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.