comment

In India in the old days it was hard to find a job. Socialism made it impossible to fire people, and also impossible to get a job. If socialism makes life impossible for everyone, then what is the point of it?

But, now in India, The Philippines and other places, it is easy to get a job in the BPO sector if you have passable English. Young people can get a job right away, but they don’t only get paid, they also learn skills.

People reported learning all types of skills working in the BPO industry such as MS Work & Excel, database knowledge, keyboard shortcuts, spreadsheet, as well as solving technical and internet problems and programming languages for those in a more technical capacity.

But, also learned softer skills such as communication skills, customer service, multi-tasking, and more.

The skills learned made employees more desireable for future employment which seems to be a huge long-term perk. Many recent college graduates surveyed commented that working at a BPO was a good first job. On the other hand, it might be nicer for clients of BPO companies if the workers had a little more experience and were a little older!

Tweets:
Working at a BPO is a good first job and the work experience can be a credential for a future job.

Do people leave their BPO job for personal reasons or career reasons?

January 26, 2017 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO | Tagged , | Leave a comment

I am a career oriented person. I have been in the same line of work for close to two decades. To me, career thinking is the only way that makes sense. Otherwise you won’t have a career, a position in life, money or respect. However, others just jump from job to job without any sense of commitment or meaning. I can’t stand that behavior. What is worse, the logic behind people’s decisions leaving jobs also doesn’t make much sense.

Ladies often quit their job when they have a new boyfriend, fiance, husband, a baby, move, or change the way they feel about the job. If you are having a baby, that is a real reason to quit. But, in this modern age to quit your job because of a man doesn’t make sense. Women have equal rights yet do not want to provide equal income!

Then there are the personality conflicts responsible for job change. Either the boss is mean, or the employee is disrespectful to the boss and gets fired. There are also the disengaged workers, and I blame their disengagement for a disinterest in life in general as well as a boss who doesn’t work closely enough with them. Then there are people who have conflicts of interest. One wants to do a job one way while the other wants to do the opposite. Splitting up is inevitable.

Finally there are the job hoppers who are always looking for a better opportunity. If another company has a nicer recreation room, prettier secretaries, or offers 5% better pay, you can expect a job hopper to hop faster than a bunny rabbit.

So, how do you hire people who are going to stick around? After all, it is expensive having people leave a project in the middle, right? I would pay people more if their fact-checked resume indicates that they stuck at the same job for an average of at least four years. That shows commitment — and you can’t make it in any career with any skill level without a good sense of commitment.

How to Ubersize your BPO Outsourcing Company

December 4, 2016 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Most BPO companies out there thrive on being average. The people answering the phone just can’t communicate. The people doing the work are mediocre with nobody checking on them. In short, it’s a big mess. The secret to fast growth in the BPO industry seems to be finding an elastic workforce that you can check the quality of on a regular basis. If everyone just works in the same office, you can watch them easily, but you can’t expand or contract your business with any type of ease.

To Ubersize your BPO means you have more freelancers working for you. They could work from home, on call, and with no commitment either way. Developing a large pool of resources for getting work done can make your life very flexible. You have to keep records on how good their work is on various assignments so you can figure out who you are going to select for future assignments.

Or, you could automated your whole enterprise and have customers work directly with your help through a web portal. That works well for freelancing sites, but is not necessarily recommended for medium sized BPO outfits. The bottom line is developing a sustainable and efficient business model that works for you!

Another interesting Uber-Type business model is to have clients input their assignment in a portal, have a manager inspect it, and have your remote helpers grab the assignment. A manager would have to review the subcontractors who grabbed the assignment to see if they are qualified or desired for the job. But, this type of automation allows work to get done more quickly. In real life, most programmers and outsourced workers are busy, or don’t want to bother. Having a system where the one who jumps first gets the job ensures a higher level of motivation. Whether they finish on time is another story, but at least they’ll start on time which is half the battle.

BPO companies in India

October 2, 2016 by 123outsource
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There are many BPO companies in India. New ones seem to sprout up like weeds. Unfortunately the quality of some of these BPO companies in India is not the best. However, on 123outsource.net, we have a variety of methodologies to identify companies that are a lot better than average.

Find a BPO on 123outsource.net!
If you do a search on 123outsource.net for BPO companies in India, you will find some of the better BPO companies. This doesn’t guarantee that they will be excellent, but for every company you find on our outsourcing directory, we have weeded out dozens. For better results, just check the regular search results page for worldwide BPO or Call Center. That way you can find the best companies in the world instead of limiting yourself to India.

What specialties do we recommend looking in India for?
Data Entry is cheap in India with rates starting around US $1.80 per hour. There are also decent medical transcription, billing and technical support companies in India. Web Design and programming services in India are also not bad. The key is to find the right company and not rely on generalizations about how good you think companies are in a particular country.

What outsourcing work should you avoid India for?
For inbound call center we recommend the Philippines or Central America. For lead generation, India has more aggressive callers while the Filipinos are smoother on the phone. For ERP programming, Russia has some huge and well reputed companies.

It is hard to say who you should hire in the long run, but our outsourcing directory 123outsource.net takes a lot of the work out of the process as we have eliminated most of the bad companies from our list and moved the mediocre ones to the bottom of the list. Those BPO companies in India or elsewhere in the world at the top of the list are the best quality that is currently available. So, if you don’t like them, you’ll have to hire your own in-house staff and figure it out yourself!

What are your BPO rates? Does it vary with experience?

August 30, 2016 by 123outsource
Categories: Marketing | Tagged | Leave a comment

When I ask a company for their rates, I don’t like evasive answers, and I don’t like simplified answers. I want a breakdown that gives me three to five types of answers. More than that would be a headache, and less than that would be oversimplified. Let’s say I’m looking for a .Net programmer. Here are some sample conversations.

(1) Thorough
ME: Hi, I’m in the market for a .Net programmer. What are your rates?

REP: We charge $20 for junior programmers, $22 with 3-5 years experience, and $25 if they have six or more years.

(2) Oversimplified
ME: Hi, I’m in the market for a .Net programmer. What are your rates?

REP: $20 per hour

(3) Evasive (Headache)
ME: Hi, I’m in the market for a .Net programmer. What are your rates?

REP: It depends. What type of programmer are you looking for, how long is the project, what is the nature of the project?

(4) Too Much Information
ME: Hi, I’m in the market for a .Net programmer. What are your rates?

REP: We charge $20 for junior programmers, but give 10% off if you book more then 100 hours, and then $22 for those with 3-5 years experience and we sometimes have a project manager available who has 12 years experience, but he is not always available and we can only guarantee rates if you sign a contract. We are also having a special this month where we will do a sample job for $18 per hour and if it is to your satisfaction, you have the right to continue with a new contract for the next month and that would have an option for six months, etc., etc., non-stop talking.

ME: STOPPPPPPPP….. You talk non-stop when you don’t even know what I want.

(5) Sensible Dialogue
ME: Hi, I’m in the market for a .Net programmer. What are your rates?

REP: What level of experience and expertise would you like?

ME: I’d like someone with 6 years experience.

REP: Well, we have someone with 8 years of experience who can work for $24.50 per hour US dollars.

(6) Paranoid Dialogue
ME: Hi, I’m in the market for a .Net programmer. What are your rates?

REP: Oh… well. Umm…. I hope this is not too much. (pause) We charge $18.50 per hour. Oh no, you won’t like that price because it’s too much. But, I assure you that our programmer is very good, and I personally watch over him.

ME: The price is not bad. I care more about the quality of the service than the price.

As you can see, there are many ways that sales reps interact with clients. If you were a client, which rep would you prefer? I prefer #1 and #5 because they give me the pertinent information without any grief. Try to think from the perspective of clients, and you’ll win over more of them!

What is a BPO and what do such companies specialize in?

August 16, 2016 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

A BPO is a business process outsourcing company. The term is popular in India, but is gaining popularity around the world. It is expensive and time consuming to do your own back office work. So, it is popular to hire virtual assistants and outsourcing companies overseas to do particular repetetive tasks at a low price. Please be aware that there is RPO which is recruitment process outsourcing, KPO which is highly specialized knowledge process outsourcing which normally includes research, accounting or programming. LPO work is legal process outsourcing. But, in a general sense, all of those other acronyms fall into the BPO category.

There are various general categories of BPO work.
Call Center, Data Entry, Programming, Web Design, Medical Transcription, Accounting, and Content Writing are some of the most popular BPO tasks to outsource. Recently, social media outsourcing has been on the rise as well. There are various subcategories of call center work including appointment setting, order taking, chat support, inbound, outbound, lead generation, sales, and technical support.

Then, there is more general back office work that is harder to categorize. Some companies offer marketing and loyalty programs, content management, digital marketing, online publishing, payment processing, proofreading, data transcription, engineering, eCommerce set up, translation, web research, mobile applications, and the list goes on.

In fact, there are so many types of BPO tasks, that 123outsource.net divided the tasks into 28 specialties to keep them all straight. The most popular by far is our general call center search results as well as BPO and data entry.

We welcome you to browse 123outsource.net to see what companies are out there. We verify our search results every few months, so the information should be up to date 97% of the time! Good luck!

BPO & Call Center categories doing well on 123outsource

July 12, 2016 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO | Tagged , | Leave a comment

123outsource has been online for about eight years now. We slowly added to the site and slowly refined it. We are continuing to do quality control by removing defunct listings and interacting with all companies listed to feel them out to see who sounds better. We will additionally be interviewing the workers at some of the call centers and hiring a few on test projects to see how cooperative and good they are.

The BPO and Call Center pages on 123outsource.net are doing much better than the other categories and also receive more attention from those who spend advertising money with us. As a result, we have increased our budget for what we pay on Google Adwords to attract more visits from the United States in those respective categories.

As time goes on we will continue to gain sophistication in our methods for refining our search results and increase our advertising budget so we can dominate search for call centers throughout the world. Wish us luck and feel free to advertise on 123outsource.net!

Here is a list of stupid things BPO companies do to look for clients

July 6, 2016 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO | Tagged , | Leave a comment

It is unbelievable how incompetent some people at overseas BPO companies can be. The emails, the online requests, the forum entries requesting genuine processes, it just doesn’t end. So, I decided to compile a list of dumb things people do to market their BPO services.

1. Commenting on Blogs
When you comment on someone’s blog entry, that can gain positive attention if you leave a URL to follow. The problem is, that 99% of the comments I get on my blog are desperate and illiterate people begging for processes. I get requests like, “Dear sir, I am desperate, please give me process.” I get, “I have a 25 seater and require a process.” Don’t they get it that I don’t give people processes? I run a directory. When I ask them to pay a small fee to get listed where hundreds of thousands of people will see them — they ignore me. Instead, they spam my blog and just get erased. Idiots!

2. Filling out the “I want to use this company” form.
On 123outsource.net there is a button you can click if you intend to use a particular company. We use it for tracking. Unfortunately, most people who use that form are so stupid they leave their resume. The form is for people GIVING a job, not for people who are BEGGING for a job. Instead of begging for work, it might make sense to get more schooling so you might have more to offer. That way people would be begging you to work for them instead of the other way around.

3. Sending clueless emails
“Dear sir, I am responding to you about the process.” There is no process, and never was. First of all, if you are emailing me, learn who I am and what I do. I run a directory. You can ask me if you want to be listed –that’s it. If you have no experience or knowledge, don’t ask me about starting a BPO because you will fail. It takes management experience to run a BPO — something you don’t have! If people sent an email saying that they offer such and such a service, and please respond if you are interested that would be better. The best type of correspondence is to know who you are talking to and ask them if they have any software or call center needs. Information gathering and small talk are the best ways to start a business relationship.

4. Hiring agents
If you hire an agent to help you get genuine processes, they usually require money up front which you will never see again. Pay only once you get a lead unless you know the company has a good reputation. There are lots of con men out there, so don’t get duped.

All about the BPO Industry

June 22, 2016 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The BPO industry is an industry with many different types of BPO companies in different countries doing various types of tasks. There is no normal in business process outsourcing.

BPO Projects
Many BPO companies are in a constant state of desperately looking for projects. The companies looking for work are usually the ones you don’t want to hire as they often lack language and communication skills. In my experience, if you write broken English, your work will probably be broken too which is why nobody will hire you. But, there are literate BPO companies out there looking for BPO projects too. They advertise on the web, send customized emails, and are pleasant to talk to on the phone.

Genuine Processes
Indians like to use the word “genuine process.” I’m not sure why they use this term. Are people normally offering them non-genuine processes? BPO work or BPO jobs should be genuine by definition and the nature of the work needs to be researched. Without a contract, the vendor is not protected from customers who are playing games.

Indian BPO Company / India BPO Companies
Many people in India want to work for a multinational company. The smaller Indian BPO companies have trouble retaining workers once the workers have four or five years of experience under their belt. If you work for an Indian BPO company, if you stick around and are any good, you might be promoted to manager after a few years. Do you want to be a big fish in a small India BPO company, or a small fish in a big pond at Oracle or Infosys? The India BPO scene seems to never be boring as new companies are sprouting up like weeds. However, every company I call has horrible phone skills and sloppy work skills. If India BPO companies would just clean up their act, they could gain so much market share it would be unbelievable!

Medical Transcription
Medical transcription companies in the US often hire companies in the Philippines or in India to do their work during the night. When Americans return to work in the morning, the work is done (hopefully). Accuracy rates are well documented in this industry, so there is no room for shoddy workmanship otherwise your BPO will go under quickly.

Software Development
The software BPO industry is a much more disturbing one as there are no definitive standards for the quality or speed of work. Hopefully, someone will set the score straight and create a blue book for costs of particular programming tasks of which there are zillions of.

How to start a BPO company?
If you want to start a BPO company in India or elsewhere we recommend working in management for someone elses for many years so you become an expert. Owning a business from the business angle is hard, but without basic skills you would learn managing someone else’s BPO, you don’t have a chance. Create a solid foundation for yourself before attempting the impossible.

20 Seat BPO
Many people want to start their 20 seat BPO by renting an office. Without customers, or at least without steady customers, your business will not last. Start off with one seat, and then work your way up, getting to know your workers, customers, and processes well until you develop a very steady base to build on. A 20 seat BPO is 19 seats too many when you are just starting out. It is better to rent a seat or two in a big call center that has empty seats, or share an office with someone.

You might also like:

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

18 ways to boost your social media marketing in 10 minutes a day
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2015/05/05/18-ways-to-boost-your-social-media-marketing-in-10-minutes-day/

Developing your hiring intuition
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2016/06/14/developing-your-hiring-intuition/

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Outsourcing

June 12, 2016 by 123outsource
Categories: Keyword, Outsourcing Articles | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

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DEFINITION OF OUTSOURCING
Outsourcing is a business practice where a particular company will hire someone who does not work for their company such as another company or a freelancer to do particular tasks for them. Typically, tasks outsourced will be highly repetitive or specialized tasks such as calling long lists of names with a particular call script, accounting, programming, data entry, technical support, payment processing, or some other specialized task.

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REASONS FOR OUTSOURCING
The reason companies outsource work to other companies are multi-fold. One reason could be to:

Save Time — so that employees and management can focus more on the core competencies of the company such as selling widgets while outsourcing bookeeping and reminder calls to companies who specialize in those particular tasks. Another reason could be:

Cost Cutting — Many outsource companies are located in India, The Philippines, or Eastern Europe where labor costs are lower than the United States, hence, creating an opportunity to capitalize on less expensive labor.

Skill Optimization — is yet another reason to outsource work as outsourced companies specialize in particular tasks such as blog set up, eCommerce site creation or XML conversion while your company specializes in widgets.

Eliminating Uneven Schedules — if you have a job to be done that will take only 10-15 hours a week on some weeks and more or less hours on other weeks, hiring a full-time or even part-time employee is a commitment that you will have trouble keeping. If that employee quits in the middle of a project, you’ll have another problem. It might be easier to outsource the project to a company who specializes in that task and has dozens of people who know exactly how to do it rather than hire your own staff.

Reducing Hiring — hiring and firing is expensive and is an art form that you might not have time to master. If you have a particular job that people are always quitting every two months, it might be easier to have the job outsourced to Manila where they have full-time HR managers to handle the hiring and firing for you! That way you can focus on widgets instead of dealing with people who quit on a whim leaving you high and dry. The outsourced company you hire will have plenty of backups all in the same specialty when the employee assigned to you quits.

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TYPES OF OUTSOURCING ARRANGEMENTS

Freelancers — Some companies hire freelancers which is a type of outsourcing.

Fixed Schedule — Others hire another company for a particular schedule with a contract which extends for a particular number of months or years such as 40 hours a week for two years.

Employee Leasing — Some companies hire a team of workers from an agency which is sometimes called “employee leasing.” Other companies pay for results in specialties like lead generation rather than paying for particular hours of work.

Assignment Based — Programming or software development outsourcing often has a company pay for a completed product or for a particular number of hours to do a particular job although there is very rarely a deadline.

On Call — Some outsourcing is on an on call basis. Programmers might be hire to fix code only when it breaks or to do programming work as needed. Call centers might have a small assignment from time to time only when needed.

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CATEGORIZATIONS OF OUTSOURCING JOBS
Outsourcing jobs are sometimes categorized using particular terms such as:

ITES — Information Technology Enabled Services which could include data entry using computers, web design, technical support, or other tasks which involve technology to facilitate the task in some type of a way.

KPO — Knowledge Process Outsourcing is also a bype of Business Process Outsourcing that includes tasks that require a higher level of education, knowledge or skills such as Accounting, Software Development, Research, etc.

LPO — Legal Process Outsourcing focuses primarily on legal research, patent research, contract drafting and legal support services, but rarely involves actually going to court.

RPO — Research Process Outsourcing or Recruitment Process Outsourcing. Research outsourcing is popular in Bangalore, India as there are many companies that offer market research, web research, and Pharmaceutical research. RPO could also be a form of human resources outsourcing where an outside company will help you find employees or leased agents. This is by far the least popular form of international outsourcing as there are few providers who offer overseas assistance with recruitment.

HRO — Human Resources Outsourcing as mentioned above is the least popular form of international outsourcing as there are very few overseas companies who offer competent service in this industry. However, there are a few companies in India and the Philippines that allow you to lease call center agents and programmers at low rates. However, the quality of such help is dubious and not guaranteed in any way by the provider company.

MBPO — Medical Business Process Outsourcing includes outsourcing of Medical Billing, coding and Medical Transcription. Quality standards and billing in these fields is a lot more uniform than in other BPO tasks as companies can charge a percentage in Medical Billing and can offer rates per number of characters or words (or lines) in Medical Transcriptions. Quality standards are also easy to measure as there are international standards for Medical Billing and Medical Transcription. You can measure errors as a percentage rate. If a company makes more than a particular fraction of a percent of errors, they generally go out of business or get fired.

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TYPES OF OUTSOURCING JOBS
Commonly outsourced jobs might include: Accounting, Bookkeeping, Call Center, Data Entry, ePublishing, Legal Research, Market Research, Medical Billing, Medical Transcriptions, Social Media, Software Development, and Web Design. However, there are many specialties in most of these types of outsourcing jobs.

Accounting Specialties — Bookkeeping, Tax Preparation, Payroll, Bank Reconcilliation

Call Center Specialties — Appointment Setting, Chat Support, Collections, Customer Help Desk, Data Verification, Email Support, Inbound Customer Care, Lead Generation, Order Taking, Outbound, Survey Taking, Technical Support, Telemarketing, Ticket Sales,

Data Entry Specialties — Data Capture, Data Cleansing, Data Conversion, Data Entry, Data Mining, Data Processing, Data Quality, Data Security, Data Transcription, eCommerce Data Entry, Forms Filling, Forms Processing, Image Processing, Product Data Entry, Scanning, etc. Data Conversion includes XML, SGML, HTML5 conversion, PDF or JPG conversion, and conversion from one language or format to another.

Social Media tasks might include article writing, proofreading, posting on Facebook, managing a Twitter account, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, or any of the other common social media platforms. Most companies specialize in several social media platforms, but cannot provide service for ones they are not familiar with or don’t have sufficient staff for.

Software Development Specialties — Blog Set up, eCommerce Set up, Software Testing, Web Design, Employee Leasing, etc.

Common software languages include: C, C#, C++, ERP, J2ME, Java, jQuery, LAMP, MySQL, .Net, OpenSource, PHP, Ruby on Rails, SAP, SQL, XML, and more.

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You might also like:

Wikepedia’s article on — outsourcing

Investopedia’s article on — outsourcing

Entrepreneur’s article on — outsourcing

See our informational page on the term — outsourced.

See 123outsource’s compilation on best articles about outsourcing.
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2016/04/02/compilation-of-best-outsourcing-articles/

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

Six problems that only individuals working in a BPO industry would understand.
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2015/06/15/six-problems-that-only-individuals-working-in-a-bpo-industry-would-understand/

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