B2B lead generation via social media

Social media marketing, particularly the social networking sites have opened up new arenas for B2B lead generation. The BPOs make use of different strategies to make the most out of these social networking sites.

There are different tools that a call center service provider can make use of. What are they?

• Social Networking on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc
• Review sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor
• Social News on Reddit and Digg
• Social Bookmarking on Google and Delicious
• Collaboration and Social Answer sites like Wikipedia and Yahoo Answers
The strategies that BPO agents use for the task:

• The first and foremost step in lead generation is to identify the target audience. Generating leads is almost impossible without identifying the target.
• The social networking sites prove to be of real help as far as creating a positive brand identity is concerned. A positive brand identity attracts new customers and retains the old ones.
• These social networking sites are the ideal place for building networks and in business no one can ignore the importance of networks.

With social media marketing adding to the number of tools at the disposal of call centers, lead generation activity is all set to experience a real boom.

Chat Support Made Easy with the Right Software

Every business makes efforts to add real time social chat to their websites for increasing web traffic and visitor engagement. Answering service call centers are hired by businesses to ensure that support is offered to customers over chat when customers want information on products and services, or have issues related to the clients’ products. Outsourcing chat support call centers use advanced software and technologies to make sure that all the replies offered to the queries of customers are prompt.

The outsourcing chat support call center uses the software for driving direct response, and also helps to maximize the reach of the audience. The campaign should also be optimized with real time data, and the software used by the answering service should have engagement metrics for enabling you to understand, improve as well as assess the interactive chat sessions.

The chat software used by answering services also helps the businesses to create a platform that helps to control a campaign, which is customized to meet the needs of the audience and the brand. The chat support software used comes with advanced security as well as permission controls, which are fine-grained, but easy to use. The chat support used by the outsourcing chat support agents enable the customers to chat without requiring them to sign in.

The software must be able to scale up and down without compromising the audience experience. There should not be any service interruptions or slow down in service.

Software for Tracking and Managing Leads

A business always look for ways to increase their sales, customer base and return on investment (ROI); for this to happen, it is crucial to integrate the efforts that go into lead generation. The businesses hire call centers for generating qualified leads in good numbers, and the lead generation contact centers in turn use advanced software to help them do this. The software helps to drive a huge number of visitors to the client’s website, land page submissions, as well as gain leads to through emails and other efforts.

The lead management software used by the outbound call centers track the sales leads all through the sales cycle from lead generation all the way to closing the sales. The software helps the businesses understand what efforts are working, and which kind of customers are usually buying with a click of the mouse.

The software can also be used by the call centers for automating the lead management procedure, and for this the task management and workflow automation activities work greatly. The right software for tracking and managing leads helps a company make a lot of sales to a huge number of people in a short time. The software enables to capture leads, track them and also follow them up, helping the sales and profits of the businesses boost up. The online lead tracking and lead management software has to be one that is user-friendly, so that the agents do not take a long time in learning how it has to be used.

Lead Generation Software for Gathering Hot Leads

Outbound contact centers offer lead generation as a service to businesses in order to help them gain more customers and increase sales in the process. Getting new customers attracted to the products and services is not a matter of joke and the right call center business companies know how to go about gaining fresh leads for the businesses. The right software for generating leads must have a user friendly platform so that it is not a headache for the call center business companies to get them trained in using the software; much time and expenses are not to be used for the training process.

Advanced lead generation software helps businesses to identify, capture as well as convert the online leads into good opportunities for sales through the provision of unique lead intelligence. Lead intelligence is the way the software gains insight into the buying intent as well as the purchasing process of the prospects. The software for generating leads used in contact centers also help to recognize anonymous visitors to the client’s website, analyze their purchasing intent and their interests for paving the path for targeted sales response.

The software analyzes the sophisticated behavior of the consumers online and then finds out where the prospects are in the purchasing process. The software helps contact center agents concentrate on the lead nurturing programs, shortening the sales cycle, closing deals faster, and improvement of the all round marketing as well as sales productivity.

Using the Workflow CRM Software for Organized and Effective Services

The workflow customer relationship management (CRM) software is used by call center services for helping businesses automate the responses made to inquiries and complaints from customers. When a customer makes contact with the numbers provided by the businesses, the customer call center logs the contact into the computer system; this will include the date as well as the time for all the information on the contacts as well as relevant details. The workflow CRM software helps to monitor the responses of the customer call center agents and the communications; this is done in a bid to ensure that customers get the right responses at the right time.

Inbound call center services find use for the workflow CRM software in updating customers on crucial information. The software is also effective in tracking information like warranty information and other details on the purchased products. The software enables the customer call center companies get in touch with customers automatically regarding the scheduled service appointments, product recalls, and extended warranty purchases.

The software is also used by call center services to let customers know that the company or the business will pay for claims on product replacements or for free service on products that are no longer covered by the warranty period. The workflow CRM software enhances the relation among the businesses and the prospects or customers.

Purchasing a Hosted Predictive Dialer

Before the outbound call centers think of buying a hosted predictive dialer system, there are several factors that must be noted. You must get a hosted predictive dialer that is the most suitable for your outsourcing call center and fits the work ambience. You must have all the relevant information pertaining to any technology or predictive dialers, when you want to adopt that particular technology or system for your outsourcing call center.

The outbound call centers have to first find out what the solution is going to cost them and also if the contact center has control over the accumulating costs. The managers and supervisors at the outbound call centers must also find out for what they will be charged and how they will be charged. Find out what the charges of the calls on a minute basis are and if the customer call that ends quickly will be charged as a full minute even if the agents and the customer has spoken for just half a minute.

All the vendors offering the predictive dialer system to the contact centers will try to make it appear as they are the industry leaders and their solutions are the best. The managers and supervisors should be able to judge and do their research well, even if the vendors make the deal sound too good. The managers must find out the shortest billing period, which is offered by the vendors and must also know the consequent billing duration of the vendor. This will enable the contact center to assess the total cost of ownership easily.

What are the usefulness of Email Marketing?

In the modern day generation the use of emailing is one of the most important ways of communication. This is a fast world and people are busy. Hence to promote products through emails can come out to be one of the most beneficial acts. To develop your business through email marketing through a renowned BPO can make your product meet with the right target audience as far as possible. For the busy target audience, it is always not possible for them to answer the calls even if they are interested. The emails can later on be read by them and can make them informed with the product documents as send by the BPO customer care service team.

But it is always a matter of concern that whether the mail has landed exactly in the inbox of the consumer rather, if the mail went into the Spam folder the work of sending the mail is going to be a complete waste. Later on it also gives a negative feedback of the company from the consumer’s corner. Email marketing helps a lot to develop your business where the clients are not able to answer the 24 hour answering service. This venture of email marketing is also helpful in doing the eminent B2B business. Emailing is sometimes much more effective rather than the cold calls of the call center services. Sometimes a professionally written emails help to impress big business heads and this provides some positive effects later on. An email with proper information and product guidance can make your product’s marketing effectively and that matters a lot in improving your business.

Workforce Management software Outdoes Spreadsheet Scheduling

For small and medium sized call centers in India, utilizing workforce management software is often prohibitively expensive. Frequently, this means that call centers are forced to use cheaper alternatives like spreadsheets in their scheduling strategy. While the cost of using spreadsheets may appear at the surface level to be beneficial for call centers in India, it has become apparent that this outdated and inefficient method is in reality costing you more than you may realize.
Workforce management suites provide a number of advantages to this method obsolete, not only have the powerful benefit that your employees enjoy, but will save you money in the long term. Without a workforce management solution, it is impossible to consider the behavior of your India call center agents, for example, to track the schedule of compliance is almost impossible. Schedule of compliance failures can cost a lot of money call centers each year, as every minute of your India call center agents are directly translated to the time the client cannot be helped.

Planning skills is also much more difficult to draw with the method of the spreadsheet, adding another point of ineffectiveness. Workforce management programs to ensure that officers write to the scene at the right time and take account of someone with the right skills to keep the conversation on the phone at any time.

Perhaps more importantly, the current solutions WFM shave hours from the time a manager spends a week to schedule, monitor agent performance, creating reports and process scheduling conflict. With the hosted model in call centers in India, they are very quick, easy and affordable to implement.

Staffing is the most expensive resource in the budget of the call center 80 percent complete. Therefore, even a 1 percent increase in productivity significantly impacts the bottom line. The software management staff instead of a computer center responsible for the strategy of Appeal may quickly identify problems with staff and proactive to stop the entire customer service better.

How a lead generation company works

More and more generation of leads are the basic target of every lead generation companies. In order to understand the concept o lead gene we must get though the term “lead”. What are leads any way and how does it works. A lead may be any kind of prospect which may results in profit maximization of a company. In more easy words, any individual or group if gets interested in a companies product or services, that particular group or individual is called a lead.

Now the point is how does the procedure of lead generation works and how does the lead generation companies perform. In a lead generation company, a lead gets generated though interaction with common people. What a lead generation company does is they form a big man power and collect the phone numbers of common people from any of the database and dial up them directly. The professionals inform them about the company's product and services they are working for. These part of work is called outbound calling.

In any of the call if the person gets interested up on the product or the services, the call transform into a lead. This lead is then transferred to another department where the highly professional people try their level best to make it a sale and earn revenue for the company. This is how a lead generation company works actually.

Diversify through Call Center Services

Business firms have to continuously expand their domain in order to prevent stagnation. Expanding business areas would mean that they need to carry out additional areas of work. For example, a consumer-oriented firm will be able to broaden their consumer base through the help of the Internet. In other words, they need call center services to help them out. A business firm cannot add infrastructure and skill sets overnight to handle the extra work load. A call center can step in and take over the work.

The most common form of diversification is to graduate from telemarketing services to online lead generation. Business firms have found out that the use of telemarketing calls is not a good option because of the restrictions clamped by telecom watchdogs like the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The switch to online sales lead generation will help them bypass the restrictions and promote their products/services to a wider base of consumers.

Diversification also helps brands conduct market surveys for better product placement and branding. For a business firm, these are aspects that need professional help. Hiring a call center is the best option for these business firms.

Answering Services in Call Centers

Business owners are now hiring call center services for offering them answering services round the clock. The customer service representative at the call center is provided with the right training for offering business seeking assistance over telephone.

The call center provides the client a telephone number where the client can forward their phone lines; the call center agency then receives the call that is made to the company and answers customers on the company’s behalf. The well trained staff at call centers takes the message and delivers it to you through your chosen channel.

The call center agents should be polite and patient when dealing with customers and clients for a company. The image of your company will depend a lot on the way an agent talks and answers to customer queries.

The answering services offered by call centers include alert monitoring and notifications, customer support, appointment scheduling and confirmation, and even emergency dispatch. Other answering services on offer include order entry, event registration, survey, remote receptionist, voicemail and other services.

Call center agents talk to customers on a friendly tone and try building a rapport with your customers and client. This in turn helps your business expand. It is also true that availing the services of a call center can be very cost effective and save your time to be engaged in core activities.

Workforce Management in Call Centers

There are several things to consider when selecting a workforce management solution for a call center of any size.

The workforce management solution should discuss different shift patterns, skill levels required in different job profiles, inclusion of agent exceptions into schedule, and production of performance management reports as part of the key capabilities in a call center.


Time and resources also need to be implemented well to determine how long it takes to benefit from workforce management solution. It must also be decided how many people are required for implementing the solution.

It is also important to have a clear idea of the total costs of purchasing, functioning and maintaining the workforce management solution. This includes cost of software, hardware, monthly or annual costs of maintenance, subscription costs, upgrade fees, as well as other costs.
The workforce management solution should be easy for non-IT people to use, this way a call center can get the most out of it. Remember every workforce management solution comes with a risk in a given work environment; call center companies should evaluate that risk. Remember the workforce management solution should be such that if it does not work for your call center, you can turn it off without causing your company any financial risk.

The workforce management solution should help a call center reduce operational costs and in also help business expansion.

Training Does Have an Impact on Call Center Employees

The success of a BPO and efficiency of call center employees mostly depend on the training they have been provided.

It is important to assess the needs of a call center before training is imparted to the employees. It is important to check the telecommunications systems and find out if there are enough working phone lines to handle the many incoming calls, else even proper training can do no good to the organization.

Training is considered to be successful if it supports the call center’s business objectives. Note that training benefits can be increased with follow-up or ongoing coaching. Many call centers think that after training is provided, the employees will show remarkable improvement in performance, but that’s not how it works. There is no magic. This is where following up and ongoing coaching come into play, since learning that is not reinforced with the first 2 months tend to drop by 80%.

Training is actually an investment in the business, and should be holistic, integrated and reflect long-term planning. Once training has been provided, the call center should measure the results; it’s necessary to find out if employees are improving on their work.

Pull Up Call Center Quality

No matter what the geographical location of your call center is, you cannot surge ahead in terms of revenue unless you are improving your quality. The benchmark of call center services is measured in terms of quality. This trend is fast catching up for call centers across the world, especially in the third world countries. The general perception is that the telemarketing services of these countries are inferior because of the cheap labor that they employ. That may work for the cost models, but modern business is not cost-only endeavors. There is the question of sustaining the brand reputation. Unless you pull up the services that you provide, there is little that you can do to survive in the market.

Quality in call center services can be fixed overnight. You have to work closely with the managers and supervisors of the BPO unit to make changes. Start off with the manpower. Conduct an evaluation that will separate the better performers from the others. Assign them to the top priority projects and deploy the best agents on the peak times of customer services. Ensure that your technology is updated and in sync with the best practices. You will need to spend more time in the training room with your employees so that they may learn more about the work that they do before stepping on the call center floor.