B2B Lead Generation through Professional Networks

The use of professional networks is an up and coming tool for B2B lead generation. Professionals across the globe are steadily signing up for professional networking websites like LinkedIn and Xing. Their aim is to stay in touch with colleagues and co-workers from the past and also the present. The network helps them source for jobs, share ideas and also take part in meaningful discussions about their professional. Call center agents can interact with the decision makers of business firms. Talking strictly in a professional manner, they can convince them as to why they need the telemarketing services of the BPO unit.

B2B lead generation is a tad difficult than the usual sales lead generation that the outbound call center agents does. In this process, the call center agents have to be careful about what they are writing and talking about. Because they are dealing with top-notch business executives, any error in pitching for telemarketing projects can be the reason why you missed out on the deal. Trying too hard to seal it off will also come across as desperate. You have to strike a fine balance between being laid back and too aggressive. Follow up your emails with phone calls and keep the lead warm, advises experts.

BPO Companies and Mobile Applications

Mobile applications development is not an option for most call centers. To build up a mobile app for a simple phone needs superior technology. For high-end phones like Smartphone and Android phones, the stakes get higher. BPO companies often shy away from investing that much into mobile advertisement and apps. The reason is very simple. These phones are used by top notch business executives and affluent income groups only. Lead generation campaigns don’t often include them in their target demographics. That is why the amount of money that they put in is not really justified at the end of the day.

However, the bigger BPO companies are using mobile apps for lead generation. Consumers like it when they are contacted in newer, unique ways. When the call center walks the straight path and go for telemarketing calls to get more customers in the kitty, consumers tend to be repelled. They don’t want to budge to the traditional ways of telemarketing services. The same customers would feel drawn to a brand when the call centers tap them through mobile advertisements or apps. To find out what mode of sales lead generation would be suitable for a campaign, the telemarketers have to study the market trends and make investments accordingly.

Call Center Software

When you hire out your customer service department to a call center, you want your business partner to handle a high call volume with practiced efficiency. There is no doubt that the BPO company you have onboard should have the latest equipment and software to tackle your business calls and process them without any flaws. Primarily speaking, there are two different kinds of software used at call centers. One is the IVR, or the Interactive Voice Response software. Here, the callers are allowed to choose from a list of options. This cuts down on the call time because the callers can immediately go to the section they want information from. There is no need to speak to live agents, unless the caller insists on it.

The other type of call center software is the CTI, or the Computer Telephony Integration. In this system, the telemarketing calls are routed through a computer. When the calls come through, the BPO agents can check the required information about the caller on their computer screens. They can easily find out what kind of material they are looking for to answer those calls. The information bank is at their disposal. This helps the telemarketing services to be more precise and accurate in their information dissemination. It also reduces the hold time for the callers and they get their answers promptly.

Call Center Industry in 2011

The call center industry has some interesting trends to show in the coming year. 2011 will be the year of cloud computing in the BPO sector. Clients and customers will be more comfortable at looking for Caas (Communication as a Service) rather than premise-based call center services. The key will be to get the best talent onboard. Whether they are working in a brick-mortar business process outsourcing unit or not comes second. Along with the cloud system, real-time monitoring and reports will find a lot of purchase in telemarketing services. Clients will prefer a web-based reporting structure as opposed to white papers that call centers send in to their clients.

A very interesting trend in lead generation services is the development of applications for Blackberry, I-Phone, Smartphone and I-PAD applications. These are new-age mobile devices that consumers are increasingly getting hooked to. Most consumers use these gadgets to check up on their emails and other Internet activities. To tap these upwardly mobile classes of consumers, BPO units have to adapt themselves to the way they like to connect. Along with the application, the question of security in call center services is another emerging trend for 2011. Call centers are more concerned about security, as they are about providing quicker solutions to telemarketing issues.

The Important of FCR in Customer Service

FCR, or First Call Resolutions, is that part of customer service that records the number of calls that were resolved on the very first instance. Sometimes callers have to ring up the inbound call center desk more than once for a single problem. A call center that pays attention to the FCR percentage doesn’t allow a problem to lie. They make the best possible attempt to get it sorted out on the first attempt made by the caller. This has several advantages to it. Firstly, it reduces the operational cost at the answering service desk. Callers, when they find a solution to their problem, don’t call again with the same issue. So the BPO unit doesn’t have to pay for repeat calls.

Probably the best advantage of a high FCR is the customer satisfaction. Customers like your customer service when you manage to pin down your problem immediately. This attains two benefits for the telemarketing department. One is that the call center agent can build up on the customer’s good mood to cross sell and up sell. Another benefit is that because the callers are happy with your call center services, they will not think about moving over to some other brand. This keeps your clients happy and is fruitful for your business in the long run.

Customer Service Goes Virtual

The customer service departments of various BPO companies are going virtual. The struggle to be there for the customers at all times has reached a new height. Call centers are now working out a schedule by which they are recruiting answering service agents who will work as a virtual team. The agents will ideally be located in different time zones so that they are able to cover the entire 24 hours. The idea is to keep phone answering agents on the call during the lean hours. The customers can be located anywhere across the world. They will call according to their convenience. So the call center has to be ready to receive them.

By careful scheduling, the call center units can assign agents according to the time zones they are based in. It will be the BPO manager’s job to check up the peak hours at the inbound call center desk. Get the best agents on the job during this time. You can keep this thing with the customer service agents working from the call centers itself. During the weaker periods of time, get the virtual phone answering agents to come into the picture. Brief them about the telemarketing project and the requirements well in advance. You need the whole team to function as one unit.

Transformation in Customer Service

Times have changed at the customer service department. You can no longer associate the inbound call center with just voice calls. Previously it used to be about optimizing the answering service process like bringing down the hold time or increasing the frequency of calls that are resolved on the first attempt itself. These days it is about transformation. Customer care has now transformed into something that spills over online. It’s not just about voice calls anymore. Customers are contacting the BPO agents through the websites of the clients, through emails or even through online chat options.

The inbound call center, therefore, has more to do than just answer calls. They have to answer emails and also respond to queries about the brand. The BPO units must deploy agents with standard writing skills so that they can personally respond to the email messages sent by clients. These are also wonderful opportunities for lead generation. The savvy telemarketing agent can convert the curiosity about the brand to sales. That is one area where the telemarketing services employees have to be vigilant. They have to spot the opportunities where they can cross-sell and up-sell.

Economic Support of BPO

As opposed to what the general perception is, the BPO sector continues to contribute handsomely to the economic prosperity of the host country. The call center sector is known to be a prime contributor to the total earnings of a country, mainly so because of the foreign exchange that it brings in. However, skeptics have derided the contributions, of late. They declared that the telemarketing industry is about to fall apart. There are twin reasons why they think so. One is the growing impatience of people towards outbound call center calls, and another is the political machinations against telemarketing services.

But these threats seem valid only on paper and speculation. The call centers are generating millions of jobs across the world. The benefits of the BPO sector is most evident in the third world countries. The contributions of the telemarketing units towards the national earnings is also to the tune of several billion American dollars. The creation of jobs is such a prime focus for every country that they are developing their infrastructure to help accommodate call center services. Moreover, they are also keen on making it smooth for the investors to set up telemarketing units in their countries. If the industry was actually deemed to be past its prime, would they welcome investors with open arms?

Budgets in Lead Generation

Budgets are important in lead generation. Before your outbound call center agents start working, you have to finalize what kind of money you are looking at. The cost per call has to be worked out according to that budget. The way things are, call centers have to be aware that shooting above the budget will not be welcome. Clients are also working on tight financial schedules. They cannot afford to pay extra. Recession-hit firms are not able to work out finances at the last minute. Like the BPO units, they have designated budgets for sales lead generation as well. If you fail to deliver within the stipulated budget, it’s counted as a discredit.

There are different ways in which the call center units ensure that they are sticking to the budget of lead generation. Assign small targets for yourself. Check how much you are spending during the different stages of the telemarketing project. If you see the outbound call center agents are working within the constraints of the budget, let things keep rolling. Otherwise you can bring some cost-saving measures into effect. Small targets help because you get the opportunity to rectify things before it’s too late. Keep your fingers on the pulse of the telemarketing services and respond immediately to any deflections.

Lead Generation Tip: Nurturing

Lead generation comprises of a significant process called lead nurturing. That’s the process by which outbound call center agents follow up on the leads that they have generated through phone calls and emails. The process of lead nurturing is important for the BPO because customers and clients are busy professionals. They often forget about the telemarketing offer that they received last evening. They may have assured the sales lead generation agent that they will think about their offer, but when it comes to actually doing so, they come unhinged. It’s the task of the call centers to give them follow-up calls or emails.

The usual procedure of lead nurturing is to send across an email after 3 to 8 days in B2C lead generation. If the telemarketing project is about something to do with finances, the agent has to provide them some additional lead time to think it over. Call center agents have to be careful that they don’t send in the same emails as reminders. Vary the copy of the email to make it more progressive and interesting each time you send one. If you are using the same copy, the receiver may get frustrated and hit ‘Unsubscribe’! That, of course, closes down the sales lead generation process.

Offline and Online BPO

Offline and online BPO departments are about to come together! That is the picture that is emerging from the call centers across the world. Till very recently, you had the two different sections of the call center working as separate entities. They corresponded only through emails or reports. However, they had little or no cohesion as a team. As a result, there were plenty of loopholes that usually exist when there is lack of coordination between the two teams. The conversion of leads into sales was difficult to achieve because the online lead generation agents faced a sort of disconnect with the offline customer service.

In the new way of doing things, call center agents communicate with each other on a regular basis. This helps them understand what they are doing in the different corners of the BPO. Moreover, the integration of all call center services into a common platform has helped everyone in the team understand how things are going to be. They are now aware of the different functions that each of them has to play. With their individual roles well-etched out, they are more productive in the work that they do. In fact, they are surer of what they are contributing towards the BPO service.

Contractual Telemarketing Agents

When you are using contracted telemarketing agents, you have to be careful about various aspects. You have to be careful about data security because these telemarketing agents are not part of the organization as such. They are not even on the direct payrolls of the BPO. However, you have to make sure that this fact is expressed only on paper. In spirit, you have to make them part of the call center services team. There may be a wealth of experience in the agents that you have hired on contract. They may know processes and methods which can take your telemarketing services to greater heights. They may also help you optimize and streamline your process.

However, none of this would come to fruition if the BPO managers don’t have the right kind of attitude towards them. It’s the job of the call center managers to make them feel part of the organization. It will only be with the right kind of approach that you can inculcate a sense of belonging in these short-term employees. That would make them work hard and do that extra bit for the call centers. As you know, BPO service is all about team work and you need every member of the team to contribute towards the project. That would include contractual workers as well. You may not be able to provide them the status of a full-time employee, but make sure you treat them like one.

Monetary Rewards for Call Centers

Money is a major motivational factor. But when the financial strains begin to tell on the BPO, the employees are sure to feel the heat. Deferred raises, lack of perks and privileges are very much there when the telemarketing unit is hard pressed for cash. In a way, the call centers have to cope with some disgruntled voices on the floor. Incentives are good catalysts for motivation and the managers have to slog through some indifferent attitude from the employees. It’s an issue that most human resources manager would like to side-step. It’s obvious that they don’t have much to do here because they don’t have the purse strings with them.

What they can do here is boost the morale of the employees. Transparent talks with the call center agents are ways to do that. Explain them as to why they are not getting their raises and incentives. When you speak to the BPO agents as they are part of the organization, they are most likely to respond and understand the situation. You need their support in these trying times. Let them know that their effort in telemarketing services is being noted and they are up for monetary rewards the moment the call center services see some influx of cash.

BPO Question Out of Menu

The controversial BPO question is finally dropped from the table laid out for President Barack Obama. The online registration form that the business contingent in India has to fill up to meet the President had a question on the explosive business process outsourcing subject. The candidates had to declare how much of call center outsourcing work they are doing for America. Businesspersons in India are not sure that they want to give away this information in the form. That is why they objected to this demand and finally it was struck off. The visit of the President will turn over a new leaf in telemarketing services between the two countries. Because the visit comes in the wake of the President’s declarations that he wants to curb the offshore call center market, this visit promises to build hype around it.

There was another hitch involved in this meet in Mumbai. The charges that the organizers demanded were stiff and against the convention of such meets. In the wake of protests, the charges were pulled back as well. President Barack Obama visits India on November 6. He will be meeting a clutch of businessmen in Mumbai and talk about the issue of offshore call center outsourcing. The Finance Minister of India has already assured the media and representatives of the BPO sector that the issues arising out of outsourcing will be solved in the way of dialogues.

Lead Generation Rules On!

With the telemarketing sector shrinking because of the trouble with the telecom authorities, an alternate and stronger alternative is emerging. This is the online lead generation era! Call centers across the world are looking forward to generating leads online as compensation and also as bonus. There are some advantages of using the internet to get in touch with more customers. The reach is unimaginable! You can market local products in any market that you choose. The internet gives you access to any circuit that you want to target. The BPO unit has to study the search engines and make allowances so that their client’s page comes up before the rivals.

Customers like to buy in a certain way. If the call center services can provide them with their demands in the way they like it, the call center will definitely reap the benefits of being customer-friendly. Customers prefer to buy products/services online. They are aware that the system of delivering goods and processing payments has rapidly improved and become more responsible and transparent. They are not afraid of being duped by telemarketing agents because everything is in front of their eyes. They can even track the passage of their purchase from the manufacturer to their doorstep through online status updates.

Value to BPO Units

Business firms are attaching more value to BPO units after noticing their significant contribution towards their bottom line. The call center services was always been a distant business partner, handling non-core business work. But these non-core business aspects have become money spinners in the modern day context. Consider customer service as an example. In the initial stages, the answering service was considered unproductive and very few brands actually made an effort to offer quality phone answering facilities to the customers. However, now you cannot expect to retain customers or even acquire new ones unless you are very adept in customer care. These are small ways in which call centers are now part of the core business network.

The rise in the importance of the BPO units has added to the responsibility. Call centers are now aware that they have duties towards the brand that they are representing. The stakes are high and so are the chances of committing an error. Call center services are now pushing towards an important phase. They have a chance to make better contributions and also earn long-term projects. Call center units would prefer stronger partnerships with their telemarketing clients. There is much sense is making these partnerships to get a steady flow of projects in this rather dynamic market.

Call Centers Go Green

The environment is one issue that every individual and corporate establishment should be particular about. Call centers are not free from this obligation, either. There are a number of ways in which BPO units can conserve power and make an impact on the planet. Power is a major concern for eco-friendly initiatives. Telemarketing units can conserve power by making small efforts like switching off fans and ACs when not needed. They can encourage their employees and agents to turn off their computers when going out for lunch breaks or leaving for the day.

Small efforts count big. Call center units can save so much of paper if you try out digital reports and business correspondence through emails. It also makes the process of BPO reporting more efficient. Another way in which telemarketing units can make a difference is ensuring that the dead computers and peripherals are disposed in the eco-friendly way. There is plastic waste in these trash items. They can cause soil pollution and can also be considered industrial waste. The management of the customer service unit should contact the right people and have them treat these wastes with chemicals to render them harmless.

Call Center Supervisors Need Training

Call center supervisors need to be trained and updated at regular intervals. It is the responsibility of the BPO management to find out where they are lacking and how their knowledge banks can be replenished. The telemarketing world is moving very fast. Unless you have a pulse on the key changes happening in the sector, you cannot keep yourself working on the same page as your competitors. Clients pay more importance to the methods you will use for telemarketing services than on how much work experience you have. Training cannot always be in-house. You will need to make provisions for them to go out and attend conferences and seminars.

Call center units often expect team leads to take the team on the right track. But it cannot be so unless the BPO unit is making allowances for the team leaders to get themselves trained. There so many innovations taking place in call center services these days. There is a continuous strive towards better streamlining and optimization. By studying the trends and the processes of other call centers and customer service units, your team leads can pick and use what will be most beneficial to you. When they know what you need, your team can be suitably trained and the plans can be successfully implemented.

Rise of Cloud Call Centers

The rise of the cloud call centers is an important phase in the history of the BPO sector. Cloud call center units can be run without a proper brick and mortar office space. You can have telemarketing agents working from home or other personal spheres. They coordinate with the team leaders and supervisors so that they are always working in sync with them. They receive their work through online CRM software and work on them under the strict digital supervision of their superior. If they are going wrong anywhere, the supervisor can step in and correct them instantly. They can also whisper some words of advice when the call is active.

Cloud call centers have certain advantages over their land-based ones. Because the telemarketing agents are working from home, they are more suited to work for longer hours. They can put in extra amounts of work also because they are less stressed. On the call center floor, there are other agents and peers working on similar lead generation projects. The target becomes a palpable reality then. On the other hand, these BPO agents working from home can schedule their work according to their time preference. Because they are working alone, they don’t need to be worried about them falling back. They can always bounce back and hit their target.

Call Centers That Bring Change

The popular belief that the large BPO firms are the ones that lead the industry on the path of change is a wrong notion. The innovations and experiments actually come from the midlevel companies. These call centers are the ones that bring about changes in the call center services through some careful planning and research. They are the ones who innovate on traditional methods and come up with suggestions to streamline and optimize. Experts say that these BPO service units are capable of doing that because their work ethic is very flexible. They can afford to walk out of the beaten track and make some different noise.

The call center units working on a medium level have the money and the resources to invest in experiments. This cannot be said about the small scale BPO units. They are more concerned about being good in whatever they are doing. As for the large scale call centers, they are too tied up in their rigid call center services to make room for innovation. They are focused on working on set rules and processes. They know they have a lot at stake and their brand name could be tainted if the innovation doesn’t come up with the required results. As a matter of fact, the midlevel telemarketing units are also into diversification in their telemarketing services. They incorporate changes and modifications during the course of a project as well.

New BPO Players Increase Traction

New players in the market have increased the traction in the BPO sector. There is more competition and the new movers have succeeded in filling up the gaps left behind by their larger counterparts. In terms of business, this has both negatives and positives. Among the positives, new players will be able to inject fresh ideas into telemarketing. They will bring in a perspective that will give birth to some concepts that were not around. As a result of their constant drive for innovation, telemarketing services will be benefited immensely. This is surely one of the more exciting news that has emerged from the call center sector in the recent times.

If you count the negatives, the new players in the BPO sector have pushed up the competition. This is surely going to bring down the prices of call center services. That is not good news for the call center sector that is already reeling under the influence of the inflated cost of technology, equipment and manpower. In a way, call centers across the globe are making sure that they are optimizing their resources to make everything count. Their aim is to cut down the cost of production, so that they can be able to make some profit.

About Redundant Telemarketing Agents

If you are a team leader or a HR manager with a call center, you will be able to relate to this. If you are not working in the BPO sector in any capacity, you can still learn some lessons from this. There are those times when you are saddled with the thankless task of handing over the pink slip to an employee who has contributed immensely to your telemarketing unit. The person has been an asset all along and now you have to let him go because of some reasons. It could be you are upgrading your call center services and the person is not skilled in the new task. It could be that you have run out of projects and want to shed some weight in the manpower department.

There can never be an easy way to do it. But you can make the task lighter if you are transparent. Explain to the telemarketing agent why he is being laid off. Be clear about the vision of the call center and clarify that you appreciate his contribution to the BPO unit. You can offer to recommend the person professionally so that he can find it easier to find a job elsewhere. It’s always a better idea to communicate in unambiguous terms. Keep the bridge open for future contacts so that you can keep the option open about working again in the future.

More Satisfied Customers on Answering Service

The answering service departments of the call centers are seeing some improvements in the recent times. As compared to the satisfaction levels among the callers in the past, there is a sharp rise in how many callers go back from the inbound call center desk happy with the experience. It’s not uncommon for the callers to find that the phone answering system is not up to the mark and there is a lot of ground for improvement. However, with the right steps in the right direction, the monsters of the past can be put to rest now. Callers have observed that repeated complaints about the call center services have actually come off with some reward.

These days you can feel the efficiency when you call answering service. The percentage of first-call resolution has increased dramatically. The right call center agents are answering the phones. They are aware of the solutions, as much as they are confident about providing the right solution to the caller without wasting the caller’s time. There is a sense of urgency and BPO units are using Interactive Voice Response System (IVR) to handle the rush at the inbound call center desk. The insistence of keeping a close eye on the watch while answering calls has brought about excellent results. Time becomes a defining factor even for callers who are calling toll-free phone answering numbers.

Importance of Strategic Planning in Call Center

There is a direct need for strategic planning in call center units. Without the assistance of a proper plan, BPO units tend to deviate from the path that they want to take. The advantages of strategic planning are many and disparate. Planning helps to keep the budget under check. Budget can become an issue of debate between clients and the call centers. Because the budgets that clients set aside for call center services is limited and often not very deep, they want to be additionally careful with the money that they put on the table. Coming from the perspective of a financer in the recession hit market, their paranoia about money is understood.

If the call center wants to optimize the budget and means that they have on hand, they can do so well. They have to be careful about keeping a tab on things. The planning stage in call centers begins when the telemarketing project comes on board. The hiring on agents, the decision on what kind of technology that will be used, along with how things are going to pan out – all these need to be chalked out with care and a practical eye for detail. It’s always advisable to make provisions for those factors that are not strictly within your control.

When Answering Service is Busy

A pet peeve at the answering service desk is finding the number busy. It happens so often that you feel scared of calling the phone answering desk unless there’s a dire emergency! That’s not a healthy sign for a brand that wants to be popular with the customers. Having a functional and efficient inbound call center team is important for brand value. Customers thrive on brand value and that comes chiefly from customer service and customer care. If you are taking good care of your customers even after you have made the sale, you are earning some brownie points for yourself and your brand.

We have all experienced the frustration of finding the customer care number to be busy. Repeated calls to the number fail to elicit a different response. That’s where BPO firms need to work. They have to use specialized tools and probably interactive voice response system (IVRS) to tackle the clutter at the inbound call center. The right kind of technological investment, like depending on web enable call center services can solve a lot of your worries. You can route the traffic of customers to a website. This will take the pressure off telemarketing agents and yet bring you leads. Online lead generation will also ensure that the customers contact you through emails and queries addressed through the website. They will seldom call and you will have your phone lines free.

Watch the Time, Telemarketing Agents!

The time of the telemarketing call has a lot to do with its success ratio. This is even truer for B2B lead generation calls. You cannot expect your agents to hit the bull’s eye if you call a business head first thing in the morning when he is just in his office. Important business executives will never entertain calls from a BPO when they have plenty of other work waiting them to start off. It’s difficult to have them on the line, and even when you do, they are more likely to hear you out and disconnect. Then forget all about it in the course of their daily schedule. To increase your chances of making every call count, you have to keep an eye on the clock.

Time zones are a problem for call centers working out of offshore destinations. Such set-ups need to be extra vigilant to check what the time is on the watch of the customer that they are calling. Schedule business telemarketing calls to the latter half of the day. Allow the business heads to settle down and get their routine sorted out. Then you have better chances of making an impact. The same goes for any emails and business correspondence that you want to mail across. Keep them for the time of the day when your contact will have the leisure to read what you have written. Unless it’s a follow-up email that your contact asked for, keep them for the afternoons.

Some Call Center Peeves

There are some call center peeves that haunt the customers even to this day, after all the revamping that was done in the answering service department. Everything seems to boil down to the fact that the phone answering desk isn’t really responsive to the degree needed. There are some pockets of delay, some protocols and lots of redundant practices that need to be eradicated. The inbound call center department has to shed some of the weight that it carries around to make it smooth and agile. Coming into the modern business that is prevalent across the globe, you have to ensure that there are better ways of handling customers than there are today.

Other call center peeves would be the huge lack of accountability in call center services. The inbound call center department is where agents like to pass the calls when they don’t know the answer. While it is perfectly okay to have the call passed to someone who knows the answer, passing it to a peer, who is in as much knowledge level does not make sense. Keying in the personal information every time the BPO agent passes the call around frustrates the customer, even if the number is toll free. That is one pet peeve that the BPO service needs to fix before they can put themselves on the customer care map.

Incentives Motivate Call Center Agents

There has to be some reason why your call center agents will push themselves beyond their usual limits. The motivation could come from any aspect of their job: the challenges of telemarketing, the targets need to hit in lead generation, or simply the satisfaction of solving the problems of customers at the answering service desk. Job related motivations are always a major moving force. But beyond a certain point, BPO agents want to be rewarded monetarily as well. This stems from the growing belief that they are instrumental in getting more profit for the BPO service unit. So, they are entitled to a share of the spoils. If the sales lead generation achieves more than what was targeted, the agents working on the project would want their efforts to be appreciated.

Nothing works better than incentives in these matters. Call center agents are not always expecting a rise in salary at premature times. They know that the BPO unit will evaluate their performance and give them a hike every 6 months or a year. For short term gains that they help the call centers to achieve, they would like to be rewarded with incentives. The practice of offering incentives to high performing agents has always existed in telemarketing. It’s just that in the present scenario, it has become a necessity. Incentives keep your agents on their toes, breed healthy competition and also pull down the attrition rate.

Online Lead Generation Methods: What Works

Lead generation experts across the world are trying to figure out ways in which they can generate more leads. Some are of the opinion that they can translate the growing dependence of customers on online methods into sales lead generation through search engine optimization (SEO). In fact, SEO ranks first among the online methods that are used for generating leads. SEO is closely followed by the email marketing process. Emails are used more regularly and effectively for B2B projects. Business heads and entrepreneurs don’t like to talk business through telemarketing calls. They prefer to receive emails outlining the services and offers. They base their decision on these emails.

The pay per click (PPC) method comes third mainly because of the revenue that it earns for the client websites. Advertisements through Google and other internet companies are popular means of making money by selling the website, in addition to the products/services. Social media marketing ranks fourth. If you go by the hype, you will be expecting this form of online marketing to rank higher up the pecking order. However, the discomfort that call centers face when conducting social media is a primary reason why this form has not been able to make itself very popular. The other methods, like posting marketing literature and link exchange come in lower down.

Cold Calling for Lead Generation

Cold calling is the traditional way of conducting lead generation. However, with the times, the other alternative methods, like online sales lead generation and direct market methods like radio and TV ads have come up strongly. This has prompted many of the experts at call centers to feel that they do not need the cold calling process in an active way. Such ideas can only be considered erroneous. Telemarketing calls continue to be an effective way of handling customers and projecting sales. If you get down to the numbers and the data on your hand, you will find out that telemarketing services through phone calls got more customers on board than any other method that you have tried out.

What makes cold calling such an effective lead generation process? It’s the reach of the telecom medium. Customers are more receptive and proactive when they are answering phone calls from call center agents. They are more willing to make an action when they provide a verbal commitment. They may look for their requirements online, but when it comes to purchasing, they want to speak to a live telemarketing agent. That’s where the gap exists between the online and offline sales lead generation methods. In a way, phone calls also allow the customers to be dealt with in a way that depends on their reactions and responses. That is just not possible online.

Answering Service: Order Taking

Order taking is one of the more up and coming call center services. It has been around for quite some time, but it’s only recently that it claimed its place under the sun. With the kind of takeaway and fast food networks that are coming up, the concept of ordering for your food on the phone is catching wind. The upwardly mobile want their pizzas and burgers on the dot. They like them with the characteristic idiosyncrasies, like the right kind of topping and flavor. If your business is into the fast food chain, you will quickly feel that the receptionist is not really the ideal person to take your orders. You need a specialized team of phone answering agents to handle your customers and process their orders. That’s when you need to hire a BPO unit.

Handing out the answering service work to the BPO unit will help you get in more customers. Once your professional order taking services hit the market, you will get positive feedback from all the customers you have. They will refer your fast food network before there are too many outlets out there who mess up orders! The call center agents who man your phone can process the orders in a prompt and professional way. They are skilled and trained to ensure that each order reaches the person concerned and there are no mix-ups. Moreover, the BPO service agents can hike up your sales through telemarketing methods like cross selling and up selling.

Unified Call Center Reporting

The advantages of having a single report for the call center services can be extremely handy. It’s not a very productive idea for the call center departments to work as separate units. Since their tasks often overlap and correlate, they need to know what their peers are doing. For example, the lead generation agents should know how much they are being supported by the answering service department and vice versa. After all, it’s only a team effort that can finally see off a successful project. Come to think of it, bringing all of these departments on a single sheet of paper will make it possible for them to know where they stand individually and also as a team. This will help them support each other and work together.

Bringing the call center services on a single platform eradicates the chances of miscommunication. There has to be some leaks when you are working as isolated units. When you pool your BPO resources together and go in for division of labor according to the needs, you are also optimizing your technology and manpower. Clients often hire more than one BPO service for their business. Having all your cards on the same table helps keep a tab on how the entire project is going on. It does make a lot of difference when things are transparent and everyone is aware of their work.

Lead Generation for Finances

Generating leads for the telemarketing projects that deal with finances is not a walk in the park. There are many considerations that the BPO must think over. People are protective, defensive and paranoid about their financial details. The call center agents who call them to sort out their debt problems have to be careful about the questions they ask, the approach they take and the way they go about the sales lead generation process. In a way, they have to also follow certain protocols when they are doing financial projects. They cannot violate the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) rules. Very recently, the FTC has declared that the call centers offering financial services cannot charge the customers unless they actually provide the services.

Call centers have to be particularly careful about the questions that they ask the customers. Most of the prospective callers are aware that they are not supposed to part with their financial details to the telemarketing agents. However, that little aspect makes them overtly cautious about the other details that are needed to process their services. The same goes for persuasive telemarketing services. Consumers feel paranoid when the agents are insisting that something in particular is good for them. Lastly, the call center agents must allow the customers to think over it. Hardly anyone decides on a financial service without thinking it over.

Voice Clarity on Answering Service

A persistent problem at the answering service table is the quality of the voice calls. Telemarketing calls made to the callers often come across as clear but when the customers call up, things are totally different. The BPO units who have phone answering projects find themselves at their wit’s end because they cannot fix the problem. On the other hand, they cannot ignore it because they are losing customers who are fed up with the static noise in the calls. The fact that they are talking to an agent thousands of miles away to solve a local problem becomes more prominent when there is call drops. They feel irritated and often angry at the lack of voice clarity in the calls.

The going is tougher for the call centers that do tech support projects, or even the financial ones. In those telemarketing campaigns, it becomes important for the callers to listen to every instruction clearly. Failure to do so would result is complications later on. That is why customers calling the answering service system make mistakes in following instructions clearly. This is messy for the BPO units as well. If the callers are not getting what the agents tell them, it leads to situations where the BPO service has to bend their backs to clean things up. It also raises questions on the technological equipment that the firm uses.

Govt. Back-up for Call Centers

Any industrial sector is boosted by the support of the government. The government helps out the business firms in a number of ways: from tax evasions, getting them land for setting up a factory to helping them with the infrastructure. The same can be said about the BPO sector. Call centers are always willing to allow governments to help them out with infrastructure. The authorities can help them out with telecommunication support, faster internet and other back-up. Call center services need sophisticated equipment for their work. Making these available to the investors at subsidized prices will definitely count as goodwill gestures that will attract other investors to the country.

Other than infrastructure for the call centers in terms of hardware, governments can help them get better manpower. The ruling powers in countries like the Philippines have set up institutes to teach enthusiastic students about the aspects of telemarketing. These students will be trained in a way that makes them industry-ready for telemarketing services. A steady flow of these students into the manpower will improve the quality of work that is being done now. The BPO units are looking forward to the efforts on the part of the government. In related assistance, transport and other facilities for the security of the call center agents is another government domain.

SMS Blocks for Telemarketing

It’s time now for the BPO units to control the amount of bulk messages that they send out to prospective and existing customers. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has decided to cut short the honeymoon period of telemarketing firms that went on the rampage with text messages. The telemarketing services units were being severely fined for their continued insistence on calling customers who are registered with the national Do Not Call (DNC) list. Ignoring the DNC was no more possible and their lead generation calls would only attract heavy weather. SMS was the way out and the sales lead generation agents used the medium to full potential.

Blasting mass SMS is better than emails. Tapping cell phones for telemarketing was always essential to get in touch with the prospective customers. The advantage that these telemarketing services campaigns have over the email marketing procedure is that users cannot delete the texts without reading it. So with some careful composition of the text that will be sent out, the call centers can touch base and make an impact. If the users are interested in what they have to sell, they will surely respond. The lead generation in this regard is more effective. But the FTC has banned the use of texts to registered numbers as well!

Call Center Lesson: What Customers Think

To find out how you can improve your call center services, you have to find out what the customers think of you. They are best judge of your customer service. BPO agents can find out about the work that they are doing and the impact that they have by tapping the customers who talk to them. Ask them about the experience of talking at your inbound call center desk. Find out what they think of your answering service. While some may be prejudiced or just cynical by nature, the majority of them will be willing to offer you an impartial view of things. You can use the feedback to rethink your strategy and include the suggestions that you receive from your customers.


It’s not just about call center services that you can find out from your customers. You can boost your telemarketing efforts by finding out about the customer’s buying patterns. It could be that with the feedback that you receive from the customers, you can actually position your products better than you are doing at present. Customers’ feedback can be beneficial for your clients as well. They can learn how they can improve their products to cater to a larger market. It may be that just by dipping the price a little they can achieve a bigger profit. Market surveys on customer feedback can be crucial for all concerned with telemarketing services.

Telemarketing Agents Offer More

Telemarketing agents are learning the hard way about offering more to the customers. In the last few months, the ways of doing business in a BPO has changed considerably. Post recession the stakes have gone high and clients want the telemarketing services to offer more to the customers than they used to. Prior to this phase, the call center agents would decide how much they are going to offer the customers in terms of choice. They were allowed to pick only from a selected range of products/services. This was because the telemarketers would feel that offering the whole range would mean spending time on selling things that won’t sell. They had demarcated the consumers on certain parameters and stuck to them rigidly.

However, the recession opened up the market. The lack of business opportunities made the call center agents more aware of what the consumers want. The BPO agents were prepared to walk that extra bit so that they can get more consumers on board. The competition got tougher and the consumers’ tastes widened and became specialized. The consumers were more aware of their rights and if a certain telemarketing firm did not gave in to their demands they swiftly hung up the phone and signed up with another brand. Telemarketing services also felt that with more options, there were more opportunities to cross sell and up sell. All these factors combined to make consumers better off in terms of choice.

Unemployed USA Not Affecting BPO

The rising unemployment rate in the USA is not going to affect the BPO sector. That is the verdict from call center service providers. A few days back there were reports that the two-digit unemployment percentage will be a factor in deciding the telemarketing projects that are outsourced to the offshore destinations like India and the Philippines. Many BPO service experts felt that the business firms in the USA could cringe from outsourcing their projects away would hurt their patriotic sentiments because the US citizens are not getting work to do. However, the business process outsourcing industry is still a long way off from turning tides. The cost factor still rules heavy on those business firms that want to outsource their answering service.

The rise of the non-voice call center services has offered a new lease of life to the call center units. It’s on the support provided by this section of the BPO service that BPO units are confident that rising unemployment won’t affect much. The telemarketing projects are still rolling for the offshore call centers because they are better placed to handle the non-voice work than the domestic ones. The expenditures of getting the help desk services and other non-voice services from these offshore units are way cheaper than in the American shores. It’s true that the American business process outsourcing workers are now ready to work at lesser pay, but they are still notches higher than what it will take to get the job done in a developing country.

Lead Generation Media Choices

Gone are the days when you depended on the telephones for lead generation. These days you have so many media choices to conduct lead generation operations. The biggie is the Internet, of course. Websites and emails have changed the face of sales lead generation. Every B2B project is now conducted over the Internet instead of telemarketing calls. In fact, in some ways or the other, phone calls have side-stepped to allow these new methods of call center services to zoom into focus. Clients are approaching BPO firms to give them something better than just phone calls for generating leads. They demand the use of other media because competition and consumers demand so.

Other than the Internet, lead generation through mobile phones is another up and coming medium. The advantages of this medium are of great significance to call center units. And the BPO units have embraced this form of telemarketing in a big way. The use of SMS for sales lead generation has caught on like wildfire. Call center services are blasting text messages on cell phones to sell and promote their products/services. Their aim is simple. They want to get their message read by the consumers who do not want calls from the outbound call center desk. Since texts on cell phones have a considerably higher rate of being read than emails, BPO service units have picked this trend rather fast.

Volunteering for Emergency Answering Service

The answering service system in several emergency call centers offers the do-gooder a chance to play the Good Samaritan. If you are a BPO employee who wants to get into a bit of social service, you can volunteer to be a phone answering agent at one of the emergency call center desks. This will be a nice way for you to do something for the society and helping out those who need your assistance. To be a good at the emergency inbound call center table, you have to be alert and extremely focused. Whatever you give out from this desk will be important for the callers on the other end of the phone. More often than not, you might be doing some life saving tasks as well.

There are plenty of challenges at the emergency call center desk. You have to cautious about what you say and how you say it. You have to firm when giving out bad news or informing relatives about the deceased. All of that comes with the emergency answering service job. It pays for these BPO agents to know a little first aid and other life-saving techniques. There is no saying when they might be called upon to help out someone. It takes time for help to reach. A proactive inbound call center agent can handle the emergency while help goes out to the caller.

Social Media for Quality Lead Generation

Lead generation on social media networks can be done in a number of ways. The technique that call center units are using these days is one of monitoring. The BPO agents monitor the conversations on the social media platforms and trail the discussions in their domain of interest. When they find a conversation steering towards a possibility of a sale, they quickly step in and seal the deal. Consumers often share their worries with their friends and followers on the social networks. If the sales lead generation teams can keep a track of the discussions on the community walls and forums that pertain to their field of interest, they can provide the distressed consumer with the right support.

Such initiatives also make the others on the social networks aware of the excellent customer care service of your client. BPO agents can also keep a track on the conversations that deal with their rivals. Often you will find consumers venting their anger against brands. If that happens to be your rival brand, your call center agents can step in as goodwill ambassadors and win over the disgruntled customer on your side. Because they will be pretty sore with the services of your rival, your call center services need to fill in the void and before long, you may find the customer belonging to your database! Such procedures are common on Twitter these days.

Telemarketing Penalization Scores High

The fines that telemarketing companies are paying are running into the millions now! Telecom authorities in the countries like USA and Canada are coming down heavily on call center units that make automated lead generation calls to citizens. A Chicago based BPO unit had to cough up some $2.3 million in order to settle the federal case registered against them. They were making sales lead generation calls for fake automated calls to sell auto warranties. The federal court decided to stamp a legal notice against the call center services in response to the high number of complaints that they were receiving. The money will be used to pay back all those citizens that have been ripped off in the telemarketing scam.

The business process outsourcing industry really looks up to these penalizations for a simple reason. The faster these fraudulent call center units are washed out, the better it is for the BPO sector. In fact, delegates who met the telecom authorities for leniency on the do not call lists, often mentioned exemplary punishment for the violators of the telemarketing laws. They rightly feel that for the survival of the genuine telemarketing services, these conmen have to leave the sector. And the best way to do that is to bring them to the book.

Any Philadelphia auto insurance agent worth his salt will be able to answer 90% of a customer’s questions without having to refer to a book, a website, a superior, etc. If you don’t feel confident about an agent, you should feel more than welcome to transfer out to another agent.

Making Customers Feel Special through BPO

Just like you’d want your guests to feel special and your guests want to feel privileged, it’s the same with your customers. In the competitive market you are working in, unless you make your customers feel some strong tug with your business, they will not hesitate to stride over to your rivals. This erosion of the consumer database can be prevented by quality answering service that a BPO can provide. Call center agents are trained to receive and process the customer’s calls in a way that leaves them feeling good about their association with your company. Despite the bad flak that the inbound call center receives for poor customer service, it remains the reason why customer bases remain intact.

To run a successful answering service team, the call center must understand the basic psychology of the customers. When they dial a number to speak to someone in the company, they have this wish that they will be able to talk to someone who’s nothing short of the CEO! They are not willing to settle for anything less. Keeping this in mind, the phone answering agents must be allowed to talk with a certain amount of authority. They must be able to take decisions that make the customers feel that whatever be their worry, you are willing to solve that in a jiffy.

Direct Marketing for Lead Generation

Lead generation is one call center area that always finds different ways of expressing itself. There are so many different ways in which you can do sales lead generation. And the vast number of these efforts is not dependent on telemarketing calls. Call centers these days are not able to make calls as freely as they used to. Direct marketing is one method where the expenses in the books of the client are a wee bit more. However, the results for direct marketing can bring in immediate results for the BPO. Direct marketing is the process of using radio and TV to generate leads. Advertisements are placed in these mass media vehicles so that the consumers can hear/see and react to them instantly. They may either be asked to call a number for details or check out a website.

The duty of the call center unit begins then. The number that is injected in the ad copy will definitely generate many calls for the inbound call center team. The BPO unit has to tackle these calls for lead generation. The challenge for the answering service team is the high volume of traffic that comes in. Callers are instantaneous in their reaction to an advertisement. As a result of this, they want to speak to a brand representative at the earliest. If the phone answering team is not alert enough, they may lose some opportunities to generate leads.

BPO Rivals Crowd Market

The BPO circuit is now flush with competition. The recession has proved the stability of the business process outsourcing sector like never before. While numerous firms and industries got hit badly enough not to recover till date, the call center sector has progressed with bold strides. Now the Indian telemarketing sector is being challenged by their neighbor Sri Lanka. The emerald country is known to have the same type of resources that has made India the superpower in the telemarketing services industry. Sri Lanka has an integrated amount of English-speaking people who can be successfully inducted in the call centers. As any investor would tell you, the ease with which you get manpower is primary to the cost-effective utilization of an industry.

Other than the manpower, Sri Lanka provides call center investors with the right infrastructure and telecommunication set-up for an industry of this stature. The BPO sector is something that the government of Sri Lanka is serious about. They want the telemarketing industry to grow because they want to earn those foreign currencies, along with providing the employment to the educated youth of the country. They realize that their main competition in the business process outsourcing sector is with India. They also know that they started late and have a lot of ground to cover. With the right direction and the big projects, they will be right up there soon!

BPO Jobs Return to American Homes!

In a bizarre turn of events, the outsourced BPO jobs that the Americans wanted back badly is returning to their homes! Yes, that’s the current scenario for the call center industry in USA. The jobs are coming back for sure, but not to the call centers. Answering service agents working from home are being hired to do the work. There are certain advantages of working from home. For example, the agent can work extra hours because they are saving up on the time of commuting. Similarly, they can work without the stress and tension associated with the BPO service work floor. They don’t have the typical peer pressure to tackle as well!

From the perspective of the hiring BPO firms, this is a fairly money-saving deal. They don’t need to set up a call center, with all the infrastructure and office space. They don’t have to pay for the electricity or for the establishment costs. And as for the work, they can always monitor the answering service done through online reports and other statistics. The biggie for the hiring call center services is that they can hire these agents at lesser pays. The state of unemployment is such that laid-off telemarketing agents are willing to work for thinner pay packets than what they used to make before they got the pink slip.

Growth Fueled by Complete Call Center Services

BPO experts predict exciting times for the industry in the recent future. Much of the euphoria is based on the hope that the use of all the call center services will be the pivot for the growth. In the previous times, it was just the voice calls that were being used for telemarketing and lead generation. Nowadays, business firms are using other non-voice methods as well. Help desk services and web marketing services are coming up thick and fast in the BPO service segment. This has prompted much of the growth in the earnings of the call centers. And it is on this growth prospect that the experts are hopeful of a considerable growth percentage in the years leading up to 2014.

The call center industry is bolstered by the emergence of BPO service in the form of better lead generation methods. Up selling and cross selling is being redefined to make way for better telemarketing growths for the clients. If the clients are happy with the call center services that they are receiving, there will be more lucrative projects for the call centers. The experts predict that there will be a 31.1% growth in the business process outsourcing revenue and the mark will touch $1.6 billion by the year 2014. With the economy slowly emerging from the throes of the recession, the growth will definitely be something that the industry can look forward to.

Politicians Akin to Telemarketing Agents!

In a bizarre turn of events, the frustration that citizens have in receiving unwanted telemarketing calls is now being turned on to the politicians. As the country heads for mid-term elections in November, US citizens are being bulldozed with robotic calls made from the outbound call center desk of the politicians. The masses are angry and the fact that even the Do Not Call list cannot protect them makes the whole process frustrating. Citizens are feeling helpless against this tirade of almost lead generation calls by the call centers manned by politicians. These telephone calls have been part of the American electoral process for decades and each time they bring the demons with them: the breach of privacy. As the citizens toil under this barrage of calls, BPO service agents can allow themselves a smile!

And why won’t they? The American telecom watchdogs have practically made it impossible for telemarketing firms to operate in the country. The shrinking telemarketing services sector needed the support of the government. Instead, political and executive laws have strangled the call center industry. While the projects continue to dry up, more people are losing their jobs at the call centers. Apathetic to the cause of privacy which they are using in this case, politicians continue to violate the same laws because the law itself allows them the right! The citizens are looking for someone who will deliver them from this evil.

Lead Generation through SEO and Social Media

The process of lead generation through online methods can be sharply divided into two prongs: search engine optimization and social media marketing. Call center units are trying to make the client’s websites more visible to the consumers online. Similarly they are trying to promote the client’s business through social media networking. BPO managers have divided the two on the basis of the function that they serve. SEO is more about sales lead generation through tangible methods that yield hard results. You get a list of generated leads and also have an idea of how much you have sold. SEO is also backed up by the telemarketing team. Consumers prefer calling the inbound call center desk for more information and clarifications.

Social media marketing, on the other hand, is for branding and PR. The BPO firms need to understand that you cannot have much of lead generation here in the conventional sense. Social media interactions by the call center agents change the perceptions that people have about the client’s brand or company. They will feel privileged to have a direct contact with the brand that they buy products from. This helps the call centers retain customers. In this age of competition, customers can be tempted to leave the client’s fold and move over to a rival. The social media interactions and other activities, including personal interactions, stop this erosion of the customer base.

Telemarketing Identity Inflates

What makes a telemarketing agent or company? Someone or some firm that sells products/services through the telephone – is what you might say. That definition is about to change. If you listen to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of USA or the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), they are including advisors and advertisers as telemarketers. Call center agents cannot call registered numbers on the Do Not Call (DNC) list because they call themselves advisors or advertisers. Financial advisors, as all other sectors of counseling, will come under the telemarketing services act. In the same vein, violations of the DNC list will land the responsible BPO agents in a lot of soup.

The decisions of both the bodies stem from their commitment to protect the privacy of the citizens from telemarketing calls. Despite their best efforts, they are not able to cut the flow of call center agents tapping into the market, ignoring the DNC list completely. The CRTC admitted that financial and insurance agents have the right to communicate to their customers, but there was no such thing that they have to use the telephone. Moreover, such a right doesn’t allow them access to the customers at hours when the DNC forbids BPO agents to call. The CRTC wants the call centers to respect the request of the customers when they don’t want the telemarketing services that they have to offer.