Telemarketing Expression Matters

Communication skills are important for telemarketing. This fact was always known to the call center agents and to those who hired them. But surveys have revealed that it’s not just the communication skills that make a difference in telemarketing services. The agents have to be clear in their expression when they are talking to the customers residing in the USA and Europe. As it is the agents working out of call centers in countries like India and the Philippines have a problem with the accent. That makes it difficult for the customers to hear what they are being instructed. Without clarity of expression, call center agents have no chance of making a sale or even getting the customers to understand what they are saying.

The BPO units have to be careful about the training of these agents. It’s important for the call centers to offer voice modulation and speech training. The telemarketing agents have to get their voice intonation right so that they can speak to the customers in the language that they understand. It makes no sense in trying to fake the American twang! That is not the solution to the problem of the answering service. Experts also feel that the phone answering agents have to be careful about being relaxed. If they are worked up about pulling off the sale, they will only sound grave and desperate. Smiling is one aspect of telemarketing services that cannot be seen, but makes a mean difference.

Banned: Telemarketing SMS

After pesky calls, it’s now time for the telemarketing text messages to be banned by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The landslide of text messages on the cell phones of users registered on the national Do Not Call (DNC) lists has prompted the FTC to get strict with the call centers. Despite several warnings to stop the mass texting of marketing messages to users who don’t want to receive them, the BPO units working on projects to promote and sell are doing just that. They have ignored the laws and bypassed the restrictions. It’s payback time now for these BPO service units. They have to curb their habit of interfering with the privacy of the citizens before they come under the scanner.

The FTC has decided to penalize the faulty call centers in landmark judgments. However, the problem is that most of these guilty call center units are based offshore. They are technically beyond the rule of the land because they belong to foreign shores. So, the penalties are shrugged off easily. Even when they are imposed, the lack of a proper governing body with real powers has stalled the cases. The fines imposed on errant BPO units were never realized and there are thousands of dollars that the FTC is entitled to receive. The BPO service firms get away because the laws are not strict about extracting the payment.

Revised Telemarketing Debt Laws

The debt consolidation laws that were grossly misused by telemarketing firms have been revised. The governing authority, the Federal Trade Commission, has tweaked the laws a little to make the call centers more accountable. Henceforth, the call center agents have to more transparent in their dealings. They have to clearly give out how they are going to consolidate the debt and how much the customers have to pay. There are times when the customers keep paying a sum every month but it does nothing to improve their debt consolidation. Let alone work towards paying off the principal, the money is not enough to even see off the monthly recurring interest!

Customers are unaware of the situation and the ground reality. This allows the BPO units to make some money through shady deals. The FTC wants to put a stop to it. With the new rules in place, the call center agent has to declare just how much money the customer needs to pay every month and for what duration. More often than not, customers are not aware of how their debt consolidation will reflect poorly on their credit records. The BPO service agents have to inform the customers about it. In the same vein, the customers have to be informed about the ‘dedicated accounts’ that call centers often use to consolidate the debt.

Rise of Virtual Call Centers

As many other industries, the concept of the office is about to be relegated to the sidelines in the call center sector. Thanks to the rising costs of holding an establishment, several BPO units in USA are going for virtual call centers. This idea is one that can cut down on costs comfortably. You can bring down the overhead costs by a huge margin if you are able to run your call center services without having a designated office space for that. All the telemarketing agents on your team works out of their personal spheres and so do you. You can appoint team leaders and supervisors to check up on reports. Have online reporting structures and keep them integrated on a solitary platform.

Working from a virtual call center has its advantages, other than the cost saving factor. The agents who work from home don’t have to commute long distances against a killing traffic. They save up on a lot of time that way. This can be utilized in doing something productive. They can get to their telemarketing jobs without getting distracted because of coworkers and peers. The practice of working with other agents in tandem often brings about a tension-laden atmosphere that has to be overcome so that they can hit the targets. Moreover, they also feel more responsible about their work because they know that their work is being monitored and tracked by supervisors.

Picking the Right BPO

Picking the right BPO is often a challenge for the clients. These days, a lot is riding on the decision about which call center you pick as your business partner. Services like answering service and telemarketing can make or break a business. If you are a small business firm, these tie-ups matter a lot in the long run. This also involves a lot of money. For small business firms, assimilating the funds for this meet can be really a daunting task. That raises the concerns even higher. If they are picking the wrong call center services provider, they are wasting their money at a time when they should be using the same to consolidate their position in the market.

Let’s take a quick look at what you need to keep in mind while picking the right BPO. First up, check up for the body of telemarketing work they have done. If they have worked in diverse categories and domains, they will be able to provide variety in the call center services that they offer. In a similar vein, if the call center has been around for some time, they will have the required stability and market expertise. The financial aspect of the BPO service provider should be under the scanner as well. Without finances in the kitty, the telemarketing services provider cannot buy the required technology and manpower.

Converting Leads in Lead Generation

Leads can be helpful in building up a business. But if those leads are not converting into sales and adding to the revenue, the lead generation process isn’t working for you. Call centers are hired on the basis of number of leads that they can provide. In their haste to hit those numbers, the outbound call center agents often pack in half-baked leads into the kitty. These are not qualified leads and there are no verifications done on them. So, the in-house sales team of the clients may be in for a nasty shock when they call these leads to ink the deal! BPO units have to take care that they provide only qualified leads to the clients. Otherwise it reflects poorly on the call center services that are being done.

The percentage of conversion of leads is important to calculate the returns on investment in the lead generation procedure. Clients are not willing to spend anything unless they find some validation of their investment. Call center services don’t come cheap and they wouldn’t like to find out at the end of the sales lead generation campaign that the leads they got amount to nothing. A dismally poor conversion rate would mean the failure of the campaign. The call centers have to verify and follow-up on leads to ensure they stay warm. You can use a variety of media like emails, text messages and phone calls to check up on your leads.

Stability of BPO Market

Ohio has suddenly become the hotbed of interest for the telemarketing sector. It’s here that President Barack Obama declared that he will do what he can to curb the outsourcing of telemarketing services to offshore call centers. The BPO service experts in countries like India and the Philippines, along with some African and Latin American countries, are worried about the aftermath of this declaration. The Governor of Ohio has backed up this declaration with the announcement that they will not be outsourcing any projects to offshore call center services. While the twin blows may not be that serious for the business process outsourcing sector right now, one cannot drive away the speculation that they may have long-term consequences.

At the same time, the BPO experts are confident that these measures will not harm the prospects of the business in the long term. The call centers are aware that if the business firms in the USA decide to curtail the outsourcing to offshore destinations, the economies in these countries will dip dangerously. However, at the same time they are aware that the business firms are too deep into the business process outsourcing pie to pull back. The availability of the option to get their call center services done at a far lower cost is definitely something that they cannot refuse.

Graduates Unemployable in Call Centers

Graduates passing out of reputed marketing courses are not employable in the call centers. That is the ground reality in many of the call center units in the developing countries. The condition is an alarming state of affairs, especially at a time when the BPO units all over these regions are in dire need of quality manpower. The absence of that is harming their prospects of providing quality call center services to a global market. The standard has been lifted with such precision and continuity, these BPO service units are finding themselves at a strict loss for something that they can do. They want to have a fresh influx of talent but find themselves tied because of the lack of quality in what they are digging up.

Some factors are responsible for the sad state of affairs. Finishing schools of marketing are mushrooming at street corners of these countries. But they teach little about telemarketing or call center services. Many institutions claiming to equip the young students with BPO technology and make them industry-ready are nowhere near the mark. They have no equipment or gadgets that the students can practice on. They have no trainer who is on par with what the BPO service industry requires. One could go on. But the problem remains there: lack of quality professionals is not a good sign and it’s time for change.

SEO for BPO: The Leak

SEO efforts conducted by BPO units have not always borne fruits. There are several reasons why the online lead generation pie doesn’t really offer rich dividends to call centers. There are these times when the amount of traffic coming in to the client’s website because of SEO don’t turn into that much of leads. The amount of resources spent in conducted SEO operations to get higher rankings on the search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing, do not translate into successful sales lead generation. Call center managers would be doing a mistake if they assume that the online traffic is all they need to get better leads. A study of website statistics like Google Analytics or Stat Counter will show that users are coming to the website, but not sticking to it.

That’s when the call center needs to review their websites. Check for the content and the website design. Many BPO units often tend to clutter their website with too much on the head banner. White space is important for emphasis. Users may be repelled by the look of the website. Similarly, a lengthy lead generation form is another turn off! Online users pay for their internet time. They have no patience to fill up a form with information that has nothing to do with what they want. Make the forms crisp and the website navigation smooth. And keep studying the user trends to find out what work you need to do in the weaker areas.

Better Social Media for Call Center

Social media is now a distinct part of the call center. Almost every BPO unit now has a social media department handling profiles on Facebook and Twitter. Every client wants a pie of the social media pie. However, not every call center service can conduct successful social media marketing. There are reasons varying from lack of expertise to lack of experience. But the primary lack is that of interaction. Creating a profile on Facebook and Twitter and adding some random people on the page isn’t social media marketing. That’s more like spamming. To get leads or to promote the brand you are working for, you need to do more than just adding up people. You have to interact.

Social media networks are where people hang out. Users log in to Facebook and Twitter, for some fun activity that can keep them occupied. No one wants to read the literature that your call center puts up on the Wall or on the discussion forums. BPO firms need to promote their brands online. They have to speak for themselves. Similarly, users are not going to take a discussion forward unless the brand participates. Call center experts need to have social media personnel who can talk to these people online. You have to monitor other brands to see what they are doing. Organizing events and webinars is also a great idea to promote and market.

Climate Decides Call Center Location

An unlikely factor is deciding the location of call center units these days! It’s the climate! Because of the dominance of hurricanes and hailstorms, BPO firms are ruling out several locations for their call centers. For example, Verizon was really concerned about their upcoming answering service unit in Wilmington because of the weather concerns. The weather plays an important role because the working of a telemarketing unit involves a lot of infrastructure and they have to function at the top of their game every day. If they do not work on a single day because of inclement weather, they will stand to lose quite a bit of money. In case of hurricanes and other natural calamities, they will end up losing a lot of working hours. They may even have to reconstruct things.

Modern business leaves nothing to chance. Setting up a call center is the question of a lot of money. And money is more valuable these days because of the recession and the inflation. BPO investors are not keen on investing money where they will have to be at the mercy of the weather to do their call center services. The way things are, places where the weather is not really supportive of business growth, will miss out on call centers and other answering service units because of the weather. When they have to no choice about the location, they take extra precautions and make stronger constructions to stand the vagaries of nature.

Call Center Coaching

When the experts say that the location of the call center has got nothing to do with their call center services, they are probably more correct than they intended to be. The quality of work done by a BPO unit is measured not by the latitudes and longitudes, but rather by the amount of training that the agents receive. Training in the art of telemarketing and lead generation makes more of a difference to the productivity of the unit than any other investment. You may argue that technology is more important for BPO service but the fact remains that without training in that technology, the agents cannot really exploit its benefits.

But the sad reality is that many call centers shy away from conducting proper training sessions. They curtail the training days to the bare minimum so that they can get the BPO agents to start work. This does not cut down costs by any means. Rather this sort of an approach puts more on the call center agent’s plate that you intend to. Lack of training leads to mistakes and also stress for the telemarketing executive. The BPO service managers find themselves hand-holding agents because they are not being to cope with what is expected from them. Finally you find that your project is racing against an impossible deadline!

Voice Broadcasting for Lead Generation

The voice broadcasting scenario for lead generation companies holds a lot of hope and promise. Many call center units are not aware of using this procedure while some others are prejudiced against using this. They are wary that they will end up rubbing the telecom authorities the wrong way if they use voice broadcasts from the outbound call center desk. But that fear is not valid. Telecom authorities are not going after you if you leave the Do Not Call list aside. Make sure that the BPO agents are not sending out the broadcast to the registered numbers. That’s the only precaution that you have to take. If you can get that sorted out, this method can be a clincher for your sales lead generation method.

Voice broadcasting is the method by which you can send out a pre-recorded telemarketing message to thousands of prospective consumers at one go! It’s like a direct marketing ad spot for radio or TV, only that this is meant for telephones. The convenience of this lead generation tool is that you can reach out to a number of people at one shot. That’s something that saves time and also goes easy on the resources. When the interested consumers call your inbound call center desk, you can take the sales lead generation forward.

Canadians Brace for Telemarketing Surveys!

The Canadian citizens are preparing themselves to wage another battle with telemarketing calls in the coming year. The Canadian government is conducting the census as per their rule of having one every five years. But they have not made the survey mandatory! The citizens have to answer call center calls asking for their basic information like name, address, age and sex. But they are not liable to answer BPO agents asking for their education, ethnicity and other personal details. The Canadian government is likely to fine citizens who don’t answer the basic information calls. However, the ground is set for the telemarketing services centers to tap the citizens for information that is not related to the census.

That is the fear on the minds of the citizens. They are wary of call centers tapping them for information to build up their database. This sort of a mass survey will be extremely beneficial for BPO units who want to add some more columns to their database. The government is taking steps to ensure that fraudulent call centers don’t use the guise of the census to gather information for their business profits. The survey will be conducted across 4.5 million Canadian homes and the whole logistical arrangement will be nightmare for the government. It remains to be seen how the call center units hired by the government do their job.

Optimizing Websites for Lead Generation

It’s true that business firms need a website to give a shape to their online lead generation efforts. But the website has to be designed in a way that is conducive for sales lead generation. A hastily put up website will not serve any purpose for the call center team. No matter how much the outbound call center tries to promote the website, if the users don’t find much of value in the content or if the design is not attractive to the eye, the conversion of the traffic into sales will not happen. BPO web designers have to keep in mind certain aspects of the online marketing process when they are designing websites.

Let me give you an example. Call center units often design websites with flash introductions. That is a regressive step, especially in the context of lead generation. Users don’t like the long time that flash introductions take to upload on their screens. They don’t like the bandwidth that it consumes. When they find flash designs, they quickly close the tab down. So the BPO unit cannot utilize the traffic that they got through tough sales lead generation. Similarly, when the BPO service web designers use heavy images on the website, it slows down the website. That is another turn off for the users. Call centers have to keep these aspects in mind when they are designing websites to market and promote products/services.

Back to School Delays Answering Service!

The children are getting back to school in USA and thanks to frenetic calls from parents the emergency answering service desks got blocked. Authorities manning the phone answering desks in the 911 call center units of different parts of the country faced the heat. The call volume shot up rapidly because of the parents trying to call the inbound call center to make enquiries about the long serpentine lines to pick their children up. Some are calling up because parents parked their car on private driveways to run and drop their children off to school. Though the state governments have separate call center services for the traffic cases, people still prefer to call 911.

The supervisors of the 911 call centers are appealing to the citizens to leave the emergency answering service free. Because of the call volumes generated at the inbound call center desk, callers who need the emergency phone answering agents cannot get through. There is an elongated hold time for the agents. And that is very dangerous if the phone number happens to be an emergency contact line. The authorities in charge are now requesting parents to call a different number for their needs related to schools. These cases again highlight the importance of the inbound call center teams in the context of smooth running of any system.