Category: BPO

The BPM sector is becoming more demanding and modernized. Expectation is that this sector needs to be secured yet open-ended, should have both customer centricity & employee centricity & must invest on modern technology. There are multiple factors which are keeping this sector on toes i.e. Consumer demands are continually evolving and there is a constant need to introduce innovative channels to communicate. On top of it technology changes must faster than the sector and therefore there is always an issue of adaptation & catch up!

This sector is surely in a transformation phase where the conventional systems would get replaced with digital models & the low end resources will get replaced with robotic solutions. Keeping in mind these transformational phase, it’s important that this sector is built for future. Well, the task seems daunting but here are few ways to address this renewed ask from BPM sectors to stay ahead the cure :-

1.  Cross-channel  Communication Model : Since many of the companies are now expanding their multi-channel offerings, making a seamless cross-channel experiences will be more important. Cross Channel communication would involve having a uniform customer experience. Few examples on this practice would be as follows :-

a. Design of the website should remain consistent with the mobile app and should also match the physical store presence.

b. Consumers should be able get same experience while shopping through in-store, website, mobile app and telephone, regardless of their location and time.

c. There should be flexibility that their order can either be delivered to the address directly, collected at the store, or collect from a retail partner. Flexibility is important!

The leap towards cross channel will be a big one, and it should happen in the very near future. BPM Companies need to partner with their clients to make this proposition win-win.

2. Meaning of “Hello”

There have been significant predictions that digital wave would replace the voice channel. Majority of this predictions have come true but still customers end up using voice over many other available channels for quick resolutions. The reality is that although channel diversity is needed for speedy communications, the voice solutions still remains an important avenue for solving complex issues. Though digital is spreading in all customer interactions but we cannot negate the voice support in this business therefore the focus needs to be put on providing effective trainings to the agents that will ensure that voice interactions are executed with quality and empathy. Also BPM Companies need to crack the concerns on “hold time” and explore cloud call back solutions to improve the customer delight.

3. Measure yourself to go far 

There is a growing pressure for call centers to have newer and innovative performance management solutions. These solutions are needed to regularly evaluate their workforce both near and far. Analytics which were one fruitful for acquiring insight into customers, is now equally important for understanding agent performance.. There is a growing prominence on contact centers recognizing the impact of tracking analytics and be able to use those benchmarks for their future growth. Based on data analytics of customer requests and buying preferences, companies are striving towards personalization of services.

4. Chatbot a newer way to Demand Customer Respect

Today, customers expect the representatives of a company to be available round the clock to resolve their queries instantly. To provide timely support to customers on a consistent basis, companies have come up with the important tool of chatbot. Chatbots can satisfy customer expectations, without any chance of burnout. The advanced capability of chatbots works with the technology of Artificial Intelligence and speech recognition to interact with users and provide them apt solutions. Chatbots are developed by businesses to respond to short & straightforward queries and provide automated replies.

 5. Social Media – Must have   Social media has surprisingly become a preferred choice for customers who are <24 years but there is still a long way for this momentum to become a wider & unanimous choice for all age groups. It is essential to have an effective social media presence, otherwise it could be perceived that the brand is intentionally disconnecting from its customers. Consumers surely needs a forum where they can go & give quick feedback, vent, and interact with their favorite brands. There is a growing need to create a responsive social support teams who see this trend as an opportunity to create a unified customer experience. On being social media, there is always a flip side on having negative comments being detrimental, but if they go unanswered it can make potential customers suspicious. Therefore it is mandatory to have online support/resolution desk as the voice channel continues to have long wait/hold time. We can create the easiest, most effective experience in the world, but unless it has the right emotional quotient – unless it leaves customers feeling the way they need to feel – customers won’t walk away saying the experience was great. Therefore social media efforts should address this “customer delight” aspect.

In the ‘Age of Customer’, businesses can thrive only by offering consistent experiences & innovation across different channels of customer care. It requires a consistent approach, in which multiple departments work together towards achieving the larger goal of customer satisfaction & stay ahead in the race.

Today, technology has changed the way we market and promote our products and services. Generating leads has become one of the primary objectives of marketers. Marketers use various tactics to nurture their leads, but a significant number of them still believe that generating a lead is an art, and to master this art you need to attain more high-quality sales-ready leads. In the contemporary economic climate, marketers are looking for channels which are highly accountable, and the return on investment (ROI) is easily calculable.

WHAT IS LEAD GENERATION?

Consumer behavior changes from time to time and so does the process of lead generation. Therefore, it’s important to revisit the lead captures and take advantage of the evolving technology trends and consumer behavior.

Lead generation is the process of attracting visitors to your site and getting them interested in your offerings. You convert your potential customers into leads and persuade them to provide their information. It has become one of the most cost-effective and measurable ways to track potential customers. It is about getting the contact details of the customers who have requested a piece of information for the product or service.

Here are some various lead generation practices that every marketer should consider for an effective marketing campaign.

LEAD GENERATION PRACTICES FOR AN EFFECTIVE MARKETING CAMPAIGN

2. Inbound Marketing

At ICCS, our definition of inbound marketing is “the process of helping potential customers find your company—often before they are even looking to make a purchase—and then turning that early awareness into brand preference, and ultimately, into leads and revenue.”

Gone are the days that a marketer only relied on outbound techniques like trade shows, cold calling, and advertisements to get leads. Today’s buyer is in control. According to Forrester, buyers seek out three pieces of content about a vendor for every one piece sent by a marketer, and for every one piece sent by sales. Because of buyer self-education, your job as a marketer is to be heard through the noise and come up with new ways for leads to find you. To be a marketer in today’s world, you need a solid grasp of inbound in order to truly amplify your lead generation impact.

How do you do that? You need to create interest by offering a relevant mix of informative and entertaining content that builds a meaningful relationship with your audience. And you have to make sure that you are distributing your content through all the right channels – where your buyer spends time. This section goes into a bit more detail on some of the common tactics for inbound lead generation.

2. Outbound Marketing

While inbound marketing is getting a lot of buzzes, a well-rounded marketing mix should include both inbound and outbound marketing strategies. Inbound works for broad lead generation activities, but outbound is good to amplify your inbound efforts and target specific opportunities. So what exactly is outbound marketing? It’s using outbound channels to introduce your message and content to your prospects, typically through rented attention, rather than making your content and messages available on your own properties.

In many cases, outbound techniques can get someone to think about you even if they haven’t thought about you yet since many of the methods you use should have more of a “wow” factor to make your company stand out. Outbound communication is often highly targeted, with a call-to-action that is very obvious. As a result, good outbound marketing can push someone through the funnel at a faster rate, assuming they are closer to being ready to buy. Inbound alone often does not drive someone to buy. Outbound gives them that extra nudge they need to drive a lead down the funnel.

Combining outbound and inbound can multiply the number of views you generate, dramatically increase sharing, and ultimately increase the number of potential customers who see your content. While your mix may differ from ours, we find that the following outbound tactics work best.

3. Email Marketing

Email is a cornerstone and key component of every marketing campaign. Whether you are hosting an event, sending out a new piece of content, promoting a new service offering, or staying in touch with customers, email should be one of your main forms of communication. According to Marketing, the most used lead generation tactic is email marketing, with 81% of respondents citing it as the most effective channel. By putting your content in front of prospects, you can find people who might not be looking for you.

4. Social Media

The increasing popularity of social channels has directly attributed to information abundance. Through social networks, buyers have been able to research and learn about products and services through influencers and peers. Additionally, a profound shift has taken place within social media channels. Although social is still important for branding and generating buzz, lead generation is becoming more and more important. By tapping into all the social media channels, from Facebook and Twitter to LinkedIn and Google+, you can be where your customers are and create that trust.

5. Content and SEO

Your content is the foundation of your inbound marketing efforts. According to Content Marketing Institute, content marketing is “a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience—with the objective of driving profitable customer action”. Think of content as the fuel to all of your marketing campaigns from email to social. Create content that is impactful to your audience and drives sharing. Through creating high-quality content, you can begin to gain your buyer’s trust and start breaking through the noise.

Because search engines equate high-quality content with a high-quality website, creating content with value is very important. Conduct a content audit to see how many of your assets fall into the thought leadership vs. promotional category. That means making sure that your thought leadership content has substance to it. Lots of companies are jumping on the content bandwagon, so do it right: focus on quality over quantity, and on providing useful – not promotional – information.

Once you have a good mix of high-value content, including visual content, start promoting it on social channels. The more engagement you get, the more Google considers your content to be of high value, which in turn boosts your SEO rankings. Search engines look for natural links, so the more informative your content is, the more likely people will link to it naturally.

6. Pay-per-Click Ads

With Pay-per-Click (PPC ) ads you pay for each click on your ad which is displayed on a search engine such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing, or on a website. For PPC on search engines, your ads show up as sponsored results on the top and side of the organic search terms. PPC ads are a terrific way to draw attention to your latest content or service offerings. They are also highly targeted so they can generate very high-quality leads. Advertisers bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target markets and your ads will display when a keyword query matches your chosen keyword list.

7. Sales Development Reps

Sales Development Reps (SDRs), also often called Inside Sales or Lead Qualification reps, are focused on one thing: reviewing, contacting, and qualifying marketing-generated leads and delivering them to Sales Account Executives. Simply put, SDR teams pass the baton from Marketing to Sales. Why does it this way? Because you want to make sure every single lead marketing passes to your Sales team is as qualified as possible. Your SDRs should take the time to help each and every lead, offer them value, make a positive impression, create future demand, and become a trusted advisor. This step is critical in the lead generation process because you don’t want to treat your leads as blank faces to be simply questioned, qualified, and harvested.

8. Webinars

The webinar is a seminar conducted over the Internet. As more webinar platforms offer users the ability to download a recorded version of the webinar, marketers have realized that webinars are an excellent evergreen asset.

A successful webinar should start with well-developed content and an active pre-webinar promotion. Then there is a post-webinar promotion and the recruitment of appropriate presenters. You can check the leads regarding who attended the live webinar. These leads are the real customers who are excited about the new products which have been discussed in the webinar.

Lead scoring is a shared sales and marketing methodology for ranking leads in order to determine their sales-readiness. You score leads based on the interest they show in your business, their current in the buying cycle, and their fit in regards to your business. Lead scoring helps companies know whether prospects need to be fast-tracked to sales or developed with lead nurturing. Lead scoring is essential to strengthening your revenue cycle, effectively drive more ROI, and align sales and marketing.

Industries are in constant flux due to the ever-changing political situations, regulations, business needs and changing markets. The BPO or business process outsourcing industry is no exception. There are several factors responsible for the changing landscape of the BPO industry, such as the rise of the virtual workforce, the advent of AI (Artificial Intelligence), the growth of new hubs and so on.

The emergence of home-based and virtual agents

There is a high chance of technology being responsible for taking away thousands of jobs from the BPO sector in the future. However, it is making life a lot easier for the employees at BPO at present. With rapid improvements in technology infrastructure and call center software, it has become easier for employees to work from home. A number of companies have warmed up to the idea of working from home because it helps to bring down the cost of operations including rent, office space, electricity and equipment cost while increase the satisfaction of customers and employees. The National Association of Call Centers estimated in the year 2015 that about 68% of the call centers in the United States have some percentage of their workforce employed from home. The percentage has only increased with time and call centers in India are also increasingly adopting this trend.

Crowdsourcing platforms, such as Freelancer and Upwork have given further impetus to this trend. The combined market share of such platforms is approximately 12% of the BPO industry. As “gig economy” is on the rise, the market share of the platforms is also expected to increase manifold. Small and medium-scale IT projects are quite popular on these platforms and clients find it quite easy to find professionals there. However, there is a cause of concern and that is the maintenance of the quality of work that is being produced.

Increasing threat of AI or Artificial Intelligence

In the future, AI is all set to become the substitute for lower-skilled jobs. It is not really far-fetched to say that the day is not that far when AI takes over the BPO industry. The BPO employees can very well be replaced by intelligent computer answering machines.

The effect of AI is already pretty evident in customer services and chatbots have started popping up already. Do you see those pop ups at the bottom of the screen when you visit any e-commerce website? Those are chatbots and it cannot be said that they are doing a bad job!

Facebook, one of the biggest and most popular social networking sites, has chatbots integrated to its Messenger application. When you compare these bots to a human representative, they are obviously much more efficient and cheap. They can even scan through multiple databases and retrieve results really quickly. Bots can also learn from previous interactions in no time at all.

As a matter of fact, sometimes bots can even surpass the skills of human representative like, they can replicate and interact with more than one customer at the same time leading to reduced manpower, office space and such other expenses.

Deloitte and Oxford had conducted a study who conclusion was that in the UK alone there is a thirty-five percent risk of jobs being replaced by automation in the future. Another survey conducted by Xerox revealed that 42% of the respondents believe that call centers are going to end by 2025. To keep with the changing times, RBS and other such banks have decided to introduce bots already so that they are able to take care of the basic customer queries, such as stolen or lost cards and forgotten PINs.

2 or Tier Cities in India are the Latest Craze

The major metropolitan Indian cities have become completely saturated with BPO companies. Thanks to the sky-rocketing electricity expenses and land prices, it is has become extremely difficult to manage a BPO business. Tier 2 and 3 cities, such as Ahmedabad, Nashik, Jaipur and Chandigarh have been cited for a very long time as a great alternative to Bangalore, Mumbai, Kolkata and Delhi.

A number of BPO companies are now coming up in small towns as the owners are driven by factors, such as low attrition rates, low office leases and lower costs of operation. Even the Indian government is playing a big role in helping the set up of BPO companies in the small towns by offering incentives and programs, such as the Pradhan Mantri Jan dhan Yojana and the offering of 50% subsidy of the total cost or a lakh per seat.

One of the major BPO service providers in India, Aegis, have set up its centers in Ajmer in Rajasthan, Karnal in Haryana and Shimoga in Karnataka. Even though problems related to lack of managerial talent and employability exists, the future seems quite bright for the cities.

Danger from the Upcoming BPO Hubs

In addition to the above-mentioned, India is also facing strife competition from east European countries, as well as, Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Philippines. The IT projects for which India used to be a hotbed is now slowly losing its position as the leader. However, call center outsourcing to India is still profitable because the cost of labor is quite economical and inexpensive than the rest of the world. a Research revealed that 36% of the worldwide market share is of India, but it is currently on the decline. Another problem is the visa regulations set by President Donald Trump because 65% of the total outsourcing share coming to India belongs to the USA.

The BPO landscape is forever changing with the introduction of new technologies and innovations. Even then, India continues to hold its position of being one of the best countries to outsource IT projects to. The firms in India are constantly striving to adopt latest and brand new technologies to streamline the functions and operations of the BPO.

Do you own a BPO company or a part of this industry? What is your opinion regarding the changing scenario of the domestic BPO sector? Please feel free to share your thoughts below.

1. Speed of closing a problem/issue is very critical. Customers expect a    24 hour response time. They are delighted by hearing from you within 6 hours and amazed by a 1 hour response. The faster you respond to your customers the easier it becomes to close a sale or solve their problem. Failure to return a call or email is inexcusable and adds dent on the relationship and trust.

2. If you don’t have an immediate answer, quickly inform the customer that you are working on their enquiry and will get back to them soon. Always close the loop!

3. When responding to a customer complaint always begin by assuring the customer that you will fix their problem. This immediately removes the adversarial relationship that can lead to messy and expensive confrontations. Denial on a call is a BIG NO!

4. Always offer the customer choices and options. This is particularly important in problem situations. If you offer your customer three or more possible solutions they will feel included in the eventual resolution. Also, you will be surprised at how often the solution selected is not as expensive or burdensome as the one you thought they would demand. This also builds relationship and trust with the service provider and the brand you service.

5. Never answer a question by telling a customer something is “company policy.” All responses must make logical sense to both you and the customer. If you can’t reasonably explain the company policy either you need more information or the company policy needs to be changed

6. The object of problem resolution is not to “satisfy” the customer but to “pleasantly surprise” them by going above and beyond their expectations.

7. Mistakes and problems always result in opportunities to create long-term loyal customers by exceeding expectations.

8. Transforming an “angry” customer into an enthusiastic advocate is always worth the cost. These are called successful calls!

9. The resentment felt by an inconvenienced or frustrated customer can be transformed into gratitude and long-term loyalty with a small gift or complimentary offer – especially when the customer realizes that the circumstances were beyond your control.

10. Unhappy employees cannot create delighted customers so always keep your employees motivated and charged up.

Let’s face it; most people don’t know the difference between Telemarketing and telesales. This suggests that they don’t understand the important distinct values that can be gleaned from each service. The words ‘Telemarketing’ and ‘Telesales’ are still often used interchangeably and then, they can be used to describe activities that often cross over. However, if you wish to get the most from your telephone campaign, knowledge of the differences and how they can be best employed to help your business is vital.

One of the greatest confusions exists around the history of use of the terms themselves. Traditionally, Telesales (a much older term) existed as its own separate activity. Telemarketing is a much more recent term by comparison and has often been used as an overarching term that also includes Telesales as one of its component elements.

Today, many industry experts use the term Telemarketing to incorporate all activities that use the telephone to connect with (potential) customers. This includes making customers aware of a product or service, generating leads or opportunities, canvassing established customers, providing information, conducting market research, and selling products or services to new or existing customers. So, Telemarketing has become a blanket term that includes Telesales and other areas within its remit

Don’t let that confuse you further; Telesales and Telemarketing are clearly quite different activities. When looking to use a specific service for your business, the following key distinctions should be kept in mind:

TELEMARKETING IS: A service that generates interest, creates opportunities, provides information, factors customer feedback, makes appointments and produces leads by telephone.

TELESALES IS: A service that sells your products or services directly to the customer by telephone.

Telemarketing creates prospects, lets people know about what you have to offer them and provides the opportunity for both customer and business to find out more about each other. Telesales converts those opportunities into business for your company.

Now that you’re aware of the main difference between the two activities/services offered, you can choose which service caters to your own specific needs best. The choice that you make depends entirely upon the results that you wish to acquire.

 

 

What can Telemarketing Do For You?

• Telemarketing takes the time and cost out of finding new customers or generating interest in your brand, product or service by taking the information directly to your customer.
• Identify excellent potential leads for your own Telesales team to close.
• Creates a more reliable source of data for your Telesales team, rather than buying the data.
• Good Telemarketing Campaigns drive Great Telesales Campaigns
• Excellent Telemarketers remove the need for large periods of cold calling for sales teams.
• Reduces training costs – Great Telesales staff are not always good Telemarketers; there’s a different skill involved and distinct manner required.
• Professionally presents your brand, product or services to potential customers.
• Canvas existing customers to reveal buying trends, or the potential for new business.
• Inbound calling provides a customer service opportunity that can later be converted into further lead generation or sales.
• Inbound Telemarketing teams can staff your ‘Information’ lines, turning simple requests for information into its solid sales leads.
• Outbound calling provides market research activities that can also produce leads.
• Telemarketing can often reveal ‘low hanging fruit’. These are customers who are already prepared to buy a product or service and do not require much (if any) persuasion.
• Appointment making is a People-skill. Experienced telemarketers create stronger appointments.
• Telemarketing helps to provide a stream of appointments based on customers who are looking for precisely what you offer.
• Telemarketing provides customer satisfaction and often exceeds the needs of the customer.

What can Telesales Do For You?

• If you already have your customer data, you need someone to persistently and persuasively convert those leads into sales.
• A professionally trained telesales team increases your conversion rates whilst decreasing your costs per sale.
• A specialist telesales team is often required to convert difficult leads into sales.
• Resourceful telesales campaigns respond to the accurate customer data supplied by well-organized telemarketing campaigns.
• Effective telesales requires specific expertise. Outsourcing that expertise saves money and increases your sales team to meet your current need. The great value of this expandable sales team is that it can easily be reduced.
• Tailor the size of your telesales campaign to your budget.
• Cold Calling needs a particular temperament; reduce potential customer annoyance by employing experienced cold callers who are sensitive but highly persuasive.
• Remove travel expenses by having a telephone-based sales team.
• Leave customers with a professional impression of your company.

If you’re good at speaking to customers about your products and services, but are lacking interest or contact with customers, you need help with Telemarketing.

If you’re great at attracting potential customers, but find it difficult to convert all that potential into business, you need help with Telesales.

Of course, both telemarketing and telesales services can be combined and carried out by the same company, employing them to work strategically as a joint team. One service can generate a pool of potential leads, whilst the other turns those leads into sales. The Telemarketers set up the appointment, the Telesales staff close the deal.

When Telesales and Telemarketing teams work together, planning, coordinating and tailoring their approach, they produce dramatic results. The great advantage of using one team to bring in a constant stream of leads and another team to convert those leads is the quality of communication and interaction that goes into ensuring both services are serving the same goal, the same customer, you.

However, not all companies can provide the full range of inbound and outbound telemarketing and telesales solutions. Always pick a provider that can fully service your marketing and sales needs.

Staying ahead of competition is more challenging than ever before. You market a product or service and your competitors respond quickly with a better offer, price or solution. Similar to other companies, you must also invest your time and effort to search for a competitive edge or a solution to trump your competition.

The answer lies in creating synergy with customers. After all, the ultimate aim of any business is to attain customer satisfaction. That is probably the only leading indicator to identify happy customers and measure customer loyalty. Half your problem is solved if you can simply keep your customers hooked onto your brand and business.

However, with so many activities happening simultaneously, such as sales, marketing and other core business operations, it can be difficult to maintain regular communication with your customers. So, what can you do? Make use of call center outsourcing services and let the experts take good care of your customers.

Professionals at call centers are specifically trained to be persuasive and engaging. They know just exactly what your customers want to hear and can create a build a great camaraderie on your behalf!

With a call center handling your customer relationship part, they will be interacting and building a strong network with them in the following manner:

• Minimum on-hold times: Do you like being put on hold during an ongoing call? Don’t think so! Similarly, your customers also feel frustrated if they are put on hold. If you are handling customer management in-house, there is a high chance that you lack the required human resource to individually attend calls of all of your customers. Rush hours will be extremely difficult to handle. In that case, a call center is your go-to solution. They have the resources needed to handle your customers on your behalf. If your customer demands to speak to the support team right away, their demand will be fulfilled. Let call centers handle customer calls because a shorter wait time means a happy customer and more business for you!
• Experienced and polite calling agents: Imagine if you are asked to handle ten tasks at the same time. Wouldn’t you feel infuriated? Your frustration will automatically become evident when you are talking to a customer. On the other hand, dedicated calling agents are happy with their job and that is what they want to do. Since they are happy, they are also able to share the same vibes with the customers. And yet again, if your customer’s query is answer properly and in an amiable manner, you can be rest assured of getting more business from that particular customer in the future. This is because outstanding customer and after-sales service is the second-most criteria of customers for choosing a brand after quality, of course.
• Effective management of call flow: If you receive a lot of calls from your customers, you obviously need someone competent to handle all those calls. This is where calling agents come in. They are particularly trained for this task and are able to seamlessly handle calls. Call centers also have access to latest software that helps them to easily forward calls to the right department, make calls and so on. Their effortless management of call flow makes the task appear exceptionally easy when in reality it is not.
• CEM integrated systems: How can you judge whether your customer is happy with your answer or the way you resolved their issue? You can only wait and watch. If the customer recommends your name or buys again, it means that you have impressed your customers and otherwise, you have failed. However, things don’t always have to be so challenging or tricky. In call centers in India, they have CEM or customer experience management tools integrated. This helps them to continuously analyze how the interaction went. This tool also helps in finding out the exact needs of the customers, the problems that they are frequently facing and the ideal way to deal with it. Once you are able to solve this puzzle, there is no looking back. Customers will flock to you!
• Listening: Listening is always more important than talking. Do you have the time to listen to your customers? Probably not because you are busy making elaborate marketing campaigns or expansion plans. Avail call center services in India and make your customers feel that there are people willing to listen to them.

Giving due attention to the needs and demands of your customers is their ultimate responsibility. If you want to build or improve your brand’s interaction with your target audience, building the right association with your customer is vital. By outsourcing customer handling and management to call centers, you will be able to ensure maximum profit, along with skyrocketing sales figures.

Now, all said and done, you must be wondering why you should outsource your customer handling part to India. There are basically 4 main reasons for it:

1. Abundance of skilled labor who can speak fluent English.
2. Geographical advantage because the location of India is beneficial to both the US and Europe, as well as, rest of the world.
3. Call centers in India work around-the-clock to cater to the needs of clients in different time zones.
4. Cost effectiveness of India because the wages are low. Also, you will be able to save more than 40 to 60% of your total business operational cost.

So, are you ready to build a long-lasting and mutually beneficial relationship with your customers? Let the call centers in India handle that part for you! You worry about creating innovative products and services while calling agents take care of your customers for you.

Remember your business is nothing without customers. Happy customers directly reflect on the sales figures. For better ROI and profit, start building synergy with your customers. Make them feel important so that they keep coming back to you for more.

Do you think synergy with customers is the ultimate way to success? Please share your comments and thoughts below.

In the past few years, customer relationship management (CRM) has made huge strides. It has become an integral part of all kinds of business, across sectors and domains. As a matter of fact, CRM has evolved as a customer satisfaction system.

Businesses have started to realize that winning the first order is only a fraction of the profit potential from a customer. The full potential of the customer can be maximized, via careful management of each customer interaction throughout the lifecycle. In the end, careful management of customer relationship will not just reap financial rewards, but customer loyalty, as well.

CUSTOMER LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT: WHAT IS IT?

Your customer’s interaction with your business happens several times during the life of your relationship – when they visit your site or store to get information about you, talks to your sales person or makes a query for more detail, attends a webinar or product demonstration, talks to your support team for questions or problems and so on. Each one of these is an opportunity for you to build loyalty and to gain more revenues.

The importance of customer lifecycle management mainly lies in the fact that it is a lot easier to build revenues from existing customers than to attract new customers. Moreover, selling an upgrade or a replacement to an existing customer is obviously easier because you know what they want and expect from you.

For better revenues and profit margin, you need to invest in proper customer lifecycle management. However, if you have your hands full, you can always outsource it to call center services in India. They will handle queries, offer support over the phone and also make after-sales and follow-up calls to make sure that your customers are always thinking about you!

What does a typical customer lifecycle look like?

Here, take a look at the typical customer lifecycle…

• Attract audience: This includes all those things that you do to attract the attention of your targeted market, such as advertising, email campaigns, webinars and so on.
• Capture leads: The moment you have got the attention of your target audience, it is time to get hold of their contact information. For getting their contact details, you need to offer them something in return that they cannot refuse like, discounts.
• Nurture potential customers: Once you have their contact information, it is time to lead them towards a sale. This is where call center professionals can help you achieve your goal. They will work on your behalf to walk the prospects towards making a sale.
• On time delivery: Once the deal has been closed, you need to make sure from your end that the product or service requested by the customer will be delivered on the promised date and time.
• Up-sell customers: As already mentioned before, selling products or services to existing customers is a lot easier than selling it to new customers. So, it is important that you make follow-up calls to check whether your customer is satisfied transacting business with you. If they are, you can go ahead and ask them to try something else. Availing the services offered by call centers will again prove beneficial to you because making hundred call everyday is no mean feat. Also, if you were to bring the calling team in-house, your day-to-day business operation cost would skyrocket.
• Keep customers updated: A great way to maintain customer relationship is by keeping them updated about the latest happenings with your brand or business. It could be a new product launch or a sale coming up. Irrespective of what the news is, your customers need to be informed about it. This will make them feel that you care.

HOW DOES CUSTOMER LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT HELP YOU WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS?

Customer satisfaction is the end all and be all for any type of business. If you want to carve out a niche for yourself and achieve success, you simply have to maintain a fantastic relationship with your customers. This is where customer lifecycle management comes in. When you have all the required information about your customer, you will be able to serve them better. It will provide you with the competitive edge you require to stand apart from your competitors. If customers realize that you care about them and working hard to meet their expectations, they will become loyal to your brand.

Why should you outsource customer management to call centers?

The primary function of a call center is to manage the customers of their clients. Since most businesses are today web-based, it becomes extremely difficult to take calls and emails of customers from around the world, especially since all of them expect a prompt response. The only way to survive is call center outsourcing.

Given below are some of the reasons why companies outsource their customer lifecycle management requirements to call centers.

• The inability to handle customer demands in-house owing to lack of human resource pushes business to hire call centers.
• Outsourcing is a much more practical and cost-effective solution that creating a team of callers. Affordability is the main reason why small to big companies are outsourcing to call centers.
• Call centers have a dedicated team of calling agents who are trained specifically for that purpose. They have the required knowledge of troubleshooting and are able to answer all questions of the callers.

Communication and quick resolution power boosts customer satisfaction. Call centers offer all that and much more. If you hope to maintain a rewarding relationship with your customers, it is best that you let the professionals at call centers handle customer lifecycle management on your behalf. Since customers decide the future of your business, do not take any risk of upsetting them!

What do you think about customer lifecycle management? Do you think it is important for businesses to adopt measures for building long lasting customer relationships? Do you think call centers can help in maintaining your business’s relationship with your customers?  Please feel free to share your thoughts, suggestions and experiences in the comments below.

There are several call centers in the world and if you want to make yours a bit different from all of them, you need to have talented call center agents. Whether you are hiring or organizing the training for your existing employees you need to make a wise selection and groom their skills according to their domain expertise. The effective training given to the call center agents are not only helping to grow your business but also are useful for customers seeking their help in certain issues.

That’s the reason it’s important to follow certain suggestion before hiring the candidates and training the employees. Pre-planned strategies make sure that everything goes inline and extra efforts, resourced and expense is not wasted in the mean-time. The training has a direct impact on quality and performance of the employees and their delivery capabilities.

Let’s take a look!

Before Initial Training Sessions

At the time of hiring candidates for the BPO companies, you need to screen the employees by setting your clear expectations during the interview process. You need to know the parameters of judging their performance as well as their expectations before they accept the offer. Also, you need to prepare yourself for giving them effective training. All you need to do research online for valuable training resources such as scripts, tutorials, and simulations to increase the effectiveness of your training sessions. Also, set-up a training learning portal in which every information is given that covers compliance topics and product knowledge. This way, you enable new candidates to open the doors of added confidence and competence.

 

During Initial Training

While giving the training you need to be flexible and adapt new technical training suggestion. Also, you can use a variety of mediums such as PowerPoint, Excel, Games or Contests to choose the perfect way of training. In addition, offer incentives such as trinkets, treats or privilege to those who perform well in the training crash course. Another way is to use group activities to encourage the teamwork and co-operation among the new employees. Hire experts to avail training that involves operation leadership and workforce management tips for adherence and perform better in their job. Make sure you do the best thing to engage your candidates by showing them different scripts and their generation, demonstrate compliance requirements, and split the class into teams and allow them to challenge each other and ask questions related to BPO companies.

Incubation

Incubation is one of the most important steps in transitioning the fresh candidates or trainees into call center agents. During this time, the experienced employees of the call center help and train new agents about different processes and to practice. This way the new clients not only learn new things and processes but they also feel motivated, are able to identify opportunities and perform well in their respective fields. Give them enough time to learn, engaging themselves in the new processes. Leaders and trainers are supposed to fill the gaps in order to calibrate and demonstrate the client’s campaign. All you need to do is leave no scope for misunderstanding and put focus and stronger emphasis in future training.

Refresher Courses for Existing Employees

As we all know that learning doesn’t have an end! As the market evolves new clients emerges in need of call center services be it inbound calls or outbound. That’s the reason, the agents irrespective how talented they are they need to attend the training session in order to upgrade their skills and knowledge. Set up simulation sessions with the use of latest technology so that agents can practice how to handle calls for technical support, customer service, and sales. Give them excellent tutorial videos to refresh the knowledge of existing agents.

Quality Monitoring

The agents’ performance should always be monitored so that you know that you have invested in a good and talented resource who is able to live up to your expectations quickly. Observe that with time and effort their qualities and working capabilities are increasing or not. You can do that by QA monitoring, scoring revise, self-critique, discussion of opportunities which they seek, and coaching sessions with their respective team leaders. Provide them feedback individually in a sensitive manner and also tell them where they need to improve and enhance their skills.

Wrapping Up

BPO companies need to understand the importance of training and strategies needed to conduct them in a successful manner. It will help employees in growing their career in getting experience for their future as well as the company in generating revenue, customer satisfaction, and growth of the company.

Information Technology (IT) is a major support function for any business. But all too often small to medium-sized businesses overlook IT as a critical business component, mainly because of the cost to develop and maintain an IT department.

However, the growing trend of IT outsourcing can bridge the gap. In fact, analysts expect global Information Technology (IT) outsourcingto have a compound annual growth rate of close to six percent through 2019. Some studies show as much as 60 percent of the IT function being outsourced, with spending on outsourcing accounting for 10.2 percent of average IT budgets.

Companies that invest in outsourced IT services achieve significant benefits that help them operate more efficiently and effectively without having to invest in a full-fledged IT department. Here are 5 reasons why IT outsourcing works for businesses:

1. REDUCED SPENDING WITH IT OUTSOURCING

The main driver of IT outsourcing for many companies is reduced spending. Savings are significant, with some estimates as high as 40 percent. It doesn’t take much to realize savings; a study by Gartner reported that simply outsourcing email would produce notable savings.

Both capital and operating expenses can be reduced. You do not need to purchase computer hardware and dedicate expensive square footage to develop a data center. You do not have the expenses of hiring employees to perform IT functions; all the functions of an internal IT team, from application development to hardware installations to end user support can be outsourced. Along with reduced payroll comes reduced expenses for training and benefits.

Outsourcing also makes costs predictable, with contracts specifying fixed monthly charges. Outsourcing vendors can often charge less for network access and support than a business would pay the provider directly, as they purchase in bulk and can pass on savings.

2. INCREASED FOCUS ON CORE BUSINESS

For most companies, IT is a support function, not a core competency. Building and supporting your own data center isn’t likely to give you a competitive advantage. Because your business isn’t technology, it’s hard to recruit and retain an internal IT team with top-tier skills, so your team may not have the skills to create software which could give you an edge. Outsourcing IT functions lets your management focus on your core competencies and business development, rather than struggling with technology issues. In addition, outsourced IT services offer 24/7 support and guaranteed service level agreements that go beyond what your internal operations team could provide, letting you get more work done with fewer operational issues.

3. ACCESS TO EXPERTS AND THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY

Because IT is the vendor’s core competency, they make sure their employees are trained and certified in the technologies they support. The IT services vendor has a team of experts in multiple IT technologies; you can draw on the vendor’s team for advice that helps you make the right technology decisions. You get access to the latest technology and support from a team that is expert in deploying it effectively. The IT provider will make sure systems are patched and upgraded on an appropriate schedule.

4. REDUCED RISK AND INCREASED FLEXIBILITY

Technology is expensive, and making wrong decisions is costly. An IT services provider has a solid base of experience that assists with making the right technical decisions. If you decide to change your technology strategy, your IT provider will have tools and services to help you Transition to your new platform.

Outsourced IT services reduce the risk of data loss. More than 300 million pieces of malware are created each year, and companies face significant losses if a data breach occurs. IT outsourcing providers ensure that data centers have appropriate defenses, such as firewalls and security information and event monitoring software. Outsourcing vendors often maintain certification in the security standards needed to protect payment data or healthcare information, reducing the risks for businesses in those industries.

Relying on outsourced IT services also reduces the risk of disruption from downtime. Vendors build resilient facilities with redundant devices, minimizing the risk of downtime. Robust backup and recovery procedures reduce the risk of losing data if there is a device failure.

Working with an IT services provider also provides flexibility that enables companies to scale up or down quickly when their needs change. Temporary projects can be accommodated, and the charges stop when the project ends. If a company is growing rapidly and needs additional capacity, an IT services provider can rapidly bring additional servers and storage online.

5. INCREASED EMPLOYEE MORALE

Poorly implemented outsourcing can lead to unhappy employees who worry about the security of their own jobs, but handled properly, outsourcing can actually increase your employees’ morale. Offloading IT work lets your employees focus on the jobs they were hired to do, while the more reliable systems provided by an IT outsourcing vendor can let them get more done. Because employees no longer have to perform tasks they are not an expert at and are more productive at their core tasks, they become more satisfied with their work and less likely to burn out and leave.

Of course, there are always risks along with rewards, and IT outsourcing has a few risks that businesses should be aware of and plan for. It’s important to assess vendor qualifications carefully and make sure they have the capability and expertise needed to provide all contracted services. You need to oversee the vendor to make sure services are being provided as agreed upon; you also need to make sure the vendor documents all work. You need to continue to monitor your IT needs and inform the vendor in a timely way if you require changes.

Businesses avail call center services to simplify their work so that they are able to focus more on other activities including the growth of the company as well as enhancing the financial and career growth of the employees. As these businesses hire more number of employees, they aren’t able to manage their details and background check which is the most essential step required after the hiring of any candidate. There are some candidates who provide their fake information and get selected for the desired post which shouldn’t be the case. Due to several reasons such as unemployment, to hide criminal record, and conceal substance abuse candidates falsify their personal information. That’s the reason, it has become important to conduct the employment verification in an appropriate way. Most businesses do not have time to conduct the proper background check of the employees that are going to join soon, this is why they avail employment verification services. In this post, we list seven reasons why you as a business needs to avail employment verification services. Take a look.

1. Get Actual Resume Information

Almost half of the organizations and companies rely on the information mentioned in the resume of the candidate. Although the information provided might be wrong or accurate, it’s important for an organization to check the details carefully and conduct a background check of the candidate who have been selected. If isn’t possible, make sure to avail employment verification services that can help you to know the right information about the employee.

2. Access to Unknown Information

Generally, candidates who get selected do not want to share their entire details due to the mindset that they might get rejected at the moment. That’s the reason they hesitate to respond to the reference request from a former employee. However, it’s important for any company which is hiring new candidates to know entirely about them.

3. Cost-Effective

Most companies do not have resources, software, and time to conduct the background check of each candidate they have hired especially if they have done the hiring in bulk. That’s the reason, these businesses acquire support services that help them to bring the accurate information regarding the employee be it previous employment details or the personal background information.

 

 

4. Helps to Make Informed Decisions

Hiring is one of the most critical decisions that any company makes. However, a failure and negligence can lead to improper screening of the candidate which can lead to lack of productivity and performance. Sometimes, companies end-up hiring employees who aren’t qualified to fulfil the requirement, whose habits are not in line, attitude and personalities clashes with each other and so on. In this case, if the support services are availed, they can give you a lot better hiring opportunities.

5. Reduces Employee Theft

Every company carries some sort of confidential information that is nor accessible to every employee, but, to some team members. There had been some cases in which the employee stole the company’s confidential information and misused it for the sake of this increased earnings. Therefore, due to these kind of reasons, it becomes essential to know the entire background information of each employee your hire or even of the existing employees.

6. Avoid Workplace Violence

There is a lot of information that has been collected from various American workers who became the victim of the workplace violence each year. Certainly, not every incident can be taken care with the applicant screening, but, most of them can be avoided. Therefore, to avoid such risks, there must be a proper background check through an appropriate organization in an acceptable way.

7. Federal Anti-Discrimination Laws

One of the biggest fears that a recruiter have in their minds is that what if they hire employees who later turn on the company and file suit. There are still several companies which do not conduct the proper employment history check of their employees and become a victim of theft with the losses of several multi-million dollars lawsuits.

 

The Bottom Line

There are several reasons out of which some have been mentioned in this post due to which businesses acquire employment verification services. In fact, they also need it to provide the authentic data of everything that comes into the company during the audit. That is another reason, businesses need to prepare themselves. Before availing any outsourcing help desk services, one needs to be careful and choose the one that suits their requirements. Also, make sure you make an informed decision by discussing it with your business partners.