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.

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.

Better Customer Service through Updates

Updates and alerts about the progress of problem solving at the customer service desk increase the loyalty of the consumers. When a caller calls up with some problem that needs to be fixed over a period of time, the call center must provide the caller with regular updates. It may be that the BPO is not wasting a moment in working towards a possible solution, but unless you inform the caller about your progress, the caller will think that you are sitting on it without doing anything. This will increase the caller’s impatience and invite more calls to the inbound call center desk. That way, you are handling a higher call volume without any productive purpose.

The BPO unit must put together a framework to update the customers and callers. A call from the outbound call center desk would be ideal. An email would be adequate as well. Callers feel paranoid when you are completely out of touch. The problem may be one of many that your call center handles in a day. But for the caller, the problem is one that occupies the mind every waking moment. The caller cannot be at peace unless the issue is resolved. Hearing from your end assures them that they are in good hands.

Role of Emails in B2B Lead Generation

Emails are effective ways of communicating for B2B lead generation. Emails become necessary in this context because the call center is contacting with busy professionals. Telemarketing calls may not do the trick as you may never get them on the phone. You will have to email your call center services offer and other details. This email is just the opener. You will have to make follow-up calls, preferably on the same day that you send the email. Delays will make way for the email to be buried under piles of emails that they receive on a daily basis.

The emails that you draft for lead generation in B2B projects have to be well-written. The design, the template and the copy have to be professional. It’s the brochure that can get the call center sector the project. Make sure you personalize the email for the contact. Keep special attention to the kind of message that you are drafting. It must be written in a way that can grab and keep the attention of the reader. To make the email more authentic, include links to credible sources. You must pack the email with information that is relevant to the needs of the project. Include easy-to-find contact numbers so that they can easily get back to your inbound call center agents.

Websites for Lead Generation

Websites can be really useful as lead generation beds. But are the BPO units getting the most out of them? Seems that the answer is no! Let’s take a quick look at the ways in which call center units can work towards better sales lead generation through websites. To begin with, get the content right. Content drives not just traffic into the website, but also makes it possible for you to get repeat viewers. When the users like what they see on the website, both in terms of writing and designing, they will come back to know more. Keep adding fresh content every other day to keep the interest soaring.

Other ways to get lead generation going on the websites is to check up on what other features you can support. You can get online chat facilities that pop up on the website’s more popular pages. Your BPO agents need to be vigilant at all times to answer the chat enquiries that come in. Pack your website with action words like ‘Download Now’ and ‘Free Trial’. These help sales lead generation in that they call the user to action. You can also upload white papers and case studies of work that you have done in the telemarketing services chapter. These case studies are often the main reasons why a company would hire your call center services.

Tracking Metrics for BPO

The BPO industry has to develop flexible metrics for tracking their progress. For the traditional call center services like lead generation and telemarketing, they can continue to use the tried and tested formula. But for the new additions to the kitty, like online sales lead generation and customer service satisfaction, they have to work out different metrics. For example, you cannot measure customer satisfaction by checking out how many calls were received at the inbound call center desk. To estimate that, you will need to check for the number of first-call resolutions and hold time, etc. In other words, you will have to look at fresh perspectives to old processes.

As the case is, online lead generation is another area where the BPO units are not using their usual stringent tracking. It could be because the call centers are not comfortable with using the tracking tools like Google Analytics. However, the fact remains that much of the traffic coming into the websites is not being tapped to their potential. Similarly, the sales lead generation team is also losing out on more leads because they are not responding to the trends that work. It could be that there is a pattern that can get them more users, but the pattern lies in the wilderness because no one is keeping track of it.

Call Center Services on Different Channels

There are different channels on which call center services function these days. It’s not about the voice calls anymore. Telemarketing is now just a division of the call center. It’s not everything about the business process outsourcing. Non-voice methods like online lead generation and marketing through websites and emails are also prevalent. These new methods are taking BPO service towards fresh new territories. Clients want this multi-prong approach because that brings down the rate of failure. If they cannot tap the customer on one medium, they always have a second and third chance.

The ideal way to conduct call center services across the different media is to bring them all on a single platform. Make the different media complementary to each other. If you are making telemarketing calls for lead generation, back it up with the use of websites and emails. Similarly, when you are using websites and search engine optimization (SEO), you can direct the calls of the customers towards the inbound call center. When all of these different divisions are working in tandem, you have a better chance of generating rich revenues for the firm.

Security Concerns: Virtual Call Center Agents

Call center agents working from home can become security concerns for the BPO unit hiring them. In case they are hiring freelancers, the risks of danger can be quite high. To avoid getting into sticky situations, the call centers must take care to conduct checks and verifications before hiring anyone. Criminal records must be looked into as well. You can never rule out the chances of a scam hitting home when you are working with employees that don’t show up in the office. You read about telemarketing agents duping people all the time. You wouldn’t want that to happen when your brand name is associated with the matter.

Call center recruiting managers have a role to play here. When you are planning to hire someone, check out on the professional references. Make calls to previous BPO units that this prospect has worked in. Talk to the managers who hired them on previous occasions. Once you have established that they have clean records in telemarketing services, you can go ahead and hire them. Even then, you must take care always to monitor them. There is no certainty that telemarketing scams won’t happen or your data will not misused. In this context, call centers have to be vigilant because their reputation depends on this as well.

Special Customer Service

Customer service doesn’t always mean getting billing information or other enquiry details. Sometimes people call the answering service department to resolve serious issues that need a thorough knowledge on the part of the call center agent. For example, if the BPO is handling a tech support project, the agents have to be aware of the domain. They have to know the innards of a CPU well. Since general telemarketing agents will not know such technical matters, call centers hire technicians that double up as agents. They receive calls and resolve the issues of the callers on the first call itself.

There is a simple business sense in recruiting technical professionals for these projects. When the calls made at the answering desk are passed around to get someone capable to answer the call, the callers get frustrated. Their time is valued and the BPO unit has to respect that. That is exactly what happens when you hire technicians as customer service personnel. They resolve the issue immediately, making the caller realize that your phone answering desk is efficient and capable of attending to complicated issues. Clients want this sort of a professional behavior at the inbound call center desk. Call center units, on their part, pay a higher salary to these technicians and get them onboard.

Customer Services through Twitter

Twitter is one website that offers multiple opportunities on multiple fronts. Just when call centers were thinking that this micro-blogging site could be the ideal launch pad for online lead generation, experts have found out a way to use it for customer service. When you are creating a Twitter page for your client or the brand, you will have customers on the list of followers. When they have certain issues with their purchase, they can leave tweets on your page. The proactive BPO team can source out these tweets and act on them instantly. A simple phone call would make a lot of difference to the disgruntled customer. Once you have made the connection, try to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

Such methods of customer service do a world of good to the brand loyalty of your customers. They know that you are around to help them whenever they need you. Call centers have to work hard to establish this bond of trust. That comes from action rather than just promotional material written by your BPO writers. To make the right kind of brand loyalty, you will have to be there for the customers. Twitter is just another way to do it. If you have the intent of doing so, you can source more ways.

Wanted Telemarketing Calls!

Most know telemarketing calls to be something that you avoid and sometimes learn to tolerate as you would accept nightmares! What if the customers actually wanted those lead generation calls? Then the BPO agents would have more ground to make a sales pitch. They would also have better listeners on the other end of the receiver. But can that really happen? If you can create the right buzz through call center services and brand promotion, it is possible. You have to find out what makes the customers curious. You can go online and create something of a positive impact through social media channels and discussion boards. When you are popular among the netizens, you will be noted and the aura around your brand will attract them.

The cardinal rule of marketing is that when you push something under the nose of people, they tend to reject it. However, when call center services tease the users into believing that your brand can actually provide them something unique, they will surely come to you. They will call your customer service department and ask questions. They will write emails and leave comments on your client’s website. It will be a different ball game when you will be leading the way. The impact will be more significant and the consumers you are telemarketing too will be willing participants in the loop.

Analyzing Customer Service

It is important for the call centers to analyze their customer service. The reason is simple. Most consumers complain about the kind of after-sales service that they receive. Many of them turn to other brands because they are not happy with the answering service department. The clients need every consumer on their database now, what with getting them onboard getting increasingly more difficult. Analyzing this department is not easy. You have to take various aspects into consideration. For example, if you follow the speech pattern of the customers, you can find how just how satisfied they are with the call center services. If you find that they are not responding to your service favorably, it’s time to ask questions.

Where do you think your customer service is not performing? Is it because your call center agents are not being able to solve their problems on the very first call that they make? Or is it because the caller is being transferred around too many times? When you get the answer to your question, it’s time to resolve those issues. Check with your inbound call center team if they are aware of these issues. Ask your team leads and supervisors to get your agents and work on these weak links. It takes a while to fix an issue on the BPO front, but it’s necessary that you make the effort. Once you are done, keep analyzing to check if things are running well.

Profit-making Call Centers

Call centers are no longer considered to be just service centers. They are actively trying to making profits. Making profits is important for any business firm, just not for a BPO unit. Call center units are paid by clients for the services that they render. There is very little chance of the telemarketing unit to make money out of these projects. The cost of call center services has to be kept down to be on par with the international standards. However, the price of getting technology and manpower is rising higher than ever. Inflation is taking the cost of production higher and competition is bringing down the bill that is paid by the clients.

Burning the candle at both ends is proving to be a bother for the call centers. But they realize that they have to make profits to sustain themselves. The technology and processes used in call center services is changing form every day. They have to keep pace with the times and obsolete methods and processes have no place in BPO service. Moreover, they will need money to expand their range of telemarketing services. They may have to divert their resources to online methods as well. Money is a very important contributor to change. Unless the call center makes profit, they cannot make any significant changes.

Striking BPO Deals

There’s some sort of process and method that is followed when your BPO strikes a deal with a client. The representatives of the call center would like to hard sell their call center services. The problem is that when they try to do that, they often tend to go overboard. They give off this impression that they can achieve more than they actually can. This spurs the client into thinking that they can expect some major hauls in their business because of telemarketing services. While this is true, in the short term parlance, it’s quite impossible to attain. When clients find that out through practical experience, there is a growing mistrust between the business partners, something that is not ideal for growth and progress.

The ideal way to negotiate BPO deals is to keep things straight. Talk it out with your client and set realistic targets on telemarketing services. When you spell it out how the project is going to phase out, clients are grounded about their expectations. The lead generation department needs to be careful about their targets as well. It is advisable to set targets according to the technology you have on board and the manpower at your disposal. Bite off only what you can chew. If clients come out of the partnership bitter and disillusioned, it’s bad for your call center.

Telemarketing Agents’ Safety

The safety of the telemarketing agent is function of the BPO unit’s responsibility. Though you cannot directly take the call center to task for safety lapses, the firm has to be accountable for the issues related to getting the agent back home. Keeping this need in mind, several call centers have beefed up their security regime in the recent past. Countries like India are a cauldron for nefarious activities when it comes to travelling at night. For women telemarketing agents, it is a nightmare unless there are some stringent actions taken. Sensing this dire need, BPO units have boosted up their security cordon.

Some simple steps taken by the call center can eradicate several niggling concerns. To begin with, the BPO units are arming the drivers of the pool cars with GPS cards. These cards will help the call centers to monitor the movement of the cars at all times. They can immediately wave a red flag when they find that the car has changed routes. Telemarketing agents are also provided with plastic cards that they can swipe with the driver. This will allow the security experts to find out when the agent was dropped off. Many BPO service firms also advise their agents to call up the phone answering desk and report when they reach home. Such steps doesn’t just ensure safety, they also make the agent feel good about working in the company.

Business Swelling in BPO

The BPO business is comfortably hitting the high marks of success. The Republicans in the Senate shot down the bill to roll back tax evasions and other benefits that the American firms receive for outsourcing their work to offshore BPO units. The Obama administration has dubbed it as a move to destabilize the economic prosperity of the country. The bill was primarily prepared with the intention of brining back telemarketing jobs to the American shores.

However, the experts of the business process outsourcing in the third world countries feel that the swelling telemarketing services business would not be hurt even if the bill was passed.

These call center experts have their reasons. To begin with, the telemarketing projects can still get done with less amount of money if the business firms outsource them to the offshore BPO destinations. The American business houses are recovering from the dampening effect of the recession. They are cash rich today, but not enough to pay for the overpriced call center services that the domestic call centers offer. The delegates of offshore telemarketing services have lobbied hard against this bill. And now they have tasted success. This deals a heavy jolt to the Obama administration. At the same time, it’s good news for business process outsourcing.

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.