How to Measure Agent Performance and Capacity

The primary reason why most call center managers and supervisors are the most detested and despised persons in the BPO industry is because they are in- charge of measuring the performance of the agents. It is a constant process that without a strict and stringent procedure, sales could go down, the call center put in jeopardy and the business in danger of losing clients and customers.

The problem with most call centers is that there is a discrepancy about the way they measure individual performance. Most agents feel that when they answer the call quicker, they give better customer service. This is a false notion that needs to be corrected. The truth of the matter is that most call centers include features that are sometimes hard to control especially by the call center agent.

For virtual call center agents, this may also be the case. Employers rate each agent differently. As it should be, because performance differs when type of account (inbound or outbound), call (sales, appointment setting or lead generation) and the channel (landline, chat or email) to which these interactions were made. Each of these should be measured differently and needed to be modeled after the agent’s specific and assigned task.

When trying to measure an agent’s productivity, you must first consider the factors which the agent is able to manage. Like available time, after call work time, adherence to the schedule and talk time. Available time is the allotted time that an agent is available to receive or make a call. For most call centers, this is in the 8 to 9 hour period. After call work time is the time spent by the agent completing task such as making reports after receiving and making calls. Adherence to the scheduled time will also affect the measurement of performance. Talk time refers to the duration of time that the agent is able to talk to a customer regarding their concerns. Why are these included? As a call center, you won’t be able to predict the length of time a customer talks to a specific agent, and the agent won’t have control over it as well.

There are a wide variety of call centers out there and the variation of call types will also affect the agent’s performance. Sales based calls should be measured by the sales percentage made, drop calls and sales closure rates. This is an indication of how effective the agent is in selling a company’s product. Another factor that needs to be considered is the quality of the calls made. While some call centers will be perfectly happy with a large volume of calls coming in, what will make or break a relationship with a client or customer is the quality of the call received and made by the agents. Virtual call centers should be wary of the quality of interactions made by your agents for this is a reflection of the kind of agents a contact center has.

Panoramic View of Virtual Call Centers

There has been an increase in the popularity of virtual call centers, making it the most talked about topic over the internet. And because of this popularity, many things have been written about the business, some are true; some are not which paved the way for wrong notions and ideas. The way you understand the call center industry all depends on which side of the fence you are standing. Whether you are company that is looking for a call center to outsource your services or someone looking for a new job, your perspectives is different. There are only 3 truths when we talk about virtual call centers; one is that it is a multi-million industry, it is growing and expanding and is an advantage both to the company and its workers.

In economics, companies are known to exist to gain profit. And hiring a call center ensures that you do. Virtual call centers are “off-campus” call center that allows you to outsource to home based agents abroad. You won’t need to worry about additional expenses for the construction of a new office or prate about the costs of new equipment. Another advantage is that it allows the company to allocate work like customer service, product sighting and other services to the call center and they could concentrate on expanding their businesses. A company would greatly benefit from an innovative call center, helping them on developing further marketing strategies and to help them reach their goals.

For a call center agent, a virtual call center job is an opportunity to get away from constricting and sometimes demanding call center environment. The virtual call center also gives you the choice of working at home. Another bonus, especially for new job seekers, is an opportunity to make money while sitting down comfortably in your own home. These is the perfect opportunity for many housewives, single and stay at home mothers, those who want to take a career change and is still yet undecided, for those with disabilities and cannot leave home, to find work and fend for themselves. It is not rocket science as well; all you need is a reliable internet connection, a landline and a computer. Of course a good set of communication skills will be beneficial as well.

Marketing your company would be a difficult undertaking because of the stiff competition in the call center industry. The key to building your reputation in a competitive industry like call centers is to raise and maintain your standards, an often disregarded process. Many businesses would hawk and gawk at the competition, that they forget to think of ways to further develop and expand their own companies. It is good to know what the competition is doing but it is even better to surpass them without trying to.

Virtual Call Centers on Holiday This September 5th

Mobile Express Contact Solutions (MECS) one of the leading call and contact Solutions Company is going to have a break this coming September 5, 2011. MECS serving a US based client is going to have some of its employees take the long weekend. Having a long weekend is a good way to start the month of September as there will be a very wide campaign for a MECS client this coming September 18, 2011. The employees can now have their plans of weekend getaways without the worry of returning to work on a Monday.

As a Virtual Call Center, MECS is following what days in the year are the holidays for a certain client. Since some of its employees are serving the east coast of the United States client, a long weekend is entitled to the agents assigned to this client. It is quite normal that the holidays in the Philippines will not match with the clients and as much as the MECS employees would like to work; they are in the mercy of the client’s schedule. It is totally a different scenario if it’s the holiday here in the Philippines. The employees are obliged to come on duty because the clients are not shutting down their operations on Philippines.

But working on holidays here in the Philippines gives some perks on an employee. They are entitled to have a wage that is twice of the normal of what they are expecting. Employees will not have the luxury of rest days during Philippine holidays but with US holidays the situations is reversed. The employees get to enjoy a day off while all part of the Philippines is working. It is give and take situation. This is a normal situation if you are outsourcing some jobs here in the Philippines. But there are times that the holidays are the same in all parts of the world.

A virtual contact center like MECS is taking into consideration the welfare of its employee by giving substantial rest periods for its employee and giving them what is essential like a double pay if the employee is working on a holiday and a rest day if the client has its own holiday.

This would be the perfect time for some of the employees of MECS to pursue some of their hobbies like travelling and if the employees don’t want to spend money they could just stay on their home and enjoy watching TV. After this long weekend the employees will feel energized and ready to take on the new task.

Virtual Call Center: Future of Your Business

The reason why businesses are ever evolving is because they want to stay on top of the pile. Customers are very difficult to please. They are looking for quality service, superiority and excellence, and if they feel that they do not receive the kind of service they feel they deserve, they will most definitely take their business away from you. Virtual call centers are not exempted from this and because of the way the economy has been going up and down, you cannot afford to lose any more clients and customers.

It will be such a shame that your patrons and clientele alike would not allow you to service them again just because you were not able to answer the phone on the first ring or because they got the voicemail instead. The reality is that you as a company have to be available to them every day, every hour. Virtual call centers should adjust their time and schedules to cater the people who made it possible for them to still be able to do business. It might be impossible to achieve but it is necessary. And with this feat comes the challenge of providing the kind of service your customers deserve and the capability of your call center to provide that without exhausting your agents.

There is a pressing need to stay on top of everybody else in the call center industry. You can achieve this by providing your customers the service they deserve, professional and of high excellence. As a virtual call center, you should be able to take calls, inquiries and complaints about the company that hires you. Your company needs to have skilled agents to be able to properly address the concerns of your clientele. Your services will be needed greatly by companies during holidays, after office hours, during weekends and especially during rush hour and hectic days.

Being able to get the messages in a timely and orderly manner is a challenge but not impossible. This is the number one reason why most companies choose to outsource customer service and other related services to virtual call centers because they have the expertise and the equipment to do so. They will also be able to address the different issues accordingly either through telephone conversations, email, fax or through live chat.

Almost all functions of an entire staff can be done by the call center you hire, at a smaller price. You would not have to pay salary and benefits. It would be also a money saver since you will only be paying the services done. It’s an easy and obvious choice, if you want to save on money yet not compromise on the quality of service, hire a virtual call center now.

Making Money At Home Through Virtual Call Center

The virtual call center gives you the opportunity to earn money at home through providing customer service to online clients. Outsourcing has reached new heights when it has tapped to the millions who are stay at home mothers, students and those that are not able to get a regular job. This is also a new opportunity for people with physical disabilities to make money.

The hype that these call centers are creating especially in the market are indeed beneficial to every one of us but with the competition in this particular market so high, the stakes are also as high. This is the reason why there are particular and specific qualifications that needed to be met first. Aside from having the ability to communicate effectively, you also have to have the personality and listening skill for you will be dealing with other people.

Virtual call center jobs are abundant if you want to consider a career in customer service. You will only need a computer and a high speed internet connection to do this job. Most of the interviews are done through phone. The reason why most preliminary interviews are done over the phone is to make sure that you are equipped with the most basic skills, and that is a very good grasp of the English language. It is also an advantage if you can speak more than one foreign language. Make sure that you put on your best voice and personality when talking. This will put positive weight in your application.

There are many companies now that are looking for virtual call centers where they could outsource their businesses. Businesses opt for virtual contact center because it does not need a physical structure to exist. It is like having a virtual office that can really function. The beautiful thing is that all the agents can be from every corner in the world and still work for the company that hired them.

Before accepting any offers for a career as a virtual call center agent, do not hesitate to ask questions. Also ask yourself if this is a good job for you and if the pay is enough to sustain you for the year or maybe for the lifetime if you want to stay longer in this kind of job. And once you do get hired, apply for every position you deem fit to your capabilities. The virtual call centers will be happy to help you grow your career. You should be aware of the choices you have.

Outsourcing with Freelancer or Affiliate Company

Outsourcing has changed the landscape of business all over the world. Through the Internet, it is now easier to get a freelancer or an affiliate company to fulfill the different needs of your company - from writing marketing copies, creating company logos, the actual website of the company or for any call center services. You just need to make a choice between a freelancer and an affiliate company to do the jobs you need. Affiliate companies are usually located overseas and tend to be composed of at least five employees. You do not blindly choose between the two. There are several considerations you have to think through before awarding the project to a freelancer or an affiliate company.

You need to determine how much budget you have as this may make an impact on whether it is best for you to contact a freelancer, before contacting freelancers or affiliate companies who can work on your project. The benefit of hiring a freelancer is that he usually works by himself and because of this the price may be negotiated through the interview and the negotiation phase. Affiliate companies, on the other hand, have more costs to think about as compared with freelancers. They will have to pay their staff as well as the other fixed costs they will entail. The drawback in hiring a freelancer, however, is the possibility of delays and late submissions. If this happens, then the schedule of the project will be severely affected. Affiliate companies, however, offer stability and may assign more than one contractor to work on your project.

Another important consideration is the resources that may be needed for your project. Will your contractors for call center service be telecommuting or will they need to work on site? For onsite kinds of job, an affiliate company would be more reliable because of their capability to assign more than one personnel to work on your project. A freelancer on the other hand may be more flexible in terms of visiting the site, especially, if the project becomes his priority.

In determining the nature of the project, the list of skills also needs to be listed down so that the contractor will be able to fulfill every requirements of the project. If an affiliate company will be contacted, they will be able to offer a wider range of skills and expertise while a freelancer may only offer a limited range of skills. This is one of the limitations of a freelancer. Furthermore, if the freelancer that you will contact is highly skilled and is capable to deal with a greater degree of complexity and problems, chances are his rates will also be more expensive.

Technical skills, however, are only half of the picture. Another thing needed is the sensitivity and flexibility of your chosen contractor in completing your requirements. Without such flexibility, it might be more difficult for you to maximize the skills of the freelancer. Also, an affiliate company can be more easily traced and made accountable. Just ensure that the freelancer or the affiliate company that you will contact has good track record.

The Versatility of Speech Analytics

Speech analytics has become the next step for contact centers looking to supplement their quality monitoring solutions with more powerful technology. Contact centers in today's economy provide an essential differentiation point for competitive industries as customers decide between companies with similar products based on the level of customer service and the ability to resolve seemingly intractable problems in one interaction. Speech analytics helps meet customer expectations as by increasing awareness of agent interactions and resolving potential problem areas before they spread and create lasting damage. The power of speech analytics can be evaluated in two major areas: the breadth of its impact on contact center operations and the nature of its implementation.

The Scope of Speech Analytics

Speech analytics increases control and knowledge of contact center operations for larger organizations by assisting the analyzation an otherwise unmanageable number of conversations. It can address critical issues such as achievement of campaign goals, script adherence and agent skills. Management can set an indicator for key performance for agents and use speech analytics to evaluate their fulfilment.

In addition with measurement of agent output improvement, speech analytics can also evaluate customer input such as opinions of the company’s products, frequently asked questions and other reoccurring issues. Speech analytics can also help to evaluate the overall success of a campaign and help management make adjustments in a timely manner. The powerful nature of speech analytics derives from its ability to automate categorization of calls, but its overall capability varies depending on the form of speech analytics used.

Types of Speech Analytics

The system of speech analytics can be divided into the three technologies used to categorize calls. The most fundamental, keyword spotting, is dependent on the words or phrases selected by contact center managers as essential to evaluating customer interactions. These words can be used to find relevant calls for best practices training or to evaluate almost any issue spotted by certain specific phrases. Set up and configuration of keyword spotting is generally affordable for medium-sized contact centers and will quickly generate a positive return on investment. Phonetic indexing provides a more powerful form of speech analytics, but it requires more detailed processing to create a database of phonemes. It uses much more disk space, but it allows faster and more extensive searches once the translations have been compiled. Finally, speech-to-text transcription symbolizes the most sophisticated type of speech analytics. The system must be trained to recognize specific words, and it requires a high level of accuracy. This makes for an expensive set-up period, but once the technology has been implemented, it allows ongoing text mining as your needs evolve.

One day, speech analytics will include even more powerful features such as age or gender spotting. But for many organizations, it is essential today to streamline customer service and provide a competitive edge.

Small and Medium BPO Companies Urge Gov't for More Tax Incentives

Small and Medium Call Center companies urged the government for additional tax incentives to help them compete with the large companies amid the talent war and higher power rates. Among the challenges that small call center companies cited were talent recruitment, high attrition rate, government incentives and rising cost of power and utilities.

New facets of the business process outsourcing sectors are still emerging, such as small to medium sized call centers. Small and medium scale call centers (SMCCs) are flourishing and they can prove to be as strong support sector as the big operators we are seeing today. SMCCs are those operated with a capacity of 200 seats or less, and preferably at least 10 seats to ensure viability. The Commission on Information and Communication Technology (CICT), refer to these as Smites or small-and-medium-scale information technology enterprises. These call centers are becoming are becoming a strong presence in the Philippine call center industry for the up coming years. In fact, they are dispersed in the regions unlike the big call centers, and the average SMCC has 10 seats.

There are over 300 small and medium enterprises call center firms in the BPO industry. Small companies have 1,000 and below employees, medium has 1,000 to 5,000 and large with 5,000 and above. Beaver Lopez Jr., chief executive officer (CEO) of Pacific Hub, said that the incentives to SME should be different from that of the large companies to help them to cope with the challenges. Lopez said the government gives tax and holiday incentives in the first five years of operations whether large or small companies.

Edith Reilly, president of TrecPacific Corp., said the government incentives for the SMEs are not enough as the cost of doing business in the Philippines has been going up. She said the lower foreign exchange rate has also impacted the small companies because when they started, the forex was at P50 but is now down to P 43. Majority of their clients are SMEs in the United States. Aside from the incentives, Reilly also said that the government also needs to step up the quality of education in the Philippines as the English speaking skills of the graduates in the past years have been deteriorating.

Outsourcing Packaging of Spices!

Often people associate the idea of outsourcing only with the large scale industries. However even the small scale companies can benefit in their own way by outsourcing the operation of a specific department.

The small companies which process the spices starting from the plucking of spices and then their grinding etc can actually benefit a lot by outsourcing the packaging of their spices. While these companies are known for providing some of the best quality spices they tend to miss out on getting their due as far as sales are concerned because somehow their packaging standards are lower than that of the high end companies and people tend to purchase more of the products which are well packed. By outsourcing their packaging to a company which can provide them with high quality packaging, the small scale spice companies can actually benefit a lot in terms of attracting customers.

Moreover, since all the employees of the small scale spice company would be focused on their core job of selecting the spices and getting them powdered, the company would be able to further improvise the standard of the spices they retail. By outsourcing their packaging department they would be able to avoid the requirements of having a packaging department. This way they would not have to hire employees who would be solely dedicated to the packing of spices. The company would have the option of either reducing the number of employees or they could even look forward to increasing their production by utilizing the services of those employees in the production section.

While the concept of outsourcing had been introduced by large scale companies, these days even the small scale companies are benefiting by outsourcing specific segments of their company to other companies which provide specialized services in that specific segment.

Advantages of Outsourcing the Packaging of Goods by Small Scale Industries

Most of the small scale companies which manufacture products such as candles and incense sticks etc have to set up an extra department in order to handle the packaging of the candles which are manufactured by their company. While this helps the company in releasing a finished product to the market, the fact is that they can gain a lot by outsourcing their packaging department needs.

Once a candle making company decides to outsource the packaging segment of their company, they can concentrate on their core competency of candle making and can utilize their resources in increasing their productivity. The fact that they do not need to hire extra employees would save them a lot of money annually. Moreover packaging requires the presence of trained professionals who are trained in the art of packaging. Once a company decides to outsource its packaging needs the company does not have to invest any time or money on hiring and training employees to be a part of the packaging team.

The fact that the company decides to outsource their packaging needs to another company helps the main company in avoiding the necessity of investing in machinery related to packaging. Moreover when a company outsources the packing of its candles they increase the productivity by devising best practices that help all the departments in maximizing their efficiency levels.

After outsourcing the packaging segment of the company, the management can focus on picking bigger orders of manufacturing candles because they would have the manpower and space to increase their production. So while a different company is handling the packaging for them they can concentrate on increasing the production in their company. Small scale companies which have been operating for a long time need a business analysis done in order to see what their company can do in order to increase their productivity. Outsourcing will definitely be an option!

Outsourcing and its Benefits for Telecom Industry

Outsourcing is the new key in the present world to expand your business. According to the latest trends, most of the businesses have now started depending on the outsourcing phenomenon in order to succeed in their business.

Amongst all the businesses profiting from the services provided by outsourcing, telecom industry is one. According to estimates, almost 75% of the telecom business companies have already taken to outsourcing. Most of the telecom executives admit to the fact that in the process of making any major financial or technological policy, outsourcing is a major player. Apart from the fact that outsourcing certain business processes is convenient to the company, it is also true that telecom companies save a lot of money by following this suit. For example, about half of the finances within a telecom industry is spent on network management. Other segments that require a lot of time and finances include customer care, billing, recruitments etc. With the advent of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) though, the telecom industries can easily outsource the above mentioned services and processes.

Especially for telecom industries based in the first world nations or developed nations, where work force is extremely costly, outsourcing their business processes to BPOs based in third world nations like China, India or the Philippines makes for a major cost-saver. With the major processes outsourced, the telecom companies are then better able to utilize their time and management by focusing into expansion and other company policies aiming at expanding their customer base. Apart from this, outsourcing processes like customer care to BPOs also ensure that all their customers get complete and proper attention, hence assuring a loyal customer base. Then again, outsourcing also ensures that these companies get the latest of technological aid, which would have come extremely costly if the company had decided to do it themselves.

The telecom industry finds itself gaining from outsourcing and the trend is only going to dig further into the industry.

Cyber Corridor and its Impact on the Philippines Call Center Industry

As in recent news, the President of the Philippines, President Arroyo has been on a tour of the cyber Corridor. For those uninitiated, the cyber corridor is the site where most of the IT firms and BPO offices are housed. According to the president, the industry needs to bring in more vigor in order to give more candidates jobs and a consecutive boost to the Philippine economy.

The BPO industry was first launched in the Philippines in the year 2001, with a mere 2000 workers population. Today, however, the BPO sector alone contributes to around 5 to 6% of the total GDP of the Philippines. The year 2009 saw incoming revenue of US$7.3 billion alone from the BPO industry. According to projected estimates, it is further expected that the figure will rise to $13 billion by the year 2011, and by the end of year 2020, the figure is expected to cross the $100 billion mark! This will amount to almost 20% of the total business that is generated universally in this sector.

With TESDA’s developmental plans and the P500 million fund by the Arroyo administration out there to bring out more trained professionals in the field of business outsourcing, the future of the BPO industry in Philippines looks extremely bright. Though it is presently just a notch behind India in rankings, with a number of people joining the outsourcing business, it is soon expected to overtake its competitors and become the first choice for those looking for outsourcing services. Apart from the trained staff and multi-skilled labor, the Philippines is also a strategically located geographically, offering it an edge that no other nation in the business has. Then again, as more high-end outsourcing units opening up catering to legal services, design, web, software, medicine and lots of other fields, the BPO industry only stands to gain further ground amongst the entire business outsourcing market. Overall, the future of the BPO industry in Philippines looks good and is bound to give the nation a strong economic boost.

Astute Solutions

Philippines is known to be a world leader in the outsourcing industry. The number of call centers coming up in the country bears testimony to this fact. However, in order to move forward, these BPO units need to employ the latest technologies. Today, old contact center softwares are being replaced by new, dynamic products. One such product is the RealDialog e-service application made by Astute solutions.

Effective communication is the key for any business to function properly and this principle holds strong for the call center industry. This new software claims to take a giant step forward in the world of virtual call centers. This will happen with more efficient responses to customer queries. RealDialog analyzes customer inquiries word by word and is an intelligent system which learns from every user conversation. It enables customer interaction through a wide range of channels, which include voice contact center systems and websites. It can deliver messages to the customer in a variety of forms. Astute claims that this technology will enrich the whole customer experience by responding to their inquiries with 99% accuracy!

This new application is definitely going to take the market by storm and major call centers in the Philippines are bound to deploy this software on their systems. By doing so, they will be able to facilitate better interaction with their clients and will be a step ahead of their competitors. Technologies such as these will affect the call center industry in Philippines tremendously by reducing IT costs and improving productivity.

The future holds a lot for call centers in the Philippines if they are able to deliver the goods required of them. Employing newer technologies will help these upcoming firms to be up to date with the latest market trends. The RealDialog application is one such technology which will take them towards their goal faster and more efficiently!

Philippines - 7th Most Favorable Outsourcing Destination

A.T. Kearney’s Global Services Location Index (GSLI) is a respected index that ranks attractive outsourcing destinations around the world. Its latest edition explicitly states that destinations in Asia, Middle East and North Africa are beating traditional Central European countries in the highly competitive BPO industry. More and more companies are looking to ship their jobs to these locations as they provide good quality and cost effective solutions. Philippines is also a key member of the outsourcing world and it has been ranked the 7th most favorable outsourcing destination by the index. This is great news for the Filipinos as the outsourcing industry in the country is growing at an alarming rate!

Philippines is slowly becoming one of the most favored destinations for outsourced jobs. GSLI’s latest edition is a good indicator of the changing market trends and news such as this will provide a great boost to the already flourishing BPO units here. With more and more call centers being set up in the country, it won’t be long before this archipelago makes its way into the top 5!

India, China and Malaysia have maintained their top three spots, a clear indicator of the dominance Asia has in the outsourcing world. Western European countries such as Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, which were once top outsourcing destinations, have dropped several places in the latest rankings. The index is a good indicator of the business trends as a lot of research goes into it. Each country’s score is made up of a weighted combination on 43 different measurements! Hence, there should not be too much debate on the ability of the index!

GSLI has been an efficient index since its inception in 2004. They have keenly followed market trends and have provided accurate results! Their latest edition has surely given much needed motivation to upcoming call centers in the Philippines. The future looks bright and it is the right time to capitalize on the opportunity!