Tag Archives: bpo

Six Problems That Only Individuals Working In A BPO Industry Would Understand

June 15, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO, Call Center, India, Popular Posts | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Six Problems That Only Individuals Working In A BPO Industry Would Understand
Anyone who has been working in a call centre, or has already worked there knows that there is no other psychological trauma quite like it, say for example hooked up on a phone call that would never end for the majority of your life, and is been subjected to the worst kinds of humanity.

Time is everything in a BPO Industry. We come across situations where you would have military walking in, your breaks being monitored, strict call length control, monitoring toilet breaks, etc. with each and everything being controlled and monitored. Welcome to the world of robots. Given below are some of the trials and tribulations one would have been experiencing in a call centre and lucky are the ones who escaped from it.

Being shouted at the entire day: You know what could make your clients angry for the things you are about to say. And things like it would take two weeks, or you do not have an account with us, or I would have to transfer your call, or my boiler has not been working and it’s definitely your fault. These are things that would sound like a red rag to a bull. So if you are lucky enough you would be getting a response like this I know it’s not your fault but before things go worse….and is something that’s unlikely to happen.

Being asked to work overtime: Each and every one of us have been doing this. We would have to work overtime in order to pull the given targets. We cannot let our customers down and would require someone who could answer their calls.

Taking up calls that you cannot deal with:These kind of things continue to happen a lot in the BPO Industry and is something that is never funny. Weeping people come forward and tell you their story whereas screaming customers would claim that they are going to come commit suicide with sexually inappropriate comments. And when such things happen you would here need to remember that you would have to wrap up the calls in 2 minutes or else would be fired.

Having to come up at 8.30 and starting your computer: You have been told that you need to be at your desk by sharp 8:30 am and it’s already 9.30. And it’s obvious that certain programme that you would need at your job would take half an hour of time to load. And off course you would not be paid for your extra half an hour then why would you choose to work for an extra hour.

Not wanting to be a part of clients call during day off: Do not try of contacting your customer success team during weekends, it would never ever happen. So try and use whats up, gmail, Viber, and Facebook instead.

Getting Back Home and Noticing That Your Friends Have Been On Facebook The Entire Day: Most of the times we come across situations where we did not have much work to do. And you could just read articles online with a limited access to internet like the fact of the day been written by your manager and your weekly column where your CEO would be describing the holiday he would be going on.
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

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How to start an outsourcing company
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If you invested in training your BPO employees, what skills would you teach them?
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An Indian BPO company learns Japanese culture to boost teamwork

April 1, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

It was a tough afternoon for Santosh, a manager for a popular BPO company in Noida. He was sick and tired of the lack of loyalty of his employees. He was fed up with the status consciousness of his staff. And lastly, he was at his breaking point with the sloppiness of some of the workers. Santosh knew that if India was ever going to get ahead, a cultural shift would have to happen. Since childhood, Santosh had always had a love of the the cultures of the East. His family took him to Japan as a child, and his love affair with Japan never ended. He knew what he had to do. He had to Japanize his company. But how? And would his staff be agreeable to the change?

The New Company Culture
Santosh started by creating some new company practices as an effort to remold the company culture. The workers started the day by doing jumping jacks and then singing the company song. Nobody liked this, but they did it. This is how Japanese workers start their day, so this is how Santosh’s BPO would start theirs. Group activities are an essential framework of the Japanese culture as theirs is a society of ants. They function as a whole society and not as individuals. They are loyal to groups, and not to their personal needs. In the entire world, it is really only Japan, Korea, and to some extent Vietnam who are so group focused. The American culture is individually focused while India and many other nations revolve around family. But, family culture will not get India ahead. Santosh had a plan.

Group Activities
Stage two of Santosh’s plan was to have group activities. The workforce would go hiking together. A few said they didn’t feel like it and another girl refused on the account that she didn’t want to get her shoes dirty. Santosh insisted that people would have to put aside their individual preferences if they were going to function as a group. If they didn’t like hiking, they could come up with some other physical activity to promote health and group consciousness.

Sushi
Next it was time for sushi. You can’t have Japanese culture without sushi. Sushi has raw fish. If you eat raw fish in India, you will undoubtedly get dyssentery and be in the hospital. So, what can you do? They tried making sushi with nori seaweed paper that they flew in from Singapore. They got cauliflower and sticky rice. That didn’t taste good. Then they tried cook fish, but half the staff refused to eat it because they were pure-veg. What to do? After about twelve experiments, Sujata decided to try tempura sushi which is popular in California. The group loved it. It was fried, unhealthy, and tasted great! Sushi didn’t quite gel with the group. So, they decided to try something more Indian.

Mini-samosas!
They would have green tea, and mini samosas eaten with chopsticks. Sujata fumbled with her chopsticks. She couldn’t hold them right. She looked at the chopsticks, then looked at Santosh, then stared blankly into space looking confused. Then, Santosh explained that you hold one of the sticks like a pencil and the other jammed between the side of your thumb and your ring finger. Sure using chopsticks won’t come natually to non-Asians, but what better way to get into the mentality of the Japanese culture and teamwork?

Bowing
Next, Santosh introduced the idea of bowing. It is hard to get Indians to eat meat or fish if they are from a non-meat eating caste. Hiking doesn’t match the sedentary lifestyle enjoyed by most Indians either. But, bowing shouldn’t be too much of a problem. When anyone entered a room, they had to bow. Unfortunately Veena forgot to bow.

SANTOSH: You forgot to bow!

VEENA: Oh, sorry sorry sorry! I’ll bow three times to make up for it.

Samurai Culture
Next, everyone watched a movie on samurai culture. Santosh said that if anyone made a mistake, they would have to kill themselves with a sword. It would be fake, and with fake blood, but what better way to condition yourself into being careful about your work as if your life depended on it? After a few weeks of this Sujata had had enough. She complained to Santosh that they were not Japanese, and that they were Indian. It was unnatural to adjust to this foreign culture. They didn’t even know anyone from Japan and they didn’t have any Japanese customers either.

Doug’s visit to India
A year ago Santosh had hired a hippy guy named Doug to teach them about American cultural norms. Sujata reacted better to Doug as he was easy going and didn’t give them a hard time. Doug’s philosophy was, “Do whatever you want to — man.” Sujata and the others we okay with Doug until Sujata told Doug how Aunty wanted to force her to marry Dinesh, and she didn’t want to. Doug said, “Well if she likes Dinesh so much, why doesn’t she marry him herself?” Then Sujata replied, “In India, we cannot talk about our elders that way. It just doesn’t work like that.” The problem was that Santosh’s staff could not break out of their rigid Indian ideas and adjust to other cultures. Sure, they could accept certain things about other cultures, but not things that conflicted with the values of the homeland. How would their team succeed with all of this rigidity?

A few momths later, Sujata complained bitterly to Santosh…

SUJATA: How can I be in the same team as Prateep? First of all, I am much more highly skilled than he is, and second, I have seniority! I have been here 104 days — well, 104.5 days if you include orientation, and he has only been here 43 days.

SANTOSH: In life there are no exact fits and no exact equals. For us to succeed as a company, we are forced to either work together, or leave the company. Since I own the company, I have no choice. I have to stay. When you get married to Dinesh, you’ll have similar problems. He’ll want to do one thing and you’ll want to do another. You’ll have to compromise and get along somehow or your marriage will be a wreck. We can’t survive as a company without teamwork and India will never become a first rate country without a general improvement in corporate standards. It is up to us!

VIPOOL: You wanted to see me?

SANTOSH: Yes, at our company, we treat our employees like family. When they have done something wrong, instead of firing them, we send them to their room. You made a data entry error yesterday. I hereby order you to what Japanese call, “The boring room.” You are to commit hara-kiri, the ritual Samurai stomach cutting act with this fake sword. Fake blood is in the refrigerator. Try to make some convincing facial expressions and sound effects. Oh, and one more thing.

VIPOOL: Yes?

SANTOSH: Don’t forget to bow — very important.

VIPOOL :Yes sir… I mean, “Hai… gozai-masu Sensai” (Japanese translation of yes teacher)

Summary
After a year of Japanese culture, the employees still didn’t like it — well, except for the green tea ice cream and mini-samosas. But, their sense of teamwork got better. Many cultures as so individualistic, that it is hard for them to put their personal concerns aside and think about teamwork. But, what people fail to realize is that if everyone else is teaming up with you, teamwork just happens. If your team expects you to contribute, but treats you like an unappreciated member, the team culture won’t last.

If Google ran a BPO Call Center, what would they do differently?

March 30, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

There are tons of BPO companies out there. Some better than others. Some try to please, while others enjoy the most backwards of standards. But, how many BPO or Call Center Outsourcing companies bother to ask themselves how Google would run their company?

The typical BPO boss is concerned with metrics and numbers. So is Google as they are in charge of creating highly effective search algorithms. But, Google’s approach to human beings goes beyond metrics. They incorporate human engagement and fun into the equation. Can you create an algorithm for how much is the right amount of fun? Google kind of understands this concept as much as anyone can.

What would Google do?
I cannot speak for Google, and they would probably evolve into doing something different by the time you read this article in any case even if I did know what they would do. But, here is my guess.

(1) First of all, Google would probably give your BPO a cooler name. Instead of H&K outsourcing Pvt. Ltd. You would be Kahooka Labor Sourcing.
(2) Next, you would probably have a badminton court in the middle of your office, next to the exit that leads to the manmade lake where you have inflatable boat races. But, we can talk about that on your way to the lounge where you can make small talk with people in different departments and your higher ups. In India, you have to kiss the shoes of your higher ups, but in Google, you can be buddy buddy with them.

(3) Don’t forget that you would have group nature activies from time to time and perhaps a few competitions to see who can do something the best in the office.

(4) I very much doubt that Google would have employees working at tiny cramped work stations the way they do in India. Sure rent is expensive, but cramped doesn’t bring out the genious in people. Google might be tempted to move the entire office to the countryside, give everyone free lodging (I’m guessing) and have a really cool office with recreation rooms, large windows, and a place to feed the elephants. Yes, you heard me correctly. Google might want to blend into the local culture, and nothing says India more than elephants.

(5) After you got done designing a flying carpet rick-shaw, would you resume your regular work with a new sense of inspiration. Your co-worker would probably invent a device that would detect a rigged rick-shaw meter and auto-report it to the proper authorities who would ignore the message — but, at least they would get the message.

(6) Last, there would be lots of training, mentoring, self-analysis, and courses to know how to think like your customers think so that you can please them more. I strongly suggest point six before you even think about the other ones.

BTW: Here is a dialogue between the Rick Shaw Walla and a client after your BPO creates it as a project.

WALLA: The flying carpet rick shaw comes with surround sound, anti-gravity technology, wi-fi, news alerts, internet radio with 200 channels, four power outlets, and a hair-dryer in case you had to leave home in a hurry.

CUSTOMER: So, how much is a ride to Deccan?

WALLA: rps 200.

CUSTOMER: Can we use the meter?

WALLA: Sorry — meter broken!

If you invested in training your BPO employees, what types of skills would you teach them

March 28, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO, Outsourcing Articles, Popular Posts | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The mistake that BPO companies make is that they think that their employees are there to do a particular job. This is wrong. They are there to deliver results that contribute to revenue. What am I talking about? I’m not making sense here.

Which matters more? Teamwork or hard-skills?
Let’s say that a software development company needs to get work done. So, naturally they hire some software developers. This is their first mistake. Someone who is merely a software developer or programmer is not qualified to work at a BPO. Why? Because at a BPO you work as a team in some way or the other, so you need to hire someone who is good not only at programming, but also at teamwork. India is an authoritarian culture. You keep your mouth shut and do as you are told. This type of culture doesn’t foster teamwork. Japanese culture is all about team work, but I haven’t lived there and can’t explain what they do.

So, how do you train your employees?
If you want to have a really amazing company, you need to train your people in all types of ways. They need to be good at their core skills. They need to be able to communicate, stay organized, work with others, and get things done on time. I believe that the majority of the training for a programmer would be to put them through a lot of diverse programming tasks with a very seasoned teacher watching over them. Many programmers are good at doing the tasks they do repetitively, but fall short the minute you give them a difficult task.

How do you teach communication?
Most programmers in India cannot talk to clients. This is usually not a problem because clients want to talk to the PM, not the programmer. But, what if you get a client like me who wants to know what type of person he is working with. I have endured countless buffoons, and want someone smart. This means I have to talk to them. Mastering the art of oral communication is not easy, and your BPO is probably not equipped to teach it either. Additionally, clear written communication is another key element in software development. Most programmers refuse to get back to people as a matter of policy, so what do you do with them?

Summary
In short, you need to train your employees in all types of ways. Whether you should give them a lower salary in the beginning when you are doing more training is up to you. Or, you could make them prove themselves before you give them much training. But, after enduring the incompetent behavior of dozens of outsourcing houses, I strongly recommend that you invest 10-20% of an employees time in some type of training and evaluation program. The training should be continuous and not stop , although it could intensify at particular points in their employment.

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Six problems that only individuals working in a BPO would understand
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Jeremy’s 11 tips for better business decision making
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Did you tell the applicant what they can get from the job?
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A company has a board of directors, so why shouldn’t you?
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9 insane things stress can do to your business
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Hiring difficult personality types
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What’s the difference between getting business advice from a millionaire and a billionaire?
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How good are your analytics for your BPO company?

January 28, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: Analytics, BPO | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Many companies specialize in analytics while others don’t know what that means. But, how good are your analytics for running your own business?

Call centers have many metrics and analytics to keep track of how long people wait on hold, how long calls take, if disputes can be resolved in one call, and more.

Large companies have analytics for inventory, systems integration, testing, and more. The result is more streamlined manufacturing at lower costs which translates into increased productivity.

But, what can your company do to use analytics? There are many things to keep track of at a BPO. Here are some that I thought of.

1. How long did you know a client before they became a client?
2. How many times did you interact with someone before they became a client?
3. How many people you interact with by email, phone or otherwise become clients?
4. How many clients who stopped using your service did so because service was slow or mistakes were made?
5. What are the fluctuations in labor use at your company week by week over a period of time?
That will help you determine how much extra labor you need.

6. What is your typical employee turnover rate.
7. How much training do you need to give an employee to get them to a particular level of competency?
8. What “special” requests do clients have? (or do you ignore this like most other BPO’s?)
9. Which of your employees have repeat clients and which lose you clients repeatedly?
10. What do the employees who stay say about your company vs. the ones who quit?

That’s all for now. Perhaps you can think of some other analytics.

Thinking outside the box or the BPO in your business….

January 21, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Are you in business? Do you handle business decisions in some methodical way? In my experience, most business problems are very complicated, involved, and have many unknown wild cards. To solve business problems, you can’t just have some run of the mill way of thinking. You need to try out some unconventional thinking.

You might need to brainstorm different ideas. You should ideally think of many really wild ideas just to get your brain to open up. Incorporating trying things out into your innovation process is critical as your brain will come up with more ideas as you are testing things out.

Thinking outside of the box is a common American expression. Unfortunately, we have very few innovators in our country. It seems that India, the land of the BPO industry has even fewer creative thinkers due to the nature of the school system there which focuses on memorizing and not on creation.

Some types of thinking are just not taught at school, or are not taught enough. When I was at school, they did teach creative thought, but they didn’t teach creative thought in business. In my opinion, all of us entrepreneurs need to invest a lot of time in developing this skill within ourselves.

When I come up with solutions to BPO business problems, the list looks more like a list of ideas and then variations on ideas. It sometimes takes over a year to try all the ideas and during the process I often think of many more variations or refinements on ideas. The business thinking process is like this, and all entrepreneurs should become comfortable with all phases of the brainstorming, implementing, measurement and refinement stages of the process.

Good luck, and also it is recommended to meditate and bathe before making important business decisions for your BPO. Some very Hindu advice from someone not raised Hindu. (Ganga water not included)

Taking your BPO to the next level

January 5, 2015 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO | Tagged , | Leave a comment

All of us in business dream of getting to the next level. It is a bit like a video game. We often think that one day something magical will happen and suddenly our number of customers will double and we will need a swanky office downtown with beautiful secretaries. But, in real life, how does it really work?

Growth is never on schedule.
Business is never predictable, especially the BPO business. You might get one or two huge clients overnight that could change everything. Suddenly your call center will go from 20 seats to 60 seats. You won’t have any idea of where those seats are going to go unless you have a way to get flexible office space. You could also lose a few big clients all of a sudden and be demoted back to level 1. Although we can never predict when we will be promoted to the next level, we can build a more solid foundation so we’ll be ready when the promotion comes.

It happened all at once for me.
I remember back in 2002 a psychic friend from meditation was all excited and she said I would have amazing luck with my business and that it would just get better and better. At that point, book sales started to go up, and we started selling a few thousand dollars per month in listings. The very next year in March, we started selling $30,000 a month in advertising and courses. Boy was I excited. I was so happy that I worked 70 hours a week until I burned out and got really tired. At that point, I hired more people to help me clean house and sell products.

Keeping mentally prepared
Some people don’t think big. According to yogic philosophy, everything starts with a thought. The universe started with a thought, airplanes started with a thought, and even lifting your finger starts with a thought. If you think small, or don’t dream about the bigger picture, it may never happen. You need to be mentally accustomed to the idea that you will grow big — it is just that the timing is unpredictable. Think about that car you’ll be driving. Think about how your office and dozens of employees will look. Think of how hard you’ll work and how tired you’ll be until you hire Prashant the trusty right hand man to be your VP. Keep that thought!

But, you also need to be tactically prepared.
If you get that new client who wants 100 seats, you need to know where you are going to put those seats. You need to have some idea of what type of contract you will have with him and how you will select agents. You need to have a lot of the variables worked out in your head. Additionally, day to day good technique and best practices need to be very polished in your business. That way you will know how to train your agents and attain perfect work every time as second nature. If you are in the call center business, you need to be an expert at metrics. If you are in programming, you need to keep an eye on your programmers and see if they finish tasks on time and see if their commenting is clear enough that a new programmer who has never seen the code will understand exactly what is going on. If you do e-marketing outsourcing, you need to be a master of all of the social networks so you can select, train and monitor your workers.

Marketing
Going to the next level can happen in a moment, however the building up of your skill set happens gradually over time. It is good to always be trying to be at the top of your game. Knowing how to run a successful BPO is different from knowing how to market one. There are dozens of marketing techniques from networking to Linked In, online advertising and more to gaining new clients. If your interaction skills and management skills are top notch, you can attract and keep great clients. However, if your skills are lacking in any facet and you lose clients as fast as you get them, you’ll never make it to the next level. Knowing how to find the right people to help you in marketing and management is also critical. If you are always bogged down all the time with work, you won’t have time to go to the next level. So, think about all of this and then plan for how you will make it to level 2.

How to use Linked-In to expand your BPO!

August 22, 2014 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Everyone wants to know how to get more business for their BPO. That’s all I hear every day. The answer is that there are many stages in the process of attracting and retaining a BPO client. If they can’t find you, they can’t hire you. But, what if they find you, but don’t think much of you? Hmmm. Be findable and make a good impression. Then, maybe you can catch a few new clients!

Using Linked In in the BPO outsourcing world.
Using Linked In is not as easy as it sounds, especially in outsourcing. There are several dozen prominent outsourcing Linked In discussion groups. Some of these have job postings, while a few post discussions. There are a lot of spammers posting the same job a zillion times too which looks bad.

Since there are so few groups and so few active members in the outsourcing centric groups, you should meander over to general business groups, and try to find members to contact who might be decision makers. To make it in business you have to know how to network. Unfortunately, not all of the people you contact will be relevant to you, and not all will respond to you. But, some of them will, and Linked in is a great way to reach people far away in different countries who you would have no way of talking to in person and a very tough time getting past their secretary on the phone.

(1) Scour all of the larger outsourcing & call center groups and look for process postings.
(2) Try to find decision makers who might need your services in general business groups.

Keep in mind that some of the larger linked in groups might have 30,000 or more members. You will be spending most of your time sorting through the thousands of followers and making your list of who might be a good prospect for you to contact. Does this seem time consuming? It is. You might have better luck training your assistant how to do this. But, you can’t train them until you have mastered the art of sorting and basic introduction messages.

And remember, you will be popular if you can make pleasant small talk instead of going straight for the jugular (the sale)

Happy linking!

Do you use the Steve Jobs principle: “Think Differently?”

May 25, 2014 by 123outsource
Categories: BPO | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

In America, people love the concept of thinking differently. We fool ourselves into believing that we are all unique individuals, that you can’t generalize and that culture is an imaginary force of nature that doesn’t really exist. The truth is that we are all unique, but not as unique as we think. Our DNA is probably 99.9% the same as other humans and what makes us different is the .1%. Sounds Kabbalistic — The 99% and the 1%. In any case, this blog article’s purpose is not to ridicule the innocent incorrect beliefs of popular American culture (even though that is fun.) I want to ask you if you think differently at your work?

It all starts with a thought…
If you want to make a small difference at work, or make a huge galaxy shaking change in the universe, it all starts with your thoughts. At least, my guru claims that all actions that have happened in the universe started with a thought. The Big Bang was started by a rather big thought, or disturbance in consciousness! So, let’s start thinking. What types of thoughts can you do to make a difference?

Problem solving
The way I understand business is very simple. You provide a service. You either follow directions or you don’t. You either do good work or you don’t. You either get back to people (hopefully in a nice way) or you don’t. And you either finish on time, or you don’t. To improve things in the world of work, you can change when and how people communicate. You can try to enhance people’s job skills. You can try to enhance the tools people use at work (Apple computer has mastered this art,) or you can refine the art of meeting deadlines. Larger corporations try to master the art of assessing the value of each of their employees and each of their customers to optimize. My experience with companies is that they often don’t get back to you and don’t finish on time. If I were going to create the perfect company, I would focus my efforts more heavily on communication and ways to meet deadlines no matter what!

Your BPO company
How can you think differently at your BPO company? There are a million things you can think about. I would start by talking to your BPO customers. What do they like about your company and what do they think needs improving. If you talk to 20 customers, you might get 20 different opinions, but you might see that 5 out of 20 are saying the same thing. Think differently by trying to solve the problem of where you are lacking. Then, think differently again and try to do something new and wonderful that no other company of your category has ever done before! Don’t ask me, I have no idea! After all, I don’t think differently!

Why hire a freelancer instead of a company?

April 28, 2014 by 123outsource
Categories: Management | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

As I get more experienced in business, I realize that BPO companies are not all they are cracked up to be. If you hire a small BPO company to outsource your tasks to, you get stuck with whomever they hire to do the work and whomever they hire to manage your work. My experience tells me that management at small companies is always dismal. I have never seen good management at a small company in my life and I have dealt with many dozen of them over the years. Keeping deadlines and doing quality work never seems to be a priority unless you are a huge client which I am not. I feel that quality should be for all clients and not just large ones. Additionally, there seems to be no desire to do what is necessary to keep clients. Companies do what they want to and how they want to, and if you don’t like it, that is your problem — they are not concerned.

Skill levels can vary
At any of the BPO companies that I have hired, there is always a vast range of skill levels. If I am paying top dollar, or need a complicated task done, I need someone who is capable and responsible. I seem to rarely get this combination, or either of its components when hiring companies. Additionally, you never know what the skill level of a new person will be at those BPO companies. Let’s say that your programmer is busy and they want to pair you with their other programmer. You have no idea how good or bad that other person will be. Your entire business could be compromised.

Personality pairing
I found that people who don’t like me don’t do good work — ever… If I hire an outside company to do tasks for me, I have to make sure that the boss likes me and that the worker(s) like me. If there is a disconnect on any level, the work will suffer greatly.

Hiring a freelancer is easier.
You are only dealing with one person. That person has one skill level and one personality. They can manage them self, or you can manage them. You are never stuck with a middleman who insists on being the go-between. Those go-betweens always fail on delivering finished work in my experience. Another point to consider is that the most talented people I have ever worked with were freelancers. I did find that around 20% of people working for small companies were excellent! But, the freelancers I hired were a few notches better than even the best people who work at companies!

The next question is how to outsource freelancing work overseas?
Odesk is a solution, but what if you don’t like the people advertising there, or what if you don’t like Odesk’s rigid terms? Is there a way to find freelanced call center clerks or programmers overseas? Hmm! Maybe we should advertise for them! Maybe that will be our next niche!

You might also like:

Good sign bad sign: What to look for in newly hired workers
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2014/01/13/outsource-blog-good-sign-bad-sign-what-to-look-for-in-newly-hired-workers/

What does Warren Buffet look for when he hires people?
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2014/02/12/what-does-warren-buffet-look-for-when-he-hires-people/

Being Aware in Business & BPO Outsourcing

November 12, 2013 by 123outsource
Categories: Of Interest | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Being Aware in Business & BPO (Business Process Outsourcing)

I wrote a previous blog article about being aware in business. You really need to be a Zen Monk to be good at business. You need to have a still and watchful mind that notices everything. You need to notice behavioral traits in others. If you can spot bad behavior or signs of risky character traits in others EARLY, then you can save yourself a lot of grief in business. But, what I have been thinking about recently is more tactical.

Multiple approaches to getting tasks accomplished
Let’s say that you have a particular set of tasks or BPO business processes to do. You might have one way of doing those tasks. Perhaps there might be other ways of doing those tasks that you thought of. But, what if you meditate on this business process and come up with ten ways to approach the tasks at hand? The issue is that in business, your workload varies over time, and your labor resources vary too. It is expensive in terms of time to interview lots of people just to fill one position, and then potentially have that person quit or get fired. One interesting way to solve this situation is to have a “fluid system” for business process outsourcing (BPO Outsourcing).

What if you have what I could term as a BPO overflow tank?
Your car has an overflow container for radiator fluids, why doesn’t your business? Let’s say that you handle most of your work in house, but you always have a certain percentage of particular tasks outsourced to a BPO company. Let’s say that according to your business model, 20-70% of your outgoing call work is outsourced, and the rest is done in house. That buys you tremendous flexibility. The outsourced call center work might cost you more in labor, but you don’t need to interview people, etc. That buys you time. You can delay your interviews until you have more time in your management schedule. You can be more selective about who you hire. You can fire someone more easily who is not capable or who is slacking off. Having a reliable, tried and tested overflow system for handling your business processes is a great idea. Keeping that system always running ensures that it will run more reliably as well.

There are other solutions too.
If you want to outsource call center work, there are auto-call systems that you can use online that can send messages to clients. You can have a mass email system to communicate with mass amounts of clients. You can even auto-text them. You could devise a system where you would reduce the quantity of outgoing calls under certain business circumstances so you could gracefully adjust to changing workloads. Managing labor resources is fascinating and more complicated than you think! So, try to increase your awareness and think of more innovative ways you can solve problems. Write these solutions down and compare them. Don’t be afraid to use more than one system simultaneously!

You might also like:

Are you aware in business?
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/06/18/are-you-aware-in-business/

Paying attention to the long range effects of business decisions
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/06/13/paying-attention-to-the-long-range-effects-of-business-decisions/

If someone doesn’t need your services today…

October 15, 2013 by 123outsource
Categories: Marketing | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

If someone doesn’t need your services today, they might need you tomorrow!

Don’t be too upset if a client doesn’t need your BPO service today. They might have someone else, or just not have any work to do. But, if you stumble upon people who need one or more type of outsourced services in the long haul, they might be worth chatting with. The key here is to be casual during your initial phone call, and perhaps making very carefully phrased suggestions.

The mistake Indians make selling their BPO services over the phone is that they are often careless, pushy, or desperate sounding. This doesn’t work. The higher level salespeople in India are smooth talkers. They are cool, calm, knowledgeable and collected. Learn to be cool as a cucumber. Remember — you are not attached to the results of your phone call, you are just interacting and seeing what people need.

How to make suggestions
Be careful making suggestions to prospective clients. Let’s assume you are on a phone call with a prospect who doesn’t need you now, but perhaps they might need you in a year. It is still worth talking to them. Talk very nicely and try to be helpful, but not too helpful, because that is being pushy.

Have you considered adding xyz software to your site?
We noticed that your coding might be cleaner if it were divided into smaller modules, but it is not a huge issue. It might be easier to read if it were segmented.
The graphic design on your home page looks nice. How often do you redesign it?

These are gentle questions and suggestions. You are probing the prospect to see what their needs are without shoving your BPO service down their throat. Remember, if they have a pleasant chat with you and find you to be a reliable source of knowledge, they might consider you next time they are in the market. Humans tend to want to work with someone they either know, or have had more contact with in the past.

The next step is to follow up by email. If you exchange emails from time to time, or if you send “we just wanted to say hi” emails every four or five months, people will remember you. Sending emails to strangers doesn’t work, but if you call first, and then email someone who likes you, they will be likely to read and save your email. If you stay in touch with people, there is a chance they will use you in the future, or refer you to a friend. On the other hand, if they either don’t like you or are not impressed by you, you will just be annoying them. If someone from your company interacts with prospective clients, choose someone who is a smart talker who is cool as a cucumber!

You might also like:

Social media: Promoting your products with humor and information
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/05/28/social-media-promoting-your-products-with-humor-information/

The future of marketing is information
http://bpo.123outsource.net/2013/06/01/the-future-of-marketing-is-information/