Call Center Resolutions

There are some New Year resolutions that call centers need to take. These are necessary, not just for an improved call center services, but also to make it possible for the call center to grab telemarketing projects. Here are some resolutions that you can implement in your telemarketing unit:

• Monitor Quality: Stringent quality check is the only way to a future with improved telemarketing services. Your agents and employees, especially at the inbound call center team, have to pull up their socks and deliver quality work. The managers and team leads have to be careful about this so that the call center makes a favorable impression on the client.

• Increased Security: Call centers have to doubly careful with data. Clients are more particular about the data that they share with their BPO partner. Any leakage or misuse of data will result in a bad reputation for the call center unit. Data theft is extremely prevalent these days. Members of the outbound call center team have to be careful about the data that they are working with.

• Knowing Customers: Customer service agents have their task cut out in dealing with customers. The inbound call center team needs to ensure that there is little erosion from the customer databank. Proper answering service can solve this issue and also earn good feedback from clients/customers.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

FTC Still Struggles with Telemarketing

The Federal Trade Commission admitted that despite their best efforts, viral emails asking consumers to register their cell phone numbers with the Do Not Call list is still doing the rounds! Calling the emails that has been circulating since 2005 an “urban myth”, the authorities clarified that the government does not intend to give out cell phone numbers to telemarketing companies. According to the rules, call center agents cannot call cell phones to offer telemarketing services. The numbers of the DNC list are out of limits for any outbound call center agent, but it’s more so for cell phone users. There is a law against BPO agents calling cell phones, they need not sign up with the DNC to get themselves off the hook.



The viral emails also mention that the government has put up a time limit by which they can register on the DNC list. The truth is, to get rid of telemarketing calls you need not hurry because there is no time frame. As it is, call center units are not going that alley anymore! There has been quite some financial loss in the violation of the rules and telemarketing services were fined heavily. There is no point in the outbound call center agents tapping the unwilling consumers anyway. The telecom authority also mentioned in their disclaimer that the call center services have no access to their numbers and it does not intend to make the cell phone numbers public at any point in time.

Telemarketing Defines Life!

The working hours in the telemarketing sector have redefined the life led by the call center agents. The awkward shifts of work have put them in a situation where they have no choice but to adjust to the ways of the call centers. But they have not made a bad job of it. They have adapted to the BPO way of life in their own way. The body clock may have gone for a toss! The health hazards may have increased. But a good day at the telemarketing services desk is all it takes to put them firmly back in place. The call center services agents have decided to take the not-so-comfortable timings in their stride as some demand of their professional life.

















It’s not just at the individual level that the BPO firms have changed perceptions. In various developing countries, the concept of working nights was very foreign and alien. The coming of call centers has changed that. The people and the society at large are more comfortable with the graveyard shifts of the telemarketing services than they were a couple of years back. This means a lot to the telemarketing sector employees who had to face quite some resistance at home and in the social fabric. And it’s also changed the way you hang out with friends who are not part of the business process outsourcing industry. You cannot be with your friends during the day (sleeping) or night (working)!

Slack after Spike in Telemarketing Growth

The surveys conducted on the growth of the telemarketing unit have indicated signs of a slack after a sharp spike in the first quarter of 2010. The total worth of the BPO market fell from being $2.8 billion in March to only $1.5 billion in June. The reason why there is a decline is that the number of call center deals sealed in the March quarter was higher than in the next one. The value of the deals clinched in the June quarter was less because the business firms depended more on offshore outsourcing to destinations like Africa and Latin America where the call center services do not cost as much. The end of the recession immediately prompted the companies to offshore their telemarketing services of these destinations.

A clearer picture about the telemarketing industry will emerge in the present quarter. Will this quarter stabilize the call center growth and take it forward? Or will it signal the start of a dip in call center services? The answers can be available only when the quarter comes to a close. The insiders of the industry feel that the graph will shoot up because of increased expansions of call centers and telemarketing services. The industry is also looking forward to some deals being inked after the lackluster period between March and June. India continues to be at the forefront of this change, with a market share of 60-65%.

Bogus Telemarketing Calls Bother Citizens

Citizens all over the USA and Canada are bothered by incidences of bogus telemarketing calls. The authorities of telecommunication in these two countries, along with several others across the globe, are noticing a sharp rise in the incidences of fake telemarketing calls calling on people for donations to charity and non-profits. These calls tug on the heart of the people and successfully appeal to the good nature in human beings.

People donate money with the help of the telemarketing company. But this money does not reach the needy. Instead the funds are embezzled. On most occasions, you find that the telemarketing services offer products and services that do not exist in the first place!

The problem has reached its zenith in the recent months. There are regular instances of telemarketing calls being made in fake campaigns. Many of these telemarketing campaigns call up numbers on the do-not-call list in complete and direct violations of the telecommunication rules.

The problems catapult to greater heights when some disaster comes to town. Then people are more willing to donate money and do their bit. The telemarketing company often swindles people with the help of their credit card details. The authorities are also making people aware about numbers where they can complain against the fraudulent telemarketing services.