Call Center Pro

Call Center Agent 101

2009-04-11T23:39:00.000-07:00

Call Center Agent 101

A call center agent is the person who handles incoming or outgoing customer calls for a business. A call center agent might handle account inquiries, customer complaints or support issues. Other names for a call center agent include customer service representative (CSR), telephone sales or service representative (TSR), attendant, associate, operator, account executive or team member.
Responsibilities of an inbound call center agent
A call center agent is a person responsible for answering the quires of the customers in case of customer support call center. they are responsible to satisfy customer and maintain good image for the company

Acting as a sales representative
If a call center agent is responsible for making cold calls to prospective customer than it is acting as a sales representative on the part of the manufacturer or the service provider.
Job Description of a Call Center Agent
• Support and provide superior service via phones, e-mails and faxes as a receiver and caller

• Use questioning and listening skills that support effective telephone communication.

• Use an effective approach to handle special telephone tasks like call transfers, taking messages, call backs, holds, interruptions, and unintentional disconnects.

• Understand the impact of attitude in handling calls professionally

• Effectively deal with job stress, angry callers, and upset customers

• Use the most appropriate way to communicate with different behavior types on the telephone.

• Apply the elements of building positive rapport with different types of customers over the phone.

• Apply the proper telephone etiquette to satisfy various customer situations.

• Apply appropriate actions to effectively control a telephone call.

• Identify voice skills and how to enhance a good telephone presentation.

• Meets commitments to customers

• Other duties as assigned.

• Display Time flexibility towards shifts as per work floor requirements.

Source: wiki.answers.com

Qualities of Call Center Agents

2009-04-11T23:31:00.001-07:00

Qualities of Call Center Agents

Call center companies, being in the customer-oriented business, would be needing special qualifications from a prospective call center agent. Although some preferred college graduates, even non-degree holders could be hired if they possess the following specialized skills:
• Demonstrable customer care orientation;
• Good communication and listening skills;
• Proficient in English, working knowledge fo other language like Mandarin, Korean and German would be an advantage;
• Must be computer literate particularly in Word processign and use of internet applications.
There exists call center training institutions like the Call Center Academy and Asia Call Center Link that offers short call center courses ranging from 1-2 weeks duration. This is a special training aimed at preparing a prospective call center agent to the rudiments of the job. Through 20-40 hour modules, this training institutions equip both graduates and undergraduates with competitive and globalized customer service skills.
source: TESDA

Call Center Careers, What’s In-Store for You?

2009-04-11T23:29:00.002-07:00

Call Center Careers, What’s In-Store for You?

Say the phrase ‘Call Center Careers’ and sudden images of telemarketers flood the minds of many. This is an unfortunate stigma. The truth is, Call Center Careers are much more and offer a wide range of demands and tasks. It’s not just someone trying to sell you something; it’s an actual job, one you have dealt with on many occasions.
Whenever you call for directory assistance to find a newbookstore or try to schedule an airline reservation for that upcoming vacation, you use a call center. This is where your call is received and responded to. Someone who has a career in this area will help you find whatever information you need or talk through any problem you may have. Their priority is to serve you.
Call center careers are not easy, another unfortunate stigma. Many believe that any one can answer a phone and speak. That is the broadest way of looking at this kind of career. Depending on the type of center you can walk at (whether a small, local company or a national conglomerate), you will have to deal with varying volumes of calls and questions. And the questions never stop. Once you are finished helping one customer, you’re on to the next. Of course, some days will be worse than others. A customer service representative may receive over 100 calls for their shift. These can range from a simple question to lengthy tirade of an angry purchaser. By having a call center career, you will have to deal with all kinds of people, some of them unwilling to listen to reason. It is not an easy job and your “people-skills” must be up to the challenge.
Of course, you need to be able to do more than talk an irate customer down; one of the newer aspects of working in a call center is having proper computer knowledge. People want answers and they want them fast–it’s your job to give them what they need. For example, if you were to work in a medical center, the computer could access any health data you needed. This is anecessity of the job now and computer skills are required.
Still have that telemarketer idea in your idea? Perhaps some examples of what call center careers may offer: Technical Service Representative, Sales Representative Consultant, Bilingual Technical Support Customer Service,Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â Telephony Specialist, And More.
All right, so that “And more” does include telemarketing and outbound calls; however, the call center career is not limited to that. It is an actual job that requires excellent people skills and computer knowledge.
But, you may be wondering what other kinds of knowledge you will need before pursing this kind of career. Unfortunately, there is no definite answer. Each company has their own hiring practices, and each job entails different things. For example, if you work as a sales representative, you would have to do more than simply answer questions. You would be required to have marketing knowledge and to be aware of the latest sales techniques. If your background does not have a strong indicator of this, you would probably be passed on for the job. Some companies, however, look more for your skills with customers, rather than your education. A local travel agency, for instance, would be looking to hire someone with strong speaking and computer skills. Your education would be less of a priority. It depends on where you are and what kind of job you’re looking for.
Call center careers can be rewarding experiences for those who enjoy interacting with people and helping them solve their problems.

About the author: Mark Sturge is the webmaster of www.career-axis.com, a site where you can find information, resources and tips on all areas career. Such as a home business career or call center careers.

What are Inbound and Outbound Call Centers?

2009-04-11T23:29:00.001-07:00

What are Inbound and Outbound Call Centers?

Contact centers communicate with customers in a number of ways, but who initiates the contact defines the type of contact center. If the outside world initiates contact, then the contact center is said to be an inbound contact center. Conversely, if the contact center itself is responsible for initiating contact, then the contact center is said to be an outbound contact center.
Customers contact inbound centers to buy things, such as airline tickets; to get technical assistance with their personal computer; to get answers to questions about their utility bill; to get emergency assistance when their car won start; or for any number of other reasons for which they might need to talk to a company representative.
Increasingly, companies are looking to inbound call centers for proactive customer service that could be used for cross-selling and up-selling.
In outbound centers, representatives from the company initiate the call to customers. Companies might call to notify a customer that the product ordered is now available or because the customer hasn’t paid a bill or to follow up on a problem the customer was having.
Outbound contact centers are, most often, very telephone centric because of tradition and perception. It is not unusual for a company representatives to call a customer on the phone, but it is more unusual for them to send an email to a customer. If companies send out email to customers, it is often done through some mass mailing effort, not as one-on-one contact. Perception enters into the picture because people are very quick to categorize unexpected email as spam, but less likely to be upset by unexpected phone calls.
source: www.avaya.com

Call Center vs. Contact Center

2009-04-11T23:27:00.000-07:00

Call Center vs. Contact Center

Many people tend to think of a call center as people neatly organized into rows, sitting beside their phones, answering customer calls. So what is a contact center?
Contact centers are more than headset-wearing switch-board operators. The modern contact center handles phone calls, email, and online communication including instant messaging.
Traditionally, contact centers have been called call centers. The newer name contact center reflects the fact that more than just phone calls are being handled. Many call centers have evolved over the years to do much more than just answer phones.
Some companies choose to separate the handling of customer contacts by medium. For instance, a company may establish a department for inbound calls, one for outbound calls, and a group for email. Some companies, especially smaller ones, opt to create universal agents who handle all contact types. Companies create universal contact agents for reasons of efficiency and service, and often because they find it easier to train agents in multiple communication methods than to train multiple agents in product or service information.
Bottom line, it is up to the customer to decide how they want to communicate with your company, and it IS up to your company to respond appropriately through its contact center.
source: www.avaya.com

Variations and Refinements of Call Centers

2009-04-11T23:25:00.000-07:00

Variations and Refinements of Call Centers

Refinements of call centres
There are many refinements to the generic call centre model. Each refinement helps increase the efficiency of the call centre thereby allowing management to make better decisions involving economy and service.
The following list contains some examples of call centre refinements:
Predictive Dialling - Computer software attempts to predict the time taken for an agent to help a caller. The software begins dialling another caller before the agent has finished the previous call. This, because not every call will be connected (think of busy or not answered calls) and also because of the time it takes to set up the call (usually around 20 seconds before someone answers). Frequently, predictive dialers will dial more callers than there are agents, counting on the fact that not every line will be answered. When the line is answered and no agent is available, it is held in a retention queue for a short while. When still no agent has become available, the call is hung up and classified as a nuisance call. The next time the client is called an agent will be reserved for the caller.
Multi-Skilled Staff - In any call centre, there will be members of staff that will be more skilled in areas than others. An ‘Interactive Voice Response’ (IVR) Unit can be used to allow the caller to select the reason for his call. Management software, called an Automatic Call Distributor, must then be used to route calls to the appropriate agent. Alternatively, it has been found that a mix of general and specialist agent creates a good balance.
Queuing Systems - The selection of a queuing system type is a very important decision in a call centre as it determines the level of quality of service. Queueing systems in call centres are usually described as M/M/N type queues where N is the number of agents. The preferred method of queuing is a FIFO (First In First Out) model, as it causes minimum delay to callers.
Prioritisation of Callers - Classification of callers according to priority is a very important refinement. Emergency calls or callers that are reattempting to contact a call centre are examples of callers that could be given a higher priority.
Automatic Number Identification - This allows agents to determine who is calling before they answer the call. Greeting a caller by name and obtaining his/her information in advance adds to the quality of service and helps decrease the conversation time.
Variations on the generic call centre model
The various components in a call centre discussed in the previous sections are the generic form of a call centre. There are many variations on the model developed above. A few of the variations are listed below:
Remote Agents - An alternative to housing all agents in a central facility is to use remote agents. These agents work from home and use a Basic Rate ISDN access line to communicate with a central computing platform. Remote agents are more cost effective as they donÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t have to travel to work, however the call centre must still cover the cost of the ISDN line. VOIP technology can also be used to remove the need for the ISDN, although the desktop application being used needs to be web enabled or VPN is used.
Temporary Agents - Temporary agents are useful as they can be called upon if demand increases more rapidly than planned. They are offered a certain number of quarter hours a month. They are paid for the amount they actually work, and the difference between the amount offered and the amount guaranteed is also paid. Managers must use forecasting methods to determine the number of hours offered so that the difference is minimised.
Virtual Call Centres - Virtual Call Centres are created using many smaller centres in different locations and connecting them to one another. The advantage of virtual call centres is that they improve service levels, provide emergency backup and enable extended operating hours over isolated call centres. There are two methods used to route traffic around call centres: pre-delivery and post-delivery. Pre-delivery involves using an external switch to route the calls to the appropriate centre and post-delivery enables call centres to route a call they’ve received to another call centre.
Interaction Centres - As call centres evolve and deal with more media than telephony alone, some have taken to the term, “interaction centre”. Email, Web Callback and more are gradually being added to the role.
souce: Wikipedia

Call Center “Consultants” or “Agents”

2009-04-11T23:23:00.000-07:00

Call Center “Consultants” or “Agents”

When we deal with call centers, the term call center consultant is seldom used, for instead of calling the people working in call centers “consultants”, we refer to them as call agents or call center workers. But despite the common knowledge about call center agents as the call center workers, the question of what a call center consultant still continue to persist. This is due to the fact the term call center consultant is seldom heard.
According to some experts, a consultant in general referred to those professionals that provide expert advice in a particular field or domain of expertise such as the law, human resources, medicine, and other area of specialization. In the area of communication, particularly with call center consultants, the term is associated with the people working in call centers that provide expertise to customers or clients about something that the clients wanted to know or interested. Additionally, the term call center consultant may then also refer to a person that is only temporarily employed by a call center company and who is working under the call centers direction in a skill area that the call center already acquires. Oftentimes, a call center consultant is not an independent call center agent but is a partner or an employee of a consultancy that is a company that offers consultants to clients on a bigger scale of skill domains.
The call center consultants as a professional therefore has great skill in call center activities or something that demonstrates such skill. To consider oneself as a professional call center consultant would mean that the persons actions or behaviors must remain in accordance with the rules and standards of the profession. So as a call center consultant one must abide by the law implemented by the call center.
Moreover, in call centers the call center consultant is often considered as a senior team member of the call center. As such, the call center consultants produce a high quality telephone enquiry and data or information service to the customers and answer the more complex enquiries within the call center. The other duties of a call center consultant also include the investigation and resolution of the more complicated enquiries and complaints; the preparation of appropriate correspondence and maintenance of statistics to better ensure a good quality customer service; and providing inputs to call center improvements and maintenance programs.
A call center consultant, in addition, also acts as a supervisor, who assists the call center team leader with the important activities and management of the group to guarantee an effective operation of the team sections and to guarantee that the teams performance standards are met. Aside from that, a call center consultant also makes certain links to the mangers, sections and departments to guarantee that the issues are resolved and the objectives are met. Lastly, a call center consultant must participate in the review of services, policies and procedures to further ensure that the clients needs are being met and a call center consultant may also perform other duties as directed. So as a call center consultant, aside from being an excellent communicator, must also have enough experience in a call center or customer service environment and must therefore carry well-developed analytical and problem solving skills.

About the Author: Jean Harley is a Call Center specialist who writes articles for www.CallCenterSearch.com. Source: www.isnare.com

The Call Center Myth

2009-04-11T23:22:00.000-07:00

The Call Center Myth

Ok let’s review… No one is going to do the work for you. There I’ve said it and we clearly understand each other right? Well, maybe not. Some people love to be in sales but they hate to sell. Gee, wonder why that is. Wonder if they would like to jump out of an airplane without a parachute? Or is it they are too lazy to learn how to properly pack their parachute and therefore they trust someone else to pack it for them? I don’t know about you but I prefer to make sure things are being done correctly. Because it could make for a hard landing!
The reason people say they hate to sell is because they don’t really understand how to do it. And they are too lazy to take the time to discover how it’s properly done. Sales is not about hype, smoke, mirrors, or empty promises. Sales is about posturing and knowledge and marketing effectively.
Some are falling for what is being sold through hype has the “Call Center”. The call center business model claims it will do all the work for you. They claim they will close all the sales for you. They claim they will then give you the sales commission. And they also claim you don’t have to do anything. Are these call centers smart? They are smart enough to talk you out of your money if you fall for it and buy in to their hype.
No one is going to do all the work for you and then send you money. It just isn’t going to happen. And the sooner you realize this the better off you will be. When you think about it, what is the difference between someone at a call center claiming to close your sales and you closing them yourself? It’s simple. When you discover how to close your own sales you know you are geting paid.
Call centers use a code number system where you must place ads containing a code number or extension etc. It’s been proven that people only write down phone numbers from ads and never the code number. The code number is how the call center says they give you credit for the sale. Ok, well what happens when the caller does not have the code number to give the call center? Does the call center turn them away and lose a new sale? If you think the answer to the question is yes you are buying in to the call center hype!
Here’s a red flag. Call center sales reps are also signed up in the very same programs they claim to be closing sales for you in. Does this seem fair to you? It didn’t to me either. And that’s why I called some of the call centers up and pretended to be someone who had seen an ad but didn’t write down the code number from the ad. At no time did the sales rep ever try and tell me they could not accept my sale. So this begs the questions… who got credit for that sale?
Here’s another red flag. How do you actually track the people who call in to the call center? How do you really know what is happening with your leads? How do you know when they are being followed up with and how? The answer is you don’t know. And this is a huge problem.
The call center owners don’t want you to understand what really goes on. They want to keep you dummed down. They do not want you to smarten up because they know if you do, you will quickly realize you don’t need them.
Sales is not nearly as tough as most assume. In fact once you have a proven system in place and you are working smarter instead of harder, sales can be a lot of fun. It’s all about taking it one step at a time and discovering the proper sales technique.

About The Author: Britt Phillips is a self-made millionaire and one of the all time top income earners in the history of the Coastal Vacations business opportunity. Britt has been teaching students on his success team for eleven years. Britt devotes the time, energy, and effort into his team and works with them to ensure their success. Britt reveals the hidden facts about the Coastal Vacations Call Center. To contact Britt Phillips call him direct at 804-897-2274. EzineArticles.com

How The “Dial-800″ Number Works

2009-04-11T23:19:00.000-07:00

When customers dial an 800 number that they saw on the television screens, they do not realize that they are calling a center with technologically advanced computer and screening systems. The operators at the other end of the line are located in call centers and they have been fully equipped with call center software that can tell them a great deal about the caller. Call center software helps the operators help the customer. It is how the workers ensure callers speedy, secure, and accurate service.
Call center software has an array of features that help these businesses operate. The software handles everything from management to call tracking and data analysis to automatic dialing. It works for both inbound and outbound calling centers and has specific programs for each type of center. Much of what operators must do is automatic. The call center software processes most of the information entered by the call center employees.
Inbound call centers utilize call tracking software that helps them monitor how many calls come into the center during a specified period. It records the duration of the call, number of transfers, to where the call transfers, and hold times. All of this information combined helps managers understand the productivity of the call center. Account management software displays the callers financial history with the call center. If the customer has called before, it shows past purchases, amounts due and paid, and more. Contact management programs from call center software show all types of interactions between the employees and the customer. This includes phone contact, emails, correspondence, etc Any of this information goes on to subsequent operators if the original operator must transfer the call. Some call centers even extend their services to the Internet. This is self-service via the Internet and it is for those customers who want quick answers without having to wait for operator assistance.
Outbound call center software comes with features specific to the needs of this type of call center. The employees often face many obstacles when trying to get customers to respond to their unsolicited calls. Voice messaging and broadcasting programs created automated messages that record to a persons answering machine. This way if the person is not home, the operator can leave a computerized message and quickly move on to the next call. Predictive dialers mechanically dial phone numbers for people that fall into specific target markets. These dialers select the correct candidates for the operator so that they do not have to determine whom to call. In addition to this, outbound centers need the call center software that helps monitor calls and productivity.
Both inbound and outbound call center software comes with technical assistance for the operators. The software automates much of the information processing that operators must do, but no technology is perfect. Therefore, technical assistance arrives in the form of FAQs, how-to guides, and a helpdesk with IT professionals.
If you are interested in getting call center software for your call center business, consider companies like Avaya, Avalanche, Database Systems Corp., and Siebel.
About the author: S. Johnson is the lead writer for www.callcentreawards.com

The Call Center Technology

2009-04-11T23:17:00.000-07:00

The Call Center Technology
Let us face the fact that as much as many people are not familiar with the basic idea of what a call center is, how much more with the call center technology? Several questions are being thrown in most of the call center forums online about the things related to call center and most of those are about the call center technology.
For everybodys information, a certain call center since it catered to customer service, technical operations, and much more, have been sustained by a gamut of telecommunications and computer technologies. The call center technology is comprised of automatic call distribution (ACD), interactive voice response (IVR), computer telephony integration (CTI), and customer relationship management (CRM). These various types of call center technology are being employed in call centers for a better output.
The call center technology called automatic call distribution or ACD in particular is inline with telephony and it is accordingly a device that delivers incoming calls from the customers to a particular throng of terminals. Furthermore, most of ACDs as part of the call center technology are seldom found in call center companies who tackle so much of incoming phone calls and wherein a particular caller has no peculiar need to keep in touch with a certain person. However, in this kind of a call center technology, a particular caller despite of having no need to talk to a certain person can talk to a random person who has the opportunity to talk to him at a most reasonable time. It is also considered that the task of handling incoming calls is carried by the ACD system. As a call center technology, the ACD system is comprised of hardware for the terminals and phone lines, and software for the routing tactics. The routing tactics in this kind of call center technology is a rule based set of discipline that demands the ACD how calls are taken and mange inside the system.
On the other hand, the second classification of a call center technology which is the interactive voice response or IVR generally functions as a computerized scheme that grants the person, usually a telephone caller, to choose an alternative from a voice menu and otherwise interface with a computer scheme. This scheme of a call center technology is generally catered to pre-recorded voice prompts to which the person chooses a number on a telephone keypad to choose the alternative selected or just speaks as simple as yes, no, or answers that the voice prompts needed.
The third kind of a call center technology which is the computer telephony integration or CTI is a call center technology that grants the interactions on a telephone and a computer to be intact and unified.
The above mentioned types of a call center technology are largely differentiated to the early innovation in the field of call center technology which is the existence of the customer relationship management or CRM. Such kind of a call center technology is enables different organizations to better provide good service to its customers by the use of reliable processes and steps for dealing with customers. It is considered that the best CRM strategy is typically supplied through a package devised to provide support for those processes.
Nowadays, certain ways to further advance a call center technology is being processed and most of it has been heavily employed in call centers. It is interesting to note that a latest call center technology with the use of the internet will allow the virtual call centers to be based across a companys telecommunications network without placing the call center people in one office.
About the Author: Jean Harley, author, is a Call Center specialist who writes articles for www.CallCenterSearch.com. Source: www.isnare.com

What’s Behind Call Center Operations

2009-04-11T23:14:00.000-07:00

Call centers have been considered as a critical object that link between a company and the customers. With this reality, the urge for effective call center operations management has come out as the direct effect of the continuing expansion of call centers.

Call center operations, as it is frequently mentioned in some sites that offer call center operations for companies that are in need of better call center operations, is referred to those functions that a typical call center carry to fully utilize its resources and handle everything that are in it. Most call center operations generally function to meet the customers needs in real time or near real-time.

As usual, call center operations are sometimes associated with those roles and responsibilities that each call center area of expertise are having. One of the main examples is the title customer service representative. As such, the customer service representative is inline with the customer service operations. Another example that shows the essence of call center operations is the field of technology. Most people assigned and experts in this area are considered to be in the field of technical operations, thus creating a notion that call center operations are generally related with the areas of specialization.

For further information, call center operations is that unit of a call center, be it a division or a department, which simply carries out the actual enforcement of the center operating functions. With this status of the call center operations, most call center operations are frequently considered as ways that often create a successful output for each agent when every steps of call center operations is performed correctly. The call center operations, being a unit of a call center, for example in the area of the customer service operations, must be perfectly handle as much as possible. In such example, with the utilization of certain call center operations tool, a customer service representative can successfully direct a certain call to a certain customer by following the necessary steps which are all connected with the nature of call center operations. With advanced systems in call center operations, the customer service representative will then easily direct calls to specific call agents or groups without hassles. On the other hand, in the area of technical call center operations, the assigned representatives are mostly handling processes related to the general functioning of the computers, and the technical system as a whole.

With specified and highly organized call center operations, much productive result will be utilized and achieved by a call center and other companies.

About the Author: Jean Harley, author, is a Call Center specialist who writes articles for www.CallCenterSearch.com. Source: www.isnare.com

The Importance of Call Centers

2009-04-11T23:13:00.001-07:00

Over the past few years, the contact center has emerged as the essential component of the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy now widespread among companies. More than ever, U.S. consumers are expecting more value from the products and services being offered and are quickly adopting the communication channels made possible by advances in telecommunications and the Internet. With the growing preference for e-mail communication and inquiries through company websites, management of customer relationships is evolving into an electronic or e-CRM model where contacts by phone is only one of many options.

Companies are quickly learning that service is the key to attracting and maintaining customers, which leads to increased business and revenue. Contact centers are now considered as profit centers, and it can spell the difference between being in business and becoming bankrupt. Having an excellent contact center is an important strategic asset that will not only improve a company’s image, but also improve customer relationships. Through the contact center, companies learn about their clients, and with that knowledge learn how to serve them better, leading to an improved bottom line.

source: www.onepacifica.com

What is Outsourcing? Top 10 Reasons to Outsource

2009-04-11T23:12:00.000-07:00

Outsourcing is basically a method of carrying out a definite task without completely relying on the original companies resources. It can be a development of a product or can also be acquiring knowledge and technology.

In plain English, outsourcing is the process by which a parent company hire services / technology from firms or individuals outside itself to carry out a particular task. The parent company will not disturb its internal schedules and resources, but utilize the expertise, knowledge and resources of outside bodies to carry out the job. The important point to note is that, the production or development job is only transferred to the foreign body, and the responsibility of the job is with the parent company itself.

Why would anyone outsource?

There can be numerous reasons behind the decision to outsource a job to foreign bodies.

One of the main reasons why a company decides to outsource a particular work is because of inadequate resources within it. Sometimes situation arises when manpower cannot be diverted to an urgent work. One of the solutions to this situation is to increase manpower or to hire manpower for a short period of time. The risk factor is involved, as the company does not clearly know the performance record of hired manpower. But if we have a publicly accepted performance record of a specialist company who is wiling to take up the job, taking the responsibilities of newly hired manpower and shedding additional revenue on them seems a bad idea. This situation normally results in outsourcing, to avoid bottlenecks in the parent company’s performance.

Inadequate knowledge and technology can be another reason why a company decides to outsource a work to some specialist firms, who can provide it. As it is clear, someone more skilled and someone who does the job on a day-to-day basis can complete a job in less time and money than someone new to the field.

Reduced budgets and increased expenses in operational costs can result in a decision to outsource. There can be situations when carrying out a project results in a loss. This occurs when expensive tools have to be purchased or when new knowledge or technology has to be purchased to carry out a job. The easy solution to this problem will also be outsourcing the work to skilled small-scaled businesses, which can complete the job in lesser cost and time, eliminating the expenses of purchase of new tools or technology. The huge reduction in pay rates while outsourcing to countries like India and Russia where loads of technically sound resources are available for a reduced pay rate, is one of the best reasons to outsource.

Merits of Outsourcing

One of the good things about outsourcing is that the parent company gets to concentrate on strategic issues rather than take up the hassle of specialized jobs. Another important aspect is the availability of top-notch resources, which are used by the parent company only when they need them. The reduction in operational costs is yet another huge positive aspect of outsourcing.

Points to Keep in Mind After the Decision of Outsourcing and Before Selecting Your Partner

Successful outsourcing is a result of good management.

· Make sure you have these points cleared before you outsource your work to foreign companies.

· Always study your future partner prior to fixing the deal. Talk to their past and present clients, study their history and present infrastructure before taking the leap.

· Once you fix the deal, the vendor is part of your company. Never treat him as an alien body.

· Clearly define the tasks and give a concrete idea about the deliverables. This will reduce the confusion and will make sure that the vendor knows what he needs to deliver.

Top 10 Reasons to Outsource:

1. Reduce and control operating costs

2. Improve company focus

3. Gain access to world-class capabilities

4. Free internal resources for other purposes

5. Resources are not available internally

6. Accelerate reengineering benefits

7. Function difficult to manage/out of control

8. Make capital funds available

9. Share risks

10. Cash infusion

Call Center Outsourcing (Business Process Outsourcing)

2009-04-11T23:11:00.000-07:00

Call center outsourcing is very widespread nowadays. A lot of companies opened call center outsourcing as part of their businesses. However, even if the term “call center outsourcing” is commonly heard, still there are lots of people who do not know what this thing is all about.

The Definition

As far as I know, the word outsourcing in literal terms basically connotes sourcing from outside. However, the term is widely applied to refer to sub-contracting of a set of roles and mechanisms by a particular institution to another firm, or even to a group of individuals. It is also noted that the rearmost organization is frequently in another physical situation or another area collectively. In the field of call center outsourcing, the term generally refers to the efficient business strategy that most call centers applied to their call center outsourcing businesses. The call center outsourcing business is being pursued in the current economic setting since most of the call centers that offer call center outsourcing were able to focus more on the major areas of specialization. In addition, call center outsourcing also set the call centers away from resource and labor intensive functions, which is in the present situation performed by most trained personnel at much lower costs.

The Call Flow

Call center outsourcing involved processes or events that are being outsourced which in fact vary from customer service and telemarketing, to IT management, software development, market research and sometimes financial register management. However, in some call center outsourcing, there are certain instances that often cause the dislocation of some professionals which then led to shifts in the processes and jobs as well. But some fortunate call center outsourcing experience such dislocation temporarily and there are only few professionals who lost their jobs because of call center outsourcing.

Streamlining the Business

Call center outsourcing being an assumed efficient business strategy sometimes create cut costs, in which most of the call centers that offer call center outsourcing often enjoy. Most call centers being defined as a physical location where calls are placed or received in high volumes engaged into call center outsourcing for the purpose of sales, marketing, telemarketing, customer service, technical support and other specialized business activities. In fact, call center outsourcing serves as one of the best ways in call center business that promotes higher status. Most call centers in fact promote call center outsourcing to better serve lots of companies which oftentimes even include reservation center for airlines or hotels, a catalog retailer, an e-tailing center, an e-commerce transaction center, or even a fund-raising and collection organization. With call center outsourcing, the call centers have now evolved to become intricate business affairs.

About the Author: Jean Harley, author, is a Call Center specialist who writes articles for www.CallCenterSearch.com. Source: www.isnare.com

What is BPO? The Benefits of Outsourcing

2009-04-11T23:07:00.000-07:00

What is BPO? The Benefits of Outsourcing

usiness Process Outsourcing (BPO) is the leveraging of technology or specialist process vendors to provide and manage an organisation’s critical and/or non-critical enterprise processes and applications. The most common examples of BPO are call centres, human resources, accounting and payroll outsourcing. Business process outsourcing may involve the use of off-shore resources. Use of a BPO as opposed to an application service provider (ASP) usually also means that a certain amount of risk is transferred to the company that is running the process elements on behalf of the outsourcer. BPO includes the software, the process management, and the people to operate the service, while a typical ASP model includes only the provision of access to functionalities and features provided or ’served up’ through the use of software, usually via web browser to the customer.

The Benefits of Outsourcing

What do the most successful organizations know about outsourcingÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã¢â‚¬Âand who is helping them find the answers?

Outsourcing is more than a cost-saving mechanism. Smart decision-makers know that outsourcing is an indispensable business tool to not only reduce cost, but to drive business value into their enterprises.

When you choose Accenture to help you with your outsourcing needs, you get more than a provider. You get a partner who will help your company achieve high performance.

Our outsourcing services focus on your distinctive capabilities. You’ll gain access to best-in-class skills and capabilities to lower your operating costs and improve your bottom line.

Combined with our application outsourcing and infrastructure outsourcing business, Accenture has the broadest outsourcing services offering in the market, unmatched in scope, scale and depth. We provide outsourcing services to 600 clients in 45 countries, serving nearly every industry sector, providing services close to your business operations and via our extensive global delivery network.

What is Offshoring?

2009-04-11T23:06:00.000-07:00

So, what is offshoring? Offshoring is a type of outsourcing. Offshoring simply means having the outsourced business functions done in another country. Frequently, work is offshored in order to reduce labor expenses. Other times, the reasons for offshoring are strategic — to enter new markets, to tap talent currently unavailable domestically or to overcome regulations that prevent specific activities domestically.

India has emerged as the dominant player in offshoring, particularly in software work. Three factors came into play to make this possible. First, in the 1970s the Indian government put in place regulations that mandated that all foreign ventures have Indian majority ownership. Fearing government takeover, many large U.S. corporations, such as IBM, departed, leaving India in the position of fending for itself to maintain its technical infrastructures. This quickly forced the creation of schools to train students in technology.

Next came the global ubiquity of the Internet and massive telecommunications capacity, which enabled companies to get computer-based work done seemingly anywhere, including India.

Third, as the year 2000 approached, organizations hired service providers to update their legacy program code. Much of this work was handled in India, where English was commonly spoken, where there was a large and highly trained population of software engineers, and where labor costs were much lower than in developed countries. Y2K work proved the merits of an offshore labor force, and companies have continued tapping the talents and skills (and cost savings) made available by Indian offshore service providers. Major companies working as offshoring service providers in India include Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys and Wipro.

Russia, Ireland, Czechoslovakia and Poland have also surfaced as popular offshoring destinations for specific types of software expertise.

The Philippines, which has a highly literate and educated population, as well as language and cultural affinities with the United States, has become a popular offshoring region for call center and customer support work.

The dominant location for much of the manufacturing outsourcing (in the form of offshoring) by U.S. companies is China, which has made a push in recent years to also become a provider of services. The Chinese central government has made the “third industry” — services — a priority for its national development plans in the coming decades. English is taught in China starting in the third grade, and its technical schools and colleges graduate tens of thousands of software engineers annually.

At the same time that other countries were coming to the forefront in areas such as software and call center work, the United States was experiencing an economic downturn that struck in 2000 and 2001. The resulting job losses and insecurities created an offshoring backlash, especially among technical workers.

Both the potential for negative publicity and concerns about data security and privacy have prevented some companies from taking work offshore. However, that doesn’t always prevent them from outsourcing. Rural sourcing — having work done in domestic locations where salaries and operating expenses are lower (such as the Midwest for the United States) — is an alternative for companies that want to avoid the negative aspects of offshoring.
Other Dimensions of Offshoring

Nearshoring is taking the outsourced work to a nearby country (such as Canada, in the case of the United States). Nearshoring is a popular model for companies that don’t want to deal with the cultural, language or time zone differences involved in offshoring.

Captive Centers are offshore companies set up by organizations to provide internal services and in some cases to sell those same services to clients. Often U.S. and European organizations set up captive centers for their outsourced work.

Multinational corporations (MNC) are service providers with offices in many countries, which enable them to serve a global market of clients and tap the labor arbitrage available by offshoring certain types of work. Among this category are IBM, EDS, CSC, HP, ACS, Accenture and Keane.

What is Outsourcing?

2009-04-11T23:05:00.000-07:00

So, what is outsourcing? Outsourcing is contracting with another company or person to do a particular function. Almost every organization outsources in some way. Typically, the function being outsourced is considered non-core to the business. An insurance company, for example, might outsource its janitorial and landscaping operations to firms that specialize in those types of work since they are not related to insurance or strategic to the business. The outside firms that are providing the outsourcing services are third-party providers, or as they are more commonly called, service providers.

Although outsourcing has been around as long as work specialization has existed, in recent history, companies began employing the outsourcing model to carry out narrow functions, such as payroll, billing and data entry. Those processes could be done more efficiently, and therefore more cost-effectively, by other companies with specialized tools and facilities and specially trained personnel.

Currently, outsourcing takes many forms. Organizations still hire service providers to handle distinct business processes, such as benefits management. But some organizations outsource whole operations. The most common forms are information technology outsourcing (ITO) and business process outsourcing (BPO).

Business process outsourcing encompasses call center outsourcing, human resources outsourcing (HRO), finance and accounting outsourcing, and claims processing outsourcing. These outsourcing deals involve multi-year contracts that can run into hundreds of millions of dollars. Frequently, the people performing the work internally for the client firm are transferred and become employees for the service provider. Dominant outsourcing service providers in the information technology outsourcing and business process outsourcing fields include IBM, EDS, CSC, HP, ACS, Accenture and Capgemini.

Some nimble companies that are short on time and money, such as start-up software publishers, apply multisourcing — using both internal and service provider staff — in order to speed up the time to launch. They hire a multitude of outsourcing service providers to handle almost all aspects of a new project, from product design, to software coding, to testing, to localization, and even to marketing and sales.

The process of outsourcing generally encompasses four stages: 1) strategic thinking, to develop the organization’s philosophy about the role of outsourcing in its activities; 2) evaluation and selection, to decide on the appropriate outsourcing projects and potential locations for the work to be done and service providers to do it; 3) contract development, to work out the legal, pricing and service level agreement (SLA) terms; and 4) outsourcing management or governance, to refine the ongoing working relationship between the client and outsourcing service providers.

In all cases, outsourcing success depends on three factors: executive-level support in the client organization for the outsourcing mission; ample communication to affected employees; and the client’s ability to manage its service providers. The outsourcing professionals in charge of the work on both the client and provider sides need a combination of skills in such areas as negotiation, communication, project management, the ability to understand the terms and conditions of the contracts and service level agreements (SLAs), and, above all, the willingness to be flexible as business needs change.

The challenges of outsourcing become especially acute when the work is being done in a different country (offshored), since that involves language, cultural and time zone differences.

source: www.sourcingmag.comÃƒâ€š

Call Center 101

2009-04-11T22:40:00.000-07:00

A call centre or call center (see spelling differences) is a centralized office used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume of requests by telephone.

A call centre is operated by a company to administer incoming product support or information inquiries from consumers. Outgoing calls for telemarketing, clientele, and debt collection are also made. In addition to a call centre, collective handling of letters, faxes, and e-mails at one location is known as a contact centre.

A call centre is often operated through an extensive open workspace, with work stations that include a computer, a telephone set/headset connected to a telecom switch, and one or more supervisor stations. It can be independently operated or networked with additional centres, often linked to a corporate computer network, including mainframes, microcomputers and LANs. Increasingly, the voice and data pathways into the centre are linked through a set of new technologies called computer telephony integration (CTI).

Most major businesses use call centres to interact with their customers. Examples include utility companies, mail order catalogue firms, and customer support for computer hardware and software. Some businesses even service internal functions through call centres. Examples of this include help desks and sales support.

Call centre dynamics

Types of calls are often divided into outbound and inbound. Inbound calls are calls that are made by the consumer to obtain information, report a malfunction, or ask for help. These calls are substantially different from outbound calls, where agents place calls to potential customers mostly with intentions of selling or service to the individual. (See telemarketing)

Call centre staff are often organized into a multi-tier support system for a more efficient handling of calls. The first tier in such a model consists of operators, who direct inquiries to the appropriate department and provide general directory information. If a caller requires more assistance, the call is forwarded to the second tier, where most issues can be resolved. In some cases, there may be three or more tiers of support staff. If a caller requires more assistance, the caller is forwarded to the third tier of support; typically the third tier of support is formed by product engineers/developers or highly-skilled technical support staff of the product.

Management of call centres

Management of call centres involves balancing the requirements of cost effectiveness and service. Callers do not wish to wait in exorbitantly long queues until they can be helped and so management must provide sufficient staff and inbound capacity to ensure that the quality of service is maintained. However, staff costs generally form more than half the cost of running a call centre and so management must minimise the number of staff present.

To perform this balancing act, call centre managers make use of demand estimation, Telecommunication forecasting and dimensioning techniques to determine the level of staff required at any time. Managers must take into account staff tea and lunch breaks and must determine the number of agents required on duty at any one time.