Double Check for Virtual Call Center Employees

If your call center is planning to hire agents to work from home, you have to sit up and do some homework. When you are screening the agents, you must look for discrepancies in their work experience and what kind of telemarketing services they have done. Work at home agents may have some negative intent about the data that you share with them. To keep your data safe and also to ensure that your clients are not being taken for a ride, you will have to do the checks. You have to be careful about running criminal checks on the shortlisted telemarketing agents. Cross check their references and insist on talking to their previous employers and team leaders/members.

Call centres these days run on reputation. If you have the right kind of agents on your team, you will be able to build up this reputation over the days. BPO units are better suited if they are vigilant about security. Data theft and security concerns about telemarketing scams are always looming on the horizon. If you are not careful, you may find work at home agents duping your customers by obtaining their financial details. It is also your duty to protect the customers from being conned under your brand name. Helios Outsourcing is very careful about such concerns.

Lead Generation Agents’ Woes!

In an article published recently, a very weird sort of abuse has come to the fore! Call center agents are being subjected to some sort of physical abuse over the phone. Sounds impossible, does it? Hear us out! There is a cardinal rule among BPO agents that they are not supposed to hang up first when they are making lead generation calls to prospective customers. Now we all know how people react to such calls when they are not at all interested in making a purchase. But their repeated complaints and requests to stop making them cold calls fall on deaf ears. So they have devised a policy of their own.

These prospective customers make some loud and ghastly noise on the phone! They whistle loudly, sometimes use a sports whistle and often hold the phone close to a stereo system with the volume at full blast. The BPO agents have no other option but to bear it because by rule he cannot disconnect the call. The lead generation team cannot use any protective gear for their ears because that may get in the way of communicating with the customers. This sort of abuse leads to hearing problems for the call center agent. As a matter of fact, agents are aware that they will be subjected to irate customers and verbal abuse is part of their job. But this is a new one!

BPO Value Go Up as Revenue Increase

The value of BPO service has gone up among the prospective job seekers as it continues to make better revenues. The faster rate of growth that the call centre industry has seen in the recent times is symbolic of the interest that people are showing in this sector. The non-linear growth of the telemarketing industry is supported by the better availability of quality manpower. In fact, Fusion BPO Services has noted that in the present day, the best talent comes to telemarketing services. They may not be working as agents, but they are definitely there at the mid-level of the organization or at the upper echelons. Experts who have observed the business process outsourcing sector from close quarters have seen that the mid-level management is the most difficult to fill up.

The increase in the revenue earnings of the BPO has changed the scenario. Earlier, the young job seekers would look at call centers as stop-gap arrangements. It meant some quick money till they completed their education and passed on to better jobs. But the seriousness of telemarketing services as a career began to grow as other industries crumpled under the weight of the recession. This is a common story for all third world countries doing customer service. The contribution of the telemarketing sector towards the national income has increased manifold as well, prompting the government to make provisions for business process outsourcing.

Call Center Success Formula

The call center units have to be careful about improving their performances as they move into a more competitive sphere. Experts of the BPOindustry are asking firms to use a central database for their work. This method not just makes the process smoother and more transparent, but also identifies the weak links. Checking on the chinks in call center services is important to plug them in. You can also use this central platform to track performances. The end-users need to be given something special if you want to retain them. Call centers have to continuously keep that purpose ahead of the others.

There are some intangible BPO service aspects that call centers units have to particular about. For example, when it comes to customer service satisfaction, you will have to depend on the soft skills of the agents rather than on numbers and technology. You can monitor your call centers, of course. There are three ways of doing so. One, the supervisor can sit in with the agent taking the call and provide immediate assistance. Two, the supervisor can listen in on the calls remotely at a different workstation. Three, the calls can be recorded for the supervisor to check them through later on and suggest ways of improvement.