Category: BPO

Guarded employee turnover needs no introduction. It’s one of the most crippling circumstances organizations of every shape, size, and offering face every single day. More alarmingly, the troublesome trait transpires. In recent years, concrete statistics continue to reinforce the reality that those bustling center scenes we collectively devote our efforts to have the highest turnover rate worldwide.

Don’t panic; there’s no need to nervously nibble on your fingernails. With well-documented case studies of one hundred percent center turnover rates weighing down the web, losing employees at any cog of the customer service cycle really is a costly yet somewhat avoidable reality.

Here at ICCS, we put two thumbs up to committed agent efforts that streamline every customer interaction. What’s more, we appreciate the daily dedication and cognitive load required by supervisors to ensure every single agent is fresh and focused on every single call, email, and direct message.

With that being said, are your efforts to boost and maintain frontline focus a relative reflection of the quality of service being delivered?

No answer is necessarily correct here. What’s important is that you apply daily the best practices.

Demotivation Simplify ; At the next available opportunity, casually and openly discuss with your agents what they dislike most about center life and you’ll quickly observe a common trend. That trend being the detrimental domino effect unmotivated agents have on both customer retention and turnover rates.

Based on our own trusted takeaways of contact center life, we understand first-hand that the repetitive nature of frontline tasks heavily influences those troublesome turnover rates. Be it telephone support, email assistance, or social customer care, agents adhere daily to something of a strategic yet repetitive structure in order to deliver consistent, quality service to every customer.

In the defense of agents worldwide, we as humans innocently become disinterested as a result of performing repetitive tasks or relaying the same information over and over and over again. Add to the workload spiking call queues, persistent pressures for better CSATs, and disgruntled customer disputes. Mounting agent responsibilities aren’t quite as chilled as computer chair races on the call floor, huh?

Having spent countless hours reciting generic, linear processes and information to customers, we hold close the reality that contact centers differ enormously from more traditional, nine-to-five office environments. We’ve recently spent some time discussing some simple yet strategic techniques supervisors can apply immediately to boost and retain frontline agent focus.

There’s no time like the present. Let’s take a look!

1. HIT HOME THE IMPORTANCE OF INDIVIDUAL AGENT EFFORTS.

Are your agents fully aware of their individual yet imperative contribution to the ultimate fate of the center?

Agents are the backbone of any contact center. Let’s be honest, would your center stay above water without their focus and willingness to assist your customers? In the absence of dedicated agent efforts, realistic targets are never reached, customers become increasingly dissatisfied and seek alternate providers, and centers effectively crumble.

Every center needs agents in order to stay on target and ahead of leading competitors. By actively telling agents how much their efforts are appreciated, they’ll naturally feel much more empowered to facilitate customers beyond their current technical and interpersonal ability.

2. SERMONIZE THE GOOD WORD OF EFFECTIVE TEAMWORK.

Does every agent in your center understand the crucial importance of collective team efforts?

We’re not in any way, shape, or form going against Tip 1. While individual agent traits and personalities inject a much required, humanized element to every interaction, it’s important to consider that agents work as part of a wider team every single day. Strong, like-minded teams support a more empowered means of working by removing avoidable constraints that may potentially hinder a particular agent’s abilities.

Without tight-knit teams of contented agents, the sincere efforts of those agents who embrace positive customer service are washed away by a sea of rising, negative customer perceptions. Optimize the experience your customers receive by encouraging trusted teamwork on the floor. We’re all responsible for your customer’s journey!

3. PRIORITIZE AND ORGANIZE REGULAR TRAINING OPPORTUNITIES.

Are you regularly organizing training opportunities to sharpen agents’ skills and knowledge?

Did you know? Empowerment is an immediately positive by-product of involvement. If agents are provided with continuously constructive training opportunities, they’ll appreciate your willingness to support both their personal and professional development. In appreciating your determination to keep their best interests at heart, agents will embrace compromise and give it their all on every interaction. Supervisors take note, the Learning and Development Team are your best friends!

Think about it for a second. How can agents (or anyone) improve if appropriate training means necessary are not provided? Can you realistically afford to wave goodbye to your top performing agents as a result of limited training and up-skill opportunities? Be it an hour-long classroom session on telephone etiquette, or a brief twenty-minute e-learning module on handling customer hostility, there’s no benefits of or excuses for completely disregarding training efforts.

4. ADMIRE EVERY SINGLE AGENT.

Do you physically communicate with every agent and tell them how much their efforts are appreciated?

As humans, it can seem extremely easy, should we let it happen, to let our skills slip right through our fingers when we feel unappreciated. Center life is no exception whatsoever. If agents feel unappreciated, they’ll continually deem their efforts as pointless as a back pocket on a t-shirt. Mentally place yourself in their shoes. How would you feel?

Agents will become rapidly resistant to the positive impact of their efforts if they’re rarely made to feel appreciated. While chocolate cakes and cookies are always well received on the floor, appreciating agents can be as simple as a passing comment on a faultless customer call they handled. Remember, your ability to recognize and appreciate agents has an immediately direct impact on their performance.

YOUR AGENTS ARE YOUR CENTER’S BACKBONE.

While center life can be as stressful as changing the wheels on a moving Mustang, frontline focus really can be boosted and retained with immediate effect. There’s no need to completely restructure your center or dive headfirst into cash allowances and budgets to eradicate employee turnover. While employee turnover will always be a reality in any profession, the reason for leaving stated on any exit interview form should never be, “No support provided. I’ve found a better opportunity”, or anything as equally negative.

If agents convince themselves, on the basis of their experiences, that they’ve been hired to pacify supporting financial bodies, their focus will frazzle and they’ll eyeball alternative employment opportunities.

So supervisors, waste no time. As contagious agent deflation flutters across the floor, associated, half-hearted service efforts have the standalone power to sink your center. As the electronic front of house for your brands, center, and organization on the whole, no other center team or development stream communicates with customers more than your frontline agents.

Here at ICCS, we’re forward-looking, sharp-witted professionals who can fully relate to and appreciate your experiences of contact center life. The tips provided aren’t the answer to all your customer retention headaches, but we know for certain they’ll help if applied efficiently.

Sustainability of any business depends upon its success rate. A company can’t exist without its resources. It is inevitably dependent on the employees for future sustainability and growth.

Therefore, Training of the employees is as important for the success of the organization as breathing is important for living of the living beings.

Training involves costs and time, but if the employees are trained properly then these costs would be worth it!

Following are the reasons why training is important for the success of the managers:

# Training provides the required skills to the managers to do the work in a better way

# Well trained managers can make other team members to work in a more productive way

# Well trained managers can solve the complex problems in simpler ways

# well trained employees feel more accountable for their duties if they are given training

# Well trained employees feel more motivated and all boosted up with energy to accomplish the upcoming challenges

BPO Industry in India

In India, BPO industry is growing at a faster rate than many other industries, the reasons are listed below:

# Cost advantage 

#Quality services

# Economy of Scale

# High skilled labour

Call Centre and Importance of Training in this Sector

With increasing core activities of the firms (Like marketing, selling, producing) these days, firms are willing to import more of its non-core activities or other services from the call centers. Reason being, the call center provide a whole range of call center solutions to the firms in exchange for an affordable fee.

With the growing demand for call center services, there has been seen an increase in demand for the domestic call centers in India, because BPO industry is doing great in the current scenario.

Few of the call center solutions provided by the call centers in India are as follows:

# Technical Support Services

# Customer Support Services

# Data Entry and Data Processing

# Form Processing services

# Online Research

# IT Helpdesk Services

Inbound and Outbound Call Centers

Inbound call center deals with incoming calls. The objective of these call centers is to receive calls from various customers or potential customers who enquires about various products or services or comes up with a problem to seek a solution. In short inbound call centres are customer-oriented.

Outbound call centers are sales-oriented. The main objective of these call centers is to call the potential customers to sell them a particular product or service.

Onshore and Offshore Outsourcing

# Onshore Outsourcing: When a company delegates few of its works to a company which is located in the same country as the delegating company then it is known as onshore outsourcing.

# Offshore Outsourcing: When a company delegates some of its works to a company which is located in a foreign nation then it is known as offshore outsourcing.

Now that we learned about call centers, we do have a clear idea about the BPO industry. Basically the BPO industry needs a lot of skilled and trained employees so that it can provide quality services. The need for a good team manager is the need of the hour for the domestic call centers in India because people work in a team in the call centers and they need proper guidance when it comes to the execution of their responsibilities.

Customers should have a pleasant experience when they talk to the employees of the call centers, because the experience would remain in the mind of the customers. They should feel happy and satisfied after they interact with the call centre employees. One more thing is also very important for the employees of the call center to keep in mind, and that is they should have a clear idea about the solutions they provide to their customers.

Managers of the call centers are trained to possess the following qualities so that they can manage their respective teams well and can be good team leads:

• They have the skills to solve the problems of the customers or at least are trained in the art of solving problems.
• They have high patience levels so that if they come across any upset or annoying customer or potential customer, they know how to handle them.
• Customer satisfaction is their main motto.
• Indian call centers specially give emphasis on the listening skills of the managers because listening to the problems is an art and not everyone excels at that.

If you are wondering why would anyone outsource their works to Indian call centers, then take a look at the following call center solutions that Indian BPO Industry can provide:

• Cost advantage: India is still a developing nation and so the cost of skilled labour in Indian market is much lower compared to the European or American market. Thus, the foreign companies save a lot of cost by outsourcing some of its services to Indian call centers.
• Flexibility: Not to forget that Indian call centers provide a 24*7 service at a cheaper rate.
• Technically Sound: Technology is an ever evolving space and to cope with that the different industries are dealing with its own mechanism of adapting to the given changes. The BPO industry is no exception to this rule But India is a hub of techies and so there is never a dearth of technically skilled labours in the domestic call center space.
• 

  To sum up the whole discussion, we can say that in India both onshore and offshore call centers are growing in the BPO industry. It is expected to see the growth in this space in coming years as well. So, well trained managers are the need of this industry who can contribute to the growth of the company at an individual level as well as a team player for the profitability of the call centres they work in.

  So, now that you have gone through all the pros and cons of BPO industry, what is your take on the same? Do you feel the managers of the call centers should be trained more? If so, then what are the areas would you like them with expertise in?

Sustainability of business is very crucial these days. How do the firms sustain? It’s through the flow of its sales and the constant demand for its products and services among the existing as well as potential (new) customers. Why should a customer stay loyal to a particular brand of products or services? It is totally dependent on the rapport that the organizations build with their customers over the years.

One thing none of the business organization should forget is that the customers are the king when it comes to business. Outbound call centers are not exception to this rule. So, building rapport with the customers is a key element to sustainability in the case of outbound sales call centers or in the telemarketing industry.

Why Rapport with Customers Is Important?

Rapport is simply a state where you can make the customers feel comfortable or would be able to win the trust of the potential customers. A good rapport is the first stepping stone to build a long term relationship with your customers.

When you have a strong relationship with a customer, you tend to have more influence with that customer. And if you are successful at building a good rapport with your customer, then you might be able to bag some loyal customers for the business. A good rapport with customers can foster a positive image about the organization among the community and thus enhances sales and growth in the market.

So, it’s important for outbound call center callers to know a few simple techniques to help them build rapport over the phone, while outbound sales call center employees can also do their bit to make this process easier.

Following are the few factors that should be kept in mind to build rapport with customers:

• Know your customer: The name and age of the customer is mostly available to the employees of the outbound call centres. So, that should give them a fair idea about the preferences of the customers. Like, if the customer falls into the age bracket of the 30s, then probably that person would be financially independent and thus the call center employee can pitch to sell him/her the highest category product.
• Carry A Positive Approach: While addressing the problems of the customers in case of an outbound calling, it is very important to keep a positive outlook. The outbound call center employee should try to give solutions to the problems of the customers.
• Be A Good listener:  Be it outbound call centers or telemarketing services, it is very important for the call center employees to be good listeners. They should have enough patience to listen to the problems or needs of the customers or potential customers. They should listen not for the sake of hearing the problems, but with the intent to listen to the customers so that they can fix the mess!
• Do not keep the customer waiting:  Yes, you read it correct! It is one of the most annoying things to do. If you mean business or want to address the problems of the customers, then the first thing you need to keep in mind is that, do not keep the customers on” hold-on” mode for long. That would really annoy them.
• Be Empathetic: Show interest to the words of the customers and also try to assure him/her that the problem would be resolved. In case you are from telemarketing services, make sure you win the trust of the potential customers with your statements of conviction.
• Be Friendly: While on call with your customers, you can’t show your gestures or facial expressions to the customers. Then how will you act friendly with them? It is simple! By the way you speak, your tone of the voice as well as the voice modulations will play a vital part to portray you as a friendly caller.
• Do not Rush: Go as per the pace of the customers. Don’t be in a hurry to finish the call because that might act negatively and put off the mood of the customer or potential customer.
• Ask Questions: The outbound sales caller should keep asking relevant questions to the customer just to make sure that he’s able to understand the needs and problems of the customer in a better way. Questions of the callers also show that they are active listeners.
• Don’t Sound Mechanical:   Outbound call center employees as well as telemarketing sellers are required to sound cheerful, positive and as empathetic as possible. Because, if they sound, they have read a typical script and just reading through it, then the customers would not feel at ease to talk with them or even can get offended. In short sound as human as possible so that the customers do not portray you as a robot without any emotion.
• Show Respect:  Always greet customers with respect. Few people like to be addressed by their surname while some people even do not mind to be addressed by their nicknames. The call center agents should clarify on that part before going ahead with the conversation.

In order to be effective, call center agents must aim to build rapport on first contact and throughout the customer relationship. Because rapport building is a long term process and can’t be built overnight.

There are few things that should never skip the mind of the telemarketing people or outbound sales call centers callers. Like, the tone of the voice, positive approach, active listening skills, patience and empathetic nature, a way of greeting the customers. In case they want to sustain in the existing business or if they are looking for the expansion of the customer base in the market. Do you agree with the points discussed above or you have some more points in your mind? If you want to add up to the list of how to build good rapport with the customers from the end of an outbound sales call center, then please feel free to help us enhance and modify the stated list.

For the past few years technology has been the driving force of our economy. Efficiency is the key that drives the success of a business. Isn’t it? There are many strategies and service providers in the market that help us to strengthen our efficiency. One such strategy is Outsourcing. Before we start with the article let us first understand what Outsourcing means. Read on.

The business owners have a lot of responsibilities and departments to handle. Outsourcing helps the business owners to pass on some of their responsibilities like customer service, technical support etc. to a third-party service provider. This makes their job easier as they have someone to take care of a part of their business. Development is amazing, am I right?

Outsourcing strategy is changing business dynamics and has become a trend over the past few years. It has come leaps and bounds from the time it first started in the 1990s. Many companies have entrusted the service providers like BPO Outsourcing, Call Centre Outsourcing, for making their business run smooth. This not only helps in smooth functioning of the business, but it also helps in cost reduction, quality of the service gets better, productivity improves and so on.

We have seen a surge in the outsourcing solution industries for the past few years. The business sector in India is expanding and developing. With the growth of the business sector, there has been the development of many outsourcing companies in India. This, in turn, has increased jobs in the market. Outsourcing has revolutionized the job market not only in India but in other countries like the Philippines and so on.

Every year there are developments to the already existing technology in the industry that enhances their performance. In the year 2017, we saw so many new trends in the outsourcing industry. A new year brings new expectations. This article concentrates on the trends we can expect in 2018. Let us discuss them pointwise.

#1. Top priority will be given to Data Security:

Information Security is an issue of concern for everyone. No business can run properly if there is a threat to their data. Due to increased prevalence of IoT (Internet of things) and telematics, the risks have also risen. In 2018 data security will be a top priority. It is obvious that better solutions will be expected from the outsourcing companies. To avoid any information breach, more secure and encrypted servers, advanced security automation etc. are going to be the dominant factor.

#2. The rise of Cloud Computing:

Cloud Computing means storing the data on online servers through a virtual medium. We are moving towards development at the pace of light and digital system storage is the result of that development. When we talk about business sector, we are talking about small-scale companies too. With limited resources at hand, a small business cannot afford state of the art infrastructure and space. Therefore, there is going to be an expected rise in demand of Virtual Storage Systems.

Flexibility and scalability are the two advantages of cloud storage systems which makes them the trendsetters of 2018. More and more business groups are adopting the digital cloud computing, which is very safe and secure. The outsourcing industries prioritize security which makes it impossible to penetrate these servers. Moreover, as the data is saved at one place, chances of losing the data decrease. There is going to be a considerable rise of cloud computing in 2018.

#3. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) will get more popular:

Robotic Process Automation is the new technology that is gaining popularity. RPA replaces the jobs that would be done by a human being by a bot (a robotic software agent). BPO outsourcing companies are going to face a severe competition due to the rise of RPA (Robotic Process Automation). It costs the business owners much less than it would have cost them if they hire a human to do that work. Automated Systems help the business owners to make huge savings and are hence gaining popularity.

Take India for example, it is one of the leading outsourcing destinations. There is a long history of outsourcing to India. With the rise in RPA, the call centers in India are going to face some problems as the automated systems provide better performance. A New kind of call centers, that will use RPA, are going to be formed as a result. 2018 will see the exceptional rise in the use of RPA systems in the outsourcing industry. This will affect Outsourcing in India, as well as other countries.

#4. Improve in the quality of Outsourcing services and Rise of new outsourcing centers:

As there has been a rise in the Automated Systems, this, in turn, would greatly affect the quality of the outsourcing services. How? Let me explain. The demand of outsourcing centers like call centers will decrease, as explained in the last point. New kind of outsourcing centers with automated systems will rise. Those centers will provide round the clock services. As the bots can deal with many customers at once, it would increase the customer satisfaction. Hence the quality will improve in 2018.

#5. A wave of change in methods of marketing:

More and more business companies are choosing social media marketing, SEO services etc. to increase their popularity. They are outsourcing their requirements to different modes of marketing than traditional communication. 2018 will see a considerable increase in this wave of change.

#6. Startups becoming new BPO customers:

Over the past few years, there has been a considerable rise in the startup industry. But the startups have limited resources which increase the requirement of cost-effective labor. Here BPOs are going to come to the rescue. In 2018, the relation between startups and BPOs are expected to become more pronounced as they are going to provide quality service at a rate that suits the owners of the startup.

The trends that New Year brings to the outsourcing industry is going to bring some considerable changes. There is going to be a considerable increase in the fields that require the benefits that outsourcing industry offers. I think we can all agree that this makes the future of outsourcing very bright. It is expected to grow and flourish in the year 2018.

BPO industry has its own kinds of metrics or say components (these act as instruments to measure) to evaluate their efficiency and productivity. One of such important component of evaluation of quality calls is known as ‘Average Holding time’.

In this article we will dive into this particular component to check why Average Handling Time should be as minimum as possible.

What do you mean by Average Handling Time ?

‘Average Handling Time’ is the summation of the entire process of receiving a call till concluding the call from a customer by the inbound call center or inbound telemarketing companies. It does not only count the receiving of the call from a customer, but also considers the time when a customer is made to hold on a call-the whole time of conversation with the customers till the time the transaction is completed and the customer hung up the call.

Why Average Handling Time is important ?

The ‘Average Handling Time’ indicates how much time is taken by an inbound call centre agent to handle the call and fix the problem raised by the customer. This indicates the efficiency of the inbound call centre employees as a whole and also helps to plan tasks better.

Two components that are not included while calculating Average Handling Time are:

Ring time and queue time. These two are included in the calculation of Average call Duration.

Formula for Average Handling Time (AHT):

Average Handling Time:

(Total time of talking + Total time of holding + Total time of wrap-up)/Total number of calls handled

Now that we are quite sure and clear about what Average Handling Time is all about, we can dig a little deeper into the subject of the same.

High Average Handling Time is not desirable for the inbound call centre or telemarketing service providers. Because it means, an agent takes more time to conclude one call and thus the productivity of that person declines because he would not be able to handle more calls in a day if the Average Holding Time is high at his end.

It is also important to note that while the inbound call centre or tech support employees try to keep the customers on hold so that they can transfer the call to another more experienced agent, the customer might get annoyed. Because customers who call the call centres to seek help for their problem would want to resolve their problem as soon as possible and not to hold. Thus, an increased AHT would hamper the customer satisfaction too!

So, the wise decision that can be taken by the inbound tech support or Inbound call centres is to reduce the Average Handling Time to the maximum extent possible so that customers stay happy and productivity remains intact.

Here are a few suggestions for the inbound call centre service providers in India to reduce the pain of High Average Handling Time:

1. Calls Must Be Recorded: The first thing that should be done by the Inbound Call Centres or Telemarketing Service Providers is to record all the calls that are received by the call centre agents during the working hours. The Purpose of the recording of the calls is simple! The recorded calls would not lie about the performance of the call centre agents over calls. Thus, the problem areas can be identified easily with the help of those recorded call history and the team leads or managers can plan accordingly.
2. Impart Proper Training: Impart right kind of training to the employees of the Inbound Call Centres or Telemarketing Service Providers or Inbound Tech Support employees. They should be taught the art of how to address the problems raised by the customers. They should know whom to be contacted in case they can’t find a solution. Because, the skilled employees of the Inbound Call Centres would be able to handle the calls in a better way than the unskilled employees. They would be able to thus reduce the Average Handling Time in each call they receive.
3. Switch to Technology: Managers can opt for technology based solutions that would help to reduce the Average Handling Time. They can switch to automation for the works which are repetitive in nature. Few of those processes that were executed by the Inbound Call Centre agents if automated would speed up the whole process of calls. Thus the overall time of the call or put it as the Average Holding Time can be reduced to a great extent.
4. Greetings: The Inbound tech support employees can save a lot of time if they spend less time in greeting the customers. Instead, they can simply jump to the main problems that the customer is facing and try to fix it as soon as possible.
5. Monitor The Calls: Evaluation is a mandatory task to judge the quality of the performance of the inbound call centre agents, specially the new ones. Thus call monitoring becomes very important. This would help the employees to identify the reason why their AHT is high compared to others. Thus, they can improve on that part.
6. Structured Questions: More structured questions would help to wrap up the call faster. Because if the agents are to come up with their own set of questions to fix a problem on the spot then that would automatically increase the AHT. But if the manager of the say, Inbound Tech Support has already prepared a list with all the possible questions to fix the issues of the customers then automatically the Average Holding Time would reduce.
7. Listen: Inbound call center employees should be given the recordings of their own calls so that they can compare it with other employees’ call recordings to see where he could have done a better job to reduce the Average Holding time.
8. Proper Routing: Routing of the calls to the most efficient agent would reduce the chance of transferring the calls to other inbound call center representatives. Thus, it would reduce the Average Holding Time.
So, we have had a clear perspective about the Average handling Time and how Average Handling Time can be reduced.

Do you agree with the above discussed points? If no, they please feel free to share your ideas to help the inbound call centers or telemarketing service providers who belong to BPO industry in India to reduce their Average Handling Time and thus increase their overall productivity!

What is BGV? BGV stands for “Background verification”. Background verification or investigation of past records of the to-be-employees of the organization have taken an important role in this era. Background verification process is an integral part of the recruitment process these days and is common in all kinds of industries including BPO outsourcing industries present across the countries.

Why BGV Is Important under BPO Industry?

The primary objective of Background verification of the employees is to gain some vital information about the employees. In India BGV is totally legal and is becoming almost mandatory to perform before the organization decides to hire the people.

The reason being, there has been an increase in the cases of falsified certificates or educational degrees by the employees lately. Government of India is just trying to mitigate those risks of hiring employees based on false credentials. The proper background check also assures the safety of the would-be-employees of the BPO services providers.
BPO service providers take up the matter of background investigation called as BGV in today’s world way too seriously, because of the following reasons:

To Stop Fraudulent Activities: Scams and phishing activities have shored up off late in India as well as in other countries. People are blaming the Indian BPO Service Providers for that. So, to ensure they are not blamed further BPO Outsourcing companies are giving a lot of importance to the verification process of the to-be-employees.
Past Experience: Many a times in the past the BPO industry has seen fraudulent claims regarding the important credentials of the employees. Mainly because the BPO Service Providers in India rushed to hire in bulk to start different projects that are outsourced to them, failing to scan the submitted documents by the employees to them. As a result, they faced a lot of criticism when the reality of those employees was exposed. And people blamed the recruiting body of the organizations to not take up their job seriously. To avoid those blames, in current time, the BPO service providers in India and other regions of India like Delhi/NCR are taking up the task of BGV way too seriously.
Check Capabilities: As we all know that BPO service providers in India need people who can handle stress and long hours of work continuously and that too (most of the time) during the night shift. So, checking the medical history of the employees-to-be is totally justifiable and needed.
Higher Productivity: A proper knowledge provides an upper hand to the employees who are in charge of executing vital tasks. Like, managers or team leads of the BPO Outsourcing industry would need to perform several kinds of works and that would need some qualifications. A proper background check would ensure that the hired employees have the potential to drive sales in the BPO services sector also to increase productivity eventually.
Less Attrition: BPO Services require patience and certain other skills to continue working in the BPO Outsourcing segment. If skilled employees are hired after a thorough scrutiny of their background, then it is less likely that those employees would leave the job or would have a chance to be thrown out of the organization.
Records that are checked under BGV process:

It has almost become a norm or unsaid rule to go through the credentials of the would-be-employees of the organization. These credentials include the following:

Checking Criminal Records: It is important to check whether the potential employee was involved in any kind of violence in the past or not.
Educational Background Check: This step involves verification of the educational degrees held by the would-be-employees to see the claims made by them regarding their educational qualification are correct or not!
Pre-Employment Records: Why the employee has left his/her previous job is an important concern for the current organization. Because that would tell a lot about the employee. The current employee can also know about the previous salary that used to be credited in the potential employee’s account and that information also helps to negotiate the salaries better.
Medical Reports: It is important for the recruiting firm to check whether the employees they are planning to take on-board are of sound mental and physical health or not, to see whether they would be able to handle stress and work pressure or not.
Address: Verification of the address is also important for the employers. They would probably inquire from the neighbours where the potential employees stay about the nature of the employee-to-be. A valid address is thus an important component when it comes to background verification.
Check on Social Media Accounts: These days a new way to check upon a potential employee’s character is to check his or her social media accounts that reflect their social activities. This can indicate what kind of a person is the would-be-employee.
Financial History: This would give information regarding the credit history and tax payment history of the potential employees. This is an indicator of ethical values maintained by the employees.
License: At times the driving license of the potential employees is also verified by the employers. This is done to ensure that no accident related issues or traffic rule breaking issues has been there or not. This can indicate the discipline maintained by the employees-to-be.
Citizenship: The current status of citizenship is also very important when the question of hiring comes in the picture.

So, basically a proper scanning of various documents submitted by the potential employees give the recruiting organizations to have all the required and vital information about the employee to be hired like address proof, educational degrees, medical information etc.

Hope, this article has enlisted all the important points regarding the BGV in BPO Industry and also in general. If you think something is amiss and can be added up to the above list of importance of BGV in BPO service providers in India and Delhi region falling under the BPO Outsourcing Industry, then do not forget to tell us about the same!

Call center and telemarketing industry is one of the most powerful sectors and is growing rapidly over the years. This growth is especially noticed in the Asian countries as the cost of skilled labour is comparatively lower in these parts of the world.

Outbound call centers and telemarketing industry, mainly focus on handling the outbound calls where they call up the existing and potential customers. It is no easy task to maintain a good customer base year after year. It needs a lot of patience and hard work on the part of the outbound call center service providers and callers to keep their clients happy and satisfied with the services they provide them.

It is well known that a call center is one of the toughest work environments to work in, which can result in increased agent absenteeism, agent turnover and costs while decreasing customer service quality, team morale and effectiveness.

There are a lot of advantages of working for outbound call centers like good pay package and working at an early age thus meeting life goals of the young generation. But it comes with a lot of disadvantages too.

The most common problems faced by the call center employees at the personal level are as follows:

1. Timings: Working hours are odd for most of the outbound call center agents as they need to call on the other part of the world.
2. Social Life: Because of the odd working hours the social life of the outbound call center agents runs on negative almost.
3. Health Issues: Outbound call center agents are constant over the calls with their 4. customers and that time stretches for more than 9hours at times. This eventually causes different kinds of health hazards to the employees.
4. Their Interest Is Put At Last: Sometimes call centers forget to pay a close attention to its employees while they try to give full attention to their customers. This leads to low morale on the part of the employees because they feel neglected and of least importance to the organization.

Now, we will discuss the problems faced by the call centers agents on the professional level:

1. Leads: Finding quality leads is a challenge for the outbound call centers and telemarketing services industry.

2. Too Many competitors: Outbound call center agents and telemarketing agents find it tough to sell because there are too many competitors in the same space.

3. Lack of Interest from Customers: More often than not, the customers do not show interest to the calls they receive from the outbound call centre and telemarketing agents. They do not even give them a chance to complete a sentence and hung up way too soon without listening to them. This is a serious problem because if the customers do not give the agents to sell the product how can they even pursue them to buy the same.
4. Considered as Scam Calls: Increased fraudulent activities have planted a seed of suspicion in the minds of the customers. They feel they would be cheated on by these callers. That leads to not answer these calls with respect or trust.

After looking at the above mentioned the problems it is time to look for the possible solutions to the problems discussed above.

Few of the possible solutions are listed down, take a look:

1.Timings can’t be changed as far as the outbound call centers are concerned. So rotational shifts can be provided to the outbound call centre agents. Or at least, they should be allowed to take a little longer break. Why? To break the monotony of taking calls after calls.

2. Leads generating is one of the most important tasks when it comes to outbound call centers or telemarketing firms. Create a lead-nurturing process. Accelerate lead flow. Try to study the background of the leads generated so that their problem areas can be focused on.
3. Agents can be given more challenging works.
4. Few repetitive works can be automated.
5. Agents can be given good bonuses if they are able to meet the set targets.
6. Price more aggressively as there are a lot of competitors. Allow customers to delay their payments. Thus providing them alternate payment options.
7. Improve the quality of interaction with each customer.
8. Improve the sales process to gain a specific commitment at the conclusion of every call.
9. Remember, customer is the king. So, customer’s likes should be kept as the top priority. Customers’ opinions should be of utmost importance. Make sure the problems of the customers are well addressed by the agents when needed.
10. Provide better training to the outbound call center and telemarketing callers.
11. Productivity should not be compromised at any cost. So delegate some power to the agents so that they feel important and do the work willingly.
12. Using modern day tools for analysis of various things related to calls and sales.
13. To understand the customers better, an open ended question answer round can be designed. This survey would help to analyze the data and give reasons for customers expressions and behaviors.
14.Proactive calls to valued customers including those that have experienced problems will help to discover valuable information as well as help strengthen the customer loyalty.

So we elaborately discussed about the potential problems on both the personal as well as professional levels that are faced by the telemarketing agents or the outbound call center callers. We have also looked at various possible options to mitigate the stated problems.

Are you in alignment with the given facts and solutions?

If not, then please feel free to tell us about few more options here which are not specified in this article about the barriers faced by the outbound call center or telemarketing agents.

A call center manages numerous calls each day and at the same time puts a lot of effort to maintain a high standard of customer service. To determine the success of call center operations and to perform all the activities effectively, it becomes imperative for call center supervisors or managers to analyze and assess key performance indicators (KPIs). However, it is often not clear which metrics to measure in order to improve the day-to-day operations and increase overall profitability while providing quality customer service.

Described below are certain key metrics to consider for improving call center performance and customer engagement:

1. Percentage of Calls Blocked

A call center KPI that has a large impact on customer satisfaction is the percentage of calls blocked. This is the percentage of inbound callers that received the busy tone when they call and is often caused by one of the following:

There are no available agents and no call queues configured (or the call queues are full) so callers hear a busy tone when they call or are routed directly to voicemail

The call center software can-not adequately handle the call volume.

As even one blocked call can be a missed opportunity to connect with a customer or prospect, this is a call center KPI that should never be ignored.

2. Average Time in Queue

No one wants to wait in a queue for a long period of time. Thus, in order to ensure your callers’ wait time is within an acceptable range – and customer satisfaction is as well – you must keep track of average time in queue. This KPI is the total time callers wait in call queues divided by the total number of calls answered by agents. It is a great indicator of whether or not your team is providing their callers with the service they deserve.

3. Average Abandonment Rate

Call abandonment, or the percentage of callers who hang up before reaching an agent, is a common occurrence in the call center and has a detrimental impact on customer retention. It is therefore imperative that customer-centric call centers keep track of this KPI and make sure that it remains below a target threshold.

4. Service Level

Service level is the percentage of calls answered within a specified number of seconds. This call center KPI is typically displayed in real-time to both agents and managers in their call center software metrics dashboard so they can make data-driven decisions that will have an impact on keeping this KPI within an acceptable range.

5. Average Speed of Answer

The average speed of answer is the average time it takes for calls to be answered in the call center during a specific time frame. This includes time spent waiting in a queue and while the agent’s phone rings however does not include the time it takes to navigate through the IVR. It is a call center KPI typically referenced by managers when assessing their team’s efficiency and degree of accessibility to their callers.

6. Average Handle Time

Average handle time is the elapsed time from when an agent answers a call until the agent disconnects. It is one of the most commonly analyzed KPIs in the call center industry as it is directly related to caller satisfaction.

7. Average after Call Work Time

In most call centers, an agent’s work does not end when they finish a call. In fact, they often spend quite a bit of time updating databases, sending emails and informing teammates about the call. This time an agent spends completing a transaction after the caller has disengaged is called after call work time. Managers often seek to reduce after call work so that they can maximize the time their team spends interacting with customers while they are on the clock.

8. First Call Resolution

First call resolution is another KPI that is directly related to customer satisfaction – and it is easy to see why. It is the percentage of calls that the agent completely addresses the caller’s needs without having to transfer, escalate or return the call. Resolving an issue on first contact is so important, that many claim that first call resolution is the single most important KPI related to a customer’s level of satisfaction with a company. It therefore should be at the top of any list of call center KPIs to track over time.

9. Customer Satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is a KPI that can be acquired from many different sources. Call centers typically arrive at a customer satisfaction score by conducting customer surveys as well as obtaining quality assurance measurements. Regardless of the methodology used to arrive at this KPI, it is one that should always be considered when analyzing call center effectiveness and efficiency.

10. Occupancy Rate

Occupancy rate measures the amount of time agents are on live calls as well as completing work associated with the calls. While most call center managers seek to optimize occupancy rates, they must also be cognizant of agent workload as well as agent stress when setting targets for this call center KPI.

11. Agent Absenteeism

Agent absenteeism, or the number of days lost per year due to agents being absent as a percentage of the total number of contracted days, can have a major impact on call center scheduling and staffing as well as their bottom line. It is therefore a KPI that can be helpful in developing a budget as well as optimizing workforce management practices.

12. Agent Turnover Rate

The final call center KPI that should be included in every call center manager’s list of metrics to track over time is agent turnover rate. This is the percentage of agents who leave the call center to work elsewhere. Agent turnover rate significantly impacts customer satisfaction, call center scheduling and team morale, thus it should be included on a list of metrics to track over time.

In today’s fast paced business environment where companies are struggling to have a wider customer base and better maker share, telemarketing is considered as the best direct marketing tool to facilitate better communication with the customers.

Under this purview, a telemarketer directly interacts with prospective customers and persuades him/her to buy company’s offering over the phone. Moreover, an agent can either establish contacts with the target audience to generate sales leads, or it can directly convert pipeline leads into customers.

Types of Telemarketing Services

Telemarketing can be roughly classified as inbound/outbound telemarketing services. An established service provider offers both the services. In an inbound telemarketing service, the operator receives customer requirements over the phone. The caller first analyzes these requirements, and then provides an appropriate solution to the user. On the contrary, outbound telemarketing services mainly focuses on establishing direct contact with the potential customers and convert them into qualified leads.

Besides, a telemarketing firm also provides automated telemarketing, B2C telemarketing, and B2B telemarketing services to its clients to cater to their wide array of business requirements. Some of the specialized tele-calling services are lead generation, voice broadcasting, appointment fixing, report generation, order processing, and call answering services.

Why Companies Outsource Outbound Telemarketing Services?

The services form an essential component of a call center. It is effectively used by the service providers for corroborating directly with the customers. With the availability of skilled expertise and state-of-art technology, outbound telemarketing companies are increasingly gaining popularity across the globe. According to the industry experts, the method is recognized as the most popular business process outsourcing practices that can facilitate all sized businesses to improve their sales and revenue by increasing their customer base.

The services play a significant role in accurately identifying the prospective leads, influencing customer’s buying decision, and providing valuable customer insights to strengthen an organization’s sales strategy. In addition, a telemarketing agent can also help companies in gaining competitive edge by strengthening customer loyalty.

Most of the businesses outsource telecalling services to tap on the potential of experienced professionals employed by the service providers having years of expertise in promptly addressing user’s queries and converting potential leads into regular customers. It is regarded as an important and vital component while structuring a firm’s sales initiative.

To conclude, by outsourcing telemarketing services companies are able to conduct their business in a proficient way.

In a growing economy like today, the employment and growth opportunities are rising at a steadfast pace. The prices are soaring high and off lately the desires and luxuries are becoming a part of life and people are working together for a smoother life. For this people have started working early as they are well paid as compared to other fields and are not required to have any professional training or backing as well Transitioning the process to India meant less cost incurred, more productivity, economical as the labour costs are cheap, the quality is maintained and so the advent of call centres in India has paved the way for numerous opportunities for people of all age groups and it is a pioneering lead in itself. The amazing as well as the masterminded development of the call centres has encompassed way beyond their initial set-ups in the fiscal and transmission zones and has baffled the basic qualms.

The transition of call centres started with their base at Delhi from where it started expanding to all parts of India. Delhi, being the capital was the first point of focus and gained momentum as people from all parts of the country came and started working and settling down there and gradually the growth started at an inevitable pace. There are a plethora of call centres in Delhi. Most of these are situated far off and are provided with pickups and drops for the employees as the employees are required to work at the wee hours and against the body clock.

A call centre is a central point which is used for obtaining and even communicating a large bulk of data by the access of phones. This works as a pivotal focus for consolidated management of personal communication, comprising of letters, faxing documents, offer support through live support software, social networking, rapid messaging and emails.

After having an insight of the call centres and reasons for the shift to India, it would be interesting to know what call centre services in India comprise of. The call centre service in India deals with all types of services that can be offered by a call centre, could be for recovery, sales, marketing, after sales support etc. are all voice-based operations, divided under two heads:

Outbound call centre –This is managed by a company and offers services like reaching out to the clients by emails or chatting interfaces and it is specifically for those clients whom we are unable to offer service or one where a call back is needed, and even where the emails are left unattended and is done to communicate any special guidelines, proposals, bids, notices, etc.
Inbound call Centre- This refers to a division where calls are received by the agents to help a customer obtain the required information, and even ask for support and assistance, for the products or services used by them. They are more frequently termed as Customer service or support and the agents need to be sympathetic and attentive to the consumers.
The above mentioned are the services that are directly offered from the comfort of a call centre. Yet there are other services which are required by a call centre to function smoothly and they are known as the call centre support services. These could be on the technical front and back office operations. The BPO services commonly referred as the back office operations along with finance and accounting operations and are crucial for the execution of daily activities with adept specialists so that the whole focus can be diverted to the main business activities.

Technical support, on the other hand, is vital for the smooth operations of all the devices that are used in the call centres, all software and hardware issues, networking, programming etc. It can be also said that call centre support services serve as a backbone without which the call centres cannot operate.

The call centre services administer the help desks, which cater to all the technical queries raised at the customer end and even provide assistance with the aid of their software. Other activities carried by the call centre services is to undertake sales and marketing undertakings. For this purpose, few callous calling approaches and assistance through live chat windows are used which are on a company’s website. Apart from the general inbound and outbound calls are theoutbound sales call centre and the outsourced outbound call centre.

Let us have a sneak preview of the same. The outbound sales can be broadly defined as a process where the representatives are required to make calls to the prospective list of people who would have shown some interest in the products by downloading, liking a blog, filling a form, attending a conference or commenting on a post or submit some feedback earlier to increase the leads and are known as the lead developing team and another set of agents need to call a list and generate sales in which prior to a call, a connection is established through emails as well. This team is called as the lead generation team.

A prodigious way to enhance the customer service operations and even to enhance the business competency is by outsourcing and is also known as outbound call centre outsourcing to a provider who maintains a remarkable record of achievements. These kind of services are crucial for any business unit even though, administering a unit like this has many pre-requisites like adept labour, procuring expensive tools and machinery, training, quality etc.

Thus, customer service is of paramount importance for any business today and helps in controlling the labour operations, strengthens the work and even altering the work experience. It overall helps to bridge the relationship which exists between the quality of service and the customer satisfaction levels. The empathy provided by the agents comforts the customer and this understanding helps to develop the brand or the company in the long run thus yielding positive and fruitful results overall.