The Recovery of BPO

The BPO sector of the third world countries are expected to recover from the recession faster than their counterparts in USA or Europe. The reason is simple: the cost factor. Business firms in USA, the prime revenue generator for the business process outsourcing industry, are looking at ways to cut costs. They will not be able to hire the expensive call center services offered by the domestic call centers. No matter what the government says about bringing back jobs to the American shores, that will never be a reality unless the cost factor comes down to the same page. Offshore destinations of outsourcing have this advantage that will never be undermined by shrewd businessmen.

The government may be worried about the political compulsions of having to deal with a two-digit unemployment rate. But that does not worry the business firms wanting to get some call center onboard. Their only criteria to decide the BPO unit they will hire is the bottom line of their business. Tax burden will not be a factor when the business firm sees that even with taxes the option of using offshore call centers is still economically viable. In this sort of a scenario, the Obama administration can do little to hinder the recovery of business process outsourcing organization working out of the third world countries.

Call Center Employees Go Cheap

Call center employees in the USA are ready to work at slashed pays. The percentage of unemployment is so high that the BPO agents who have been given the pink slip during the recession sees no other option but to take up a job with whatever pay they get. Call centers in the country cannot afford to pay them high wages because they have to contend with the BPO service units of the developing countries. If the domestic telemarketing units cannot keep their prices low, they will lose their projects to the offshore business process outsourcing destinations. They have to keep their prices at par with the global rate. Hitting that rate despite being in an expensive economy is not working out for them, yet they have no choice.

The situation is not too bleak as well. There are high chances that the domestic call centers will gain from the model of cutting down on prices. Call center units in developing countries brought down their prices to get more projects. It worked for them. Business firms, just out of recession, decided to try cheaper BPO units because they couldn’t afford the expensive ones. The quality of these call center services has become infinitely better because of all the training and quality control that is being done these days. The pay cuts of the employees are just a fall-out of their attempt to bring down the cost of production so that they meet the price tags that are globally accepted.

Call Center Monitoring

Call center firms are guarded in their approach these days. Reports and online alerts keep telling us about incidents involving data theft and other malpractices in the BPO firms. That makes you be careful about your agents and the processes at all times. You must have an integrated monitoring system that keeps a close tab on your call center services, your telemarketing agents who make and receive calls and also on the use of resources. The monitoring system isn’t something that makes the employees claustrophobic or keeps things too tight. It’s just that you must have it in place to prevent any misuse of your call centers. You have a reputation to protect in the business process outsourcing sector.

In your answering service department, you must have some monitoring going on as well. You need to have technology to keep track on all the calls that are being made or received in the call center. Sometimes you can have BPO supervisors listening on the calls while they are in progress. If the floor agent is not getting something right, the supervisor can whisper in some words of advice. It’s entirely on how you take the call center services monitoring. If you take a positive view of it, there’s nothing better. And if you feel that it chokes innovation, then it will only be a fallacy in thinking so.

Converting Online Traffic to Lead Generation

Many call centers are now relying on websites for lead generation. Web 2.0 tools are great to get some quality leads into the kitty. However, you have to be careful about converting the traffic that comes to the client websites into leads that make money. Search engine optimization (SEO) methods can get you the traffic. But to convert them into sales lead generation, you need more than a website. The BPO web designers have to build up a website that has easy navigation and also makes the flow of traffic easier from the home page to the internal pages. The easier it is for the users to use the website, the better chances you have of making a sale.



Another way to boost lead generation through websites is to keep the information form easy and simple. Users don’t like it when you hold out a form that requires inane data and is unusually long. Sales lead generation cannot work out if the users get turned off by the forms that you have on the website. A good idea would be to keep other options for the users to sign up. Users may want to contact you through email or leave a comment. The inbound call center agents can process those emails and see if they can use them for telemarketing. There must always be this synergy between the telemarketing services team and the web marketing department. That’s how the BPO firm can have the best of both worlds.

Holiday Incentive for Telemarketing Agents

Motivation is a prime mover for any employee, be it from the call center or elsewhere. The BPO units these days are offering holiday packages to its employees who do exceedingly well. Many call centers have adopted this model of rewarding the best telemarketing agent or employee with an all expenses paid trip to a holiday destination of their choice. No wonder then that there is some serious competition on the telemarketing services floor! It’s good for the firm in a number of ways. They have a dedicated and now motivated team of BPO service agents and that’s something that is must-have for progress.


However, it’s a challenge for the call center to keep the focus on healthy competition. When the incentives are this rewarding, it’s obvious that the BPO agents would just about do anything to grab the opportunity. To keep the focus on work and not on the incentive, the employers of the call centers have to maintain a transparent policy to select the winner. Arbitrary decisions can do a lot of harm to the morale of the employees and ruin the work environment. As a matter of fact, the whole purpose of providing this incentive can backfire on the telemarketing company. Even then, it’s definitely a move that will push for better telemarketing services in the future.

Payment Discrimination in BPO

Payment discriminations have dotted the history of industrialization. It began with racial issues and shifted to gender bias. No matter what the industry experts tell us, there still exists a disparity in the income of the man and the woman. However, things are refreshingly different in a BPO. Here, the women have an equal opportunity not just in matters of pay, but also in terms of progress and promotion in a call center. The doors of being promoted to a higher position than the current one, is as near to the woman than to the man. In fact, the woman has a better scope of working as a telemarketing professional because they are naturally inclined to be patient with customers.

















In terms of pay, the women make as much money in a BPO unit. There is no separate pay slot for the women, as you may find in various other industries. The call centers are known for being the arenas of equal opportunity. The call center services also provide employment to women who cannot come to the office for various reasons. It could be that the commuting to the call center is a problem for someone. Several BPO service firms allow working from home as an option, where you get the usual pay. You can coordinate with your superiors in the office through the internet. Such convenience can only be had in the business process outsourcing sector!

Rural Call Center Proves Lucrative

The rural BPO units are proving themselves to be ideal locations for a call center hub. The cost factor is a huge advantage that the investors of call centers can count on. This is especially true for cities in countries like India and the Philippines. The smaller cities of India, like Mysore and Jaipur have very supportive governments to help them bag telemarketing units. The administrators help the investors with tax cuts and other rebates. The less-expensive market of the smaller cities also acts as a bonus. The telemarketing services firms can establish an office space without having to shell out a fortune.

In business process outsourcing, you need to have a minimum amount of seats to make a telemarketing project economically viable. At times, the lack of the required number of call center agents jeopardizes a project. The call volume may be too high for the answering service agents to handle. Without space enough, you are barred from recruiting more on the inbound call center team. This issue is solved in smaller cities. The costs you save in infrastructure, tax cuts and establishment can be used to make expansions and innovations in the business.

State Work Outsourced to Overseas Call Center

In a bizarre case of bureaucratic shortsightedness, the answering service work of Ohio’s appliance rebate program was found to have been outsourced to El Salvador! The rebate program is part of the stimulus package awarded to Ohio. The revelations came to the surface when someone called the program and asked the call center agent where he was located. The answer was so shocking for the caller that he registered a complaint with the Ohio state government. The Texas-based call center services unit never mentioned to the concerned department that they will be outsourcing their rebate program to an overseas BPO unit. It’s another matter that the department, on their part, never asked or clarified!

The Governor of Ohio, Ted Strickland, is livid at the way things have turned out to be. He has ordered city council members to be particular about these details. A number of Republican congressmen opined that the call center work should never have been outsourced to overseas call centers. They have decided to make it a point not to award contracts to those BPO units that will outsource the work to overseas units. According to the stimulus package of Barack Obama to Ohio, $11m came in to offer rebates to consumers buying appliances that saved energy, like water heaters and dishwashers.

Lead Generation Lacks Follow-ups

Some unsuccessful lead generation companies across the world are falling short in one primary, common area: they are not following up on their telemarketing leads. As a result of this initial delay, the leads cool off and the outbound call center agents cannot reap any benefits out of these cold leads. It’s very important for the call center agent to try and keep the leads warm till they are ready to be converted into sales.

Seminars on sales lead generation have also pointed out that leads don’t really convert into sales because the agents are not willing to do the required job of backing up their own efforts. Once the lead is generated, then not following it up means undoing the good work that you did yourself.

A good way to do that is to use non-voice means of keeping lead generation warm. Send out emails to your prospective customers and clients with information about products/services, along with details of your company and business. These emails from the outbound call center desk are meant to keep the presence of your brand alive in their minds. They would like to connect with your company at any point in time. The emails can act as vehicles to bring their message to you. You can also follow up on them through telemarketing calls, if that’s what is suitable for the occasion.

Call Center Jobs Proliferate

The number of jobs in the call center sector will go up in the coming months. The last quarter of 2010 will see a surge of BPO jobs out in the market. With the recession officially out of the way and the economy finding itself back on its feet, the call centers are getting better projects. To meet the demands of those projects, they will be hiring answering service and telemarketing agents.

That would mean that the business process outsourcing sector will be swelling up in terms of manpower. That is always a good sign for the industry as a whole. It means that the growth opportunities for the telemarketing services will bring in greater amount of revenue.

The number of jobs has always been higher in the call center industry than in the others. It goes on to prove that BPO firms have projects on their hands, as opposed to what the detractors are saying. There are always those who think that the answering service projects are time-bound in some way and one fine day they will disappear from the face of the earth!

Such fantastical ideas repel many young people from joining as a telemarketing agent. The growth of real jobs in the business process outsourcing industry is like a reminder to them that their gory prophecies have no base. And it’s time for the youth to think of telemarketing services as a serious, regular career option.

Learn Lead Generation Lessons

Lead generation lessons are necessary for the growth of the lead generation companies. Insiders of the call center sector say that sales lead generation is one service that improves with experience. When you handle some of the telemarketing projects, you get a hang of it. Then you know what sort of an approach will be ideal for the project.

Clients are bound to come back to you if you can show them how you saved money for them and how you optimized the BPO resources you had at your command. Clients these days are looking for BPO service providers who are adept at doing something new and experimental without being too loose with the costs.

When the lead generation company has handled a project similar to the one they have at present, they can easily use that experience. In such a scenario, they know the hurdles on the way of sales lead generation. So, they can combat the obstacles on the way through superior call center planning. It also saves a lot of resources for the BPO unit.

The process that you use to carry out telemarketing services is as important as the telemarketing itself. You need to protect the brand image of the client company and also pull in results. Once you tap into your experience pool or just study the call center services of other units, you can strategize your options better.

Telemarketing Violations Continue Unperturbed

Violations of the telemarketing rules are continuing without any hindrances. There is hardly any authority that can enforce the penalties that have been levied on the call centers. The Canadian companies have had it really tough. Thousands of dollars are waiting to be realized in terms of payments. Of the 22 telemarketing services units that have been fined, only 4 among them have bothered to pay up.

The USA laws are facing the same problem. The call center services that have violated the Do Not Call (DNC) list have been penalized. Because many of these BPO units are based outside the country, it is difficult for the ruling authorities to actually realize the penalties. And because of this same reason, the business outsourcing units can also get away with the violations.

Citizens who have registered with the DNC list and still been made part of telemarketing campaigns have complained to telecommunication authorities and failed to get some action done. Assurances are not going to be enough anymore. The call centers need to be forced to pay up by legal means. For every telemarketing company that is fined and made to pay, there will be many others that will learn a lesson.

When examples are set, there will be that extra caution on the part of the telemarketing services providers to quit calling those numbers listed on the DNC. Every authority across the globe needs to come up in arms to fight this gross violation of rules of privacy.

Telemarketing Drives Profit in BPO

Statistics coming in from assorted studies have showed that telemarketing contributes to the major chunk of a BPO’s earnings. The telemarketing services were the most hired among the call center services. This was largely the idea of call center experts for years down the line. However, of late, web marketing and help desk services have made some significant cuts in the percentage of contribution made by the telemarketing business.

The easier conclusion is that the telemarketing company enjoys more revenues on a yearly basis than their non-voice counterparts. In fact, the findings not just validate the importance of the telemarketing calls, it also confirms something else.

Contrary to the belief that other forms of lead generation like websites and email marketing is still waiting to catch up with the good old telemarketing! But you cannot really write them off. Sales lead generation through other non-voice means have come up strongly from being relegated to the sidelines.

If you consider the fact that telemarketing calls were around for decades while the others are almost infant in terms of years of usage, you have to say that the telemarketing business has a challenge on their sleeves. It remains to be seen how long telemarketing services continues to hold fort as the highest-earning BPO service.

Future of Telemarketing

It’s not enough to have the lead generation team to work for a list of qualified leads. That’s just half the job done. Converting those leads into actual sales is important, too. That is where the lead generation companies are falling short of expectations. The telemarketing calls are getting them the leads, but those are not converting into profits or sales. That is leaving the sales lead generation hopelessly in the lurch.

The conversion of the telemarketing leads into sales requires stringent monitoring and following up on those leads. More often than not, the leads are not tended to or nurtured. As a result, the leads cool off and all the efforts of the outbound call center team leads to nothing more than dead leads.

It’s a mystery why the lead generation companies don’t really follow up on the leads that they have bagged! All it takes is a phone call or an email regularly to keep the leads warm. This is a competitive field. After your sales lead generation call, the same person must have received tens of telemarketing calls, probably with better offers and rebates and bonuses.

You cannot expect the person to remember you in spite of the offers flowing thick and fast. He/she will do so, if you care to correspond regularly. This is truer for B2B lead generation. Here the outbound call center guy is dealing with a business head. The busy professional will not remember you unless you gently nudge the lead from time to time.

Sri Lanka Taking Telemarketing Seriously

The Sri Lankan government is taking their call center services seriously. They are approving plans for the development of a world-class telemarketing sector that can handle telemarketing services from a global clientele. The island of Sri Lanka has the same advantages that you would expect from a developing country – they have cheap establishment costs to house many a telemarketing company, they have a strong English-speaking population to provide them with a manpower and they also have a lot of talent that can be exploited by the business process outsourcing sector.

Moreover, the island has not had many call centers. So the competition is much shallow for the newbie in the field to make an impression, not to mention the cost cuts.

Recent reports tell us that the Sri Lankan government is helping a private player set up a call center in the war-torn city of Jaffna. The idea is to inject some development in the city through the help of telemarketing services. The employment factor is a major reason why the government is ready to invest time and even money to build up a better telemarketing sector.

They want to have a share in the ample business process outsourcing pie. They want to cash in on the many advantages that they have as a business outsourcing destination and turn those into earnings for the country.

Answering Service Hires Handsomely

The answering service division of Verizon will be hiring about 250 call center employees in the coming weeks. Their answering services unit in the Cedar Bluff Road will be expanding their phone answering unit at this location. The customer service call center of Verizon was recently moved from their Kingston Pike location to this area.


At present, there are 63 employees working at this venue. The office space is a sprawling establishment of 13,000 sq. feet. The Cellular Sales Director of the company assured the business outsourcing world that Verizon will be employing hundreds more so that they can take on larger projects and finish them off fast. Deadlines are a concern in the telemarketing world today.

Most telemarketing services are expected to deliver the goods well before the usual time. The clients and business firms who hire the telemarketing company generally desires that the call center put in extra efforts to ensure that projects are finished before time. The answering service operations for Verizon may be in-house, but they will still need to bow to the demands of the BPO industry.

The aim is also to make Verizon the best in terms of customer service call center. The hiring will not just take place at the phone answering desk. They will also hire supervisors, managers and customer service representatives.

Call Center Makes Bogus Calls

A yet-unknown call center in Winnipeg is making fake calls using the name of the Fire Department asking for donations. The BPO agents making those calls say that they calling on behalf of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs. They are collecting funds for the development of certain things that do not really exist! The campaign is offering telemarketing services that are not registered with the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service (WFPS).

The telemarketing calls are claiming that they are but actually are not. That is why the fire department has decided to use a public warning against the perpetrators. The declarations of the fire department are unambiguous: the calls having nothing to with them or the WFPS.

This is another instance when a call center is making fake calls to collect money. This is a serious issue all over the world. There are tons of telemarketing calls being made that collect money for non-registered or unverified causes. Several of them are telemarketing campaigns that claim to sell products/services that are not existent. They push forward for money deals to be made by the customers and then you don’t hear from them anymore.

Since a majority of the call centers are based overseas, legally you are at a loss to do something. The only way out of this trap is to be discreet. Be careful about the telemarketing company you are dealing with.

Indian Answering Service Challenged

The Indian answering service industry looks suitable challenged. After dominating the call center market for years, the monopoly of the Indian call centers when it comes to outsourcing work is set to be seriously threatened, if not overhauled. The challengers are the BPO units in countries like the Philippines and those in Latin America. These business outsourcing destinations are offering cost cuts that India cannot.

They are also matching up to international quality these days, probably the only reason why they could not break open into the business process outsourcing scene earlier. But from the look of the statistics and how much of branded clients they have handled lately, it seems like they are serious contenders for the top slot.

The Indian answering service needs a different business model to retain their place. They need to exploit their BPO resources in a better way, optimizing them to the fullest. The purpose of business outsourcing has not strayed from its original premise. It is still cost cuts. But the Indian call centers have hit the glass ceiling when it comes to slashing their prices. A prime reason is the inflation.

Another is the salary of the call center agents. While entry-level players get the same money, the higher-ups are being overpaid. The reason is simple: there is not enough supply of capable new recruits who can handle the responsibility of working at a business process outsourcing unit.

Call Center Hub Stalled in Nairobi

A call center hub was supposed to be set up at Sameer Business Park in Nairobi. However, the project got stalled due to the unavailability of funds. The government of Nairobi was expected to provide with the money for the installation of the call centers, along with infrastructural settings. The funds required were allocated but the ones who will be building it up never got the money. So the process has been stopped.

The BPO hub is important for the creation of jobs in the Nairobi market. The IT Ministry feels that the delay in the project will hurt their plans to make Nairobi a hot-bed of business process outsourcing projects. The negotiation of the IT Department with the Treasury is now at a stalemate.

The call center hub at Sameer Park in Nairobi is expected to be the house of many old and new call centers. The aim is to bring all of these segregated BPO units under one roof. It will make the industry stick together and also make it easier for facilities to be built around this hub.

The IT ministry plans to make business process outsourcing a revenue earner for Nairobi. Several African nations have reaped the benefits of a thriving call center services wing. The contracts of handling projects for developed countries always earn that all-important foreign exchange currency!

Cost Cut Challenge for Call Center

Call centers are facing a strange challenge these days. The call center planners know that they need to cut down on costs. But they can’t decide which department will bear the brunt of the cost cuts. It cannot be the answering service team. You take one inbound call center agent out and you find the entire team working under pressure.

The call volume is unevenly distributed, putting the phone answering agents in a spot of bother. They were coping hard with the work pressure as it is. With downsizing, the agents have to address the issues faster than they would have liked to. This reflects badly on the customer care service that they have on offer.

It cannot be the lead generation team. That’s because the outbound call center agents do the main bulk of the telemarketing job. Shedding weight here would mean lesser revenue earners. You can talk about optimizing the BPO unit but you can do just that and nothing more.

Your primary aim would be to make sure that the call center agents are not overworked because of the cost cutting measures. Employee attrition is a rising problem and if you burnt out employees think of quitting, it won’t be long before you will be spending more than you intended to save!