Call Center Magazines

Call center magazines enable readers to understand complex and dynamic issues related to call centers such as marketing, management, and technology. The magazines are also a great source of contacts and information for people who are already in the telemarketing business or others who want to set up their own call centers.

Call center magazines provide comprehensive and balanced product information on call center tools, administration, and operations. These magazines are written by a dedicated staff of editorial experts, corporate/call center managers, IT professionals, consultants and senior sales & marketing executives who generate essential editorials that help in understanding the strategies and services offered by call centers. They bring to light the technologies, services and practices that enable call centers to communicate effectively with customers, whether they call or go online.

Apart from providing crucial information in choosing the right kind of call center service, the editorials enable readers to optimize their call centers' resources, minimize costs and maximize the value their companies bring to the customers who contact them. Almost all call center magazines publish monthly expert opinions on the present standing and future prospects of call center development issues ranging from trends in customer-interfacing applications to call center best practices and budgetary trade-offs.

Some of these magazines also sponsor annual industry appreciation awards to give recognition to call centers that exhibit superior innovation, dedication, and the pursuit of excellence in providing products and services for the call center market and beyond. Winners are selected by magazine editors who look at each product's ability to enhance agent and call center manager productivity, boost sales, and improve overall customer satisfaction.

Individuals looking to make a career in call centers or those wanting to start their own call centers can subscribe to these magazines for call center industry updates on a regular basis. These magazines also feature expert advise from experienced call center professionals.

Call Center Solutions provides detailed information on Call Center Solutions, Call Center Software Solutions, Call Center CRM Solutions, Call Center Management Solutions and more. Call Center Solutions is affiliated with Outsourcing Call Centers.

 

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Scaling a Call Center With VoIP

If VoIP has had an impact on normal businesses, can you imagine the effect it has had on those firms whose entire existence is devoted to making calls? Most businesses have already switched over to VoIP and it's virtually impossible to find a call center, which doesn't use the cost savings and routing benefits of VoIP to improve its processes. But on a more fundamental level, VoIP is changing the very manner in which such businesses operate. In this article, we look at the disruptive potential of VoIP and unified communications in general and how it can have truly far reaching impacts.

With VoIP phones being as configurable as they are, it's only a matter of time before dramatic changes come about in organizations. It's expensive to run an office housing hundreds of people. Electricity, gas, water supplies, rent, security personnel, maintenance and a hundred other expenses add to the overheads of keeping everyone in one place making calls day in and day out. But that's exactly what call centers do and being a cost control center, they're constantly looking to improve their workflow and make it cheaper and more streamlined.

Which is why many of them are looking to VoIP to devise advanced telecommuting procedures, which allow people to work from home and have all the benefits of working from the office. With VoIP, it's possible to have all incoming calls transferred to your home phone and even have an extension assigned to it. This way, the person at the other end need never know that you're not sitting in an office. Nor do they need to.

There is a whole pool of talented people who would be ideally suited for call center work but who don't have the ability to travel to work, stay there for eight hours and travel back every day. Mothers, disabled people and even the elderly can earn their living and contribute to the economy by making use of VoIP. This untapped market of professionals is set to unleash its talents and businesses which have a clue are devising innovate means to tap into them.

We're already seeing this transformation in a few select businesses. It hasn't really caught on yet but its one of those trends whose time has to come some time or another. The benefits are simply too large to ignore. Which process-oriented business wouldn't want to cut its costs and improve its efficiency after all?

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Common Call Center Services

The popularity of a new business can be estimated; however, it is not always guaranteed. Many new business owners are finding themselves overrun with customers. A large customer base is a good thing; however, it may not be if you do not have the staff to handle those customers. Instead of hiring new employees, it is common for a business owner to use the services of a call center.

A call center is typically an offsite collection of workers who are experienced in trained in customer service. A call center worker is commonly referred to as a call center representative. The job of a call center representative is to answer incoming calls and then assist the callers in any way that they can. A call center is a great way for a business to save time and money because it eliminates having to constantly answer phone calls. To use the services of a call center, a business owner will first have to find one.

The best way to find a great call center it is know the services that they offer. Each call center is likely to operate under different rules and regulations; therefore, it is safe to assume that different call center services will be offered at different companies. Business owners are encouraged to learn what call center services are offered at a particular center. Once the information is complied it will be easier to determine if the call center services match your needs.

As previously mentioned, call center services are likely to vary from call center to call center. However, there are common call centers services that are offered by most companies. One of the most common call center services is that of sales. It is not uncommon for a call center representative to take a call and place a catalog order, airline reservations, or more. Medical call centers are likely to schedule patient appointments and offer some medical assistance to callers.

Another call center service includes setting up a toll free number. This toll free telephone number is often equipped with Interactive Voice Response (IVR). IVR is a system that is developed to help walk clients through the process of connecting to you. IVR may be used as an answering service if customers are unable to have their questions answered by a call center representative. Other call center services may include online customer support. Online customer support is important it today's world because now many individuals use email just as much as they do a telephone.

The above mentioned call center services are just a few of the many call center services that may be available. To ensure that you will be working with the best call center you are encouraged to know what these services are ahead of time. Your business and your client’s can both benefit from call center services.

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Women Employees in BPO

Today women play a vital role in Indian BPO sector. According to survey out of 400 million of workforce in India, around 30-40 percent are females. They are one of the driving forces behind the success of call center industry in India.

The Indian BPO industry accounts for a revenue US$ 39.6 billion and has emerged as one of the largest private industry providing direct employment to 1.6 million professionals.

The participation of women in BPO industry has been seen as a critical enabling factor for continued growth of the industry. Today BPO companies are recognizing women on board at all levels and this helps the organization to make good business sense. Therefore BPO companies are trying to develop and involve women for higher roles and functions.

Most of the people talk about exploitation of women in call centers. Despite the physical stress, mundane nature of the job and low status of call center work, women constitute about 70 percent of the total workforce in BPO sector. According to an independent research it has been found out that women are satisfied and enjoy their work at call centers. A call center job gives them more freedom and autonomy.

Women especially in India have found out that, the wages that they earn through a BPO job help them to experience freedom and autonomy. In India the women mobility has always been controlled by men even in case of highly educated and independent women. According to a study carried on call center workers in India, it has been found that women are happy to learn new skills and have learnt to become more assertive.

The acquired call center skills ranging from soft skills like communication, interpersonal and listening skills to product knowledge and technical knowledge have given a sense of confidence in women. This helps them to deal with customers as well as society at large. However there are women who opt for call center career for short span of life while others continue to pursue their careers in call centers.

The interpersonal skills of women are now being recognized and valued in call centers. In most of the call centers, a premium is attached to women's voice and interpersonal skills. This is because the quality of customer care jobs ultimately helps a company to gain huge profits. The exact number of women working in Indian BPO's is not exactly known but the development of IT industry in India had a clear impact on emancipation of women.

According to the studies of village pay phones in Bangladesh, advancement of computer aided technologies and networking in India show that the household income has increased and women have a say and mobility in household matters. With introduction of communication technologies and new information the workload of every woman has increased. They have to do the unpaid household chores in addition to the paid work in the BPO industry.

There is no doubt that technology itself is gendered and is strongly shaped by the patriarchal yardstick of class and gender. Despite all these the most important issue is to restore and carry forward the empowered participation of women in the development of technology and enhance the participation of women through skills, education and creative knowledge. The Indian BPO industry has set high standards in gender inclusivity. Today women play a vital role as the part of the BPO workforce. It has been suggested that the professional skills of women needs to upgrade therefore a number of mentorship programs are being organized.

These programs help women working in BPO to have a definite career path and fulfill a certain criteria in the empowerment of women. India has the largest number of women working in BPO's than any other single country in the world. This can be partly attributed to the growth of BPO's in India.

Ivana Lewis has written a wide range of articles on business process outsourcing. Moat of her write-ups are about BPO, inbound customer service and inbound call center.

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Call Centers in India: Favorite Hot Spots of Outsourcing

Call centers in India need no introduction but a special mention, indeed. Organizations from all over the world have preferred to outsource call centers services to India than its competitive counterparts. India and its BPO industry has emerged as powerful contender and leader of outsourcing. No wonder, India has become an attractive option for outsourcing call center services.

Thanks to the wide array of services, favorable government policies and infrastructure and facilities to meet the international demands and varied range, types of business needs. There have been several reasons that count and work in favor of Indian outsourcing industry. Some of them are:

1) Educated and inexpensive workforce
Given the large numbers of highly qualified and IT savvy people who are skillful and English proficient as well, call centers in India are attracting huge work demands across the world. It is to be noted that India has the highest English-speaking population after the United States. The increasing numbers of college graduates and reputation of call center workers have also made outsourcing popular which accounts to never ending resources and facilities in India.

2) Specialized and Customized Call Center Outsourcing Services
Be it inbound call center services, telemarketing services, end to end software or application processing, email support services and chat support services or help-desk services, you name it and call centers in India have it. They have equally authority over inbound and outbound call center services. Offering expert solution based on international quality standards and technology framework, their operational expertise is unparalleled.

3) Time Zone
India has the classic advantage of ideal 12 hours gap that helps Indian BPOs to run 24/7 call center operations.

4) Policies of Indian Government
Indian government has shown extensive and friendly support to Indian outsourcing industry. The government has issued policies, such as tax exemption on IT export, duty free export of goods, and encourages establishments of software technology parks equipped with latest of telecom and IT technologies.

5) Cost-effective call center services
It can be termed as one of the major reasons for which organizations outsource to India. As per a survey, Indian outsource cut the operational costs by more than half and their round of clock services come as an added advantage.

Article Source: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/call-centers-in-india-favorite-hot-spots-of-outsourcing.html

Call Center Quality

Quality is one of the pillars of success in call center services. Clients and customers are interested in quality work only. Competition in every business domain is so acute that there is very little room for error. Shabby work is detrimental for the brand reputation and BPO units are aware of that. Once you get a taint on your call center, you will find that business firms are not willing to touch you. To steer clear of such infamy, you will have to pull up the benchmark that measure performances at your call centers. Managers and supervisors have to particularly careful about quality checks and monitoring. It's not an easy task to monitor agents when they are handling hundreds of calls every day. But you have to carry on this labor to ensure that you are churning out only quality business process outsourcing work.
Adherence to stringent measures is necessary to keep the quality intact. Every step in the call center services should be measured against some set parameters. You have to keep the parameters higher than the average at BPO units. When you set the standards at a higher premium, your Transcription Service agents will be working harder to achieve those goals. A note of caution is necessary here. If your telemarketing goals are outlandish, the agents will give up before the projects starts rolling. Setting realistic targets is important for proper and positive motivation. Managers of telemarketing services can study the required standards from other projects in the same domain. You can always gather information from the Internet. Research is the key that sets off the project on the right track.
Monitoring of calls at the inbound call center and the outbound desk helps you learn from mistakes. There will be calls that do not yield results. There will be errors of telemarketing that come through clearly when you listen to the tapes of the conversation between agents and customers. But the call center managers have to do it in the right spirit. Your aim must be pick out the mistakes, not the agents responsible for those errors. When you start headhunting, agents get intimidated. Telemarketing services will suffer greatly when the agents are not free about their work. You can conduct training sessions to listen to the tapes. Make sure you praise a good job done while discussing these calls. A pat on the back inspires the whole team.
Manpower is the primary ingredient to guarantee quality in call center services. Hire the best available talent and make sure they are properly trained. No two-telemarketing project is exactly similar. Customize your training according to the campaign. Some added investment in training sessions will keep you in good stead to tackle complicated projects. Let the BPO agents pick things up instead of cramming them down their throats. No matter how skilled a customer service agent, unless that person is a team player, there is no room in telemarketing services. It's never a single player game. Get dedicated and focused employees. That will cut down your trouble by a large chunk.
We have the strictest quality checks on our Market Research services। Our BPO managers always work towards maintaining a higher standard of performance.
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