Sunday 27 January 2019

Improving Customer Service: 4 Effective Ways of Providing Enriching Experience To Your Clients

Customer service plays an elemental role in the success of every business. This system of assistance and advice by the companies is specifically designed to assist the customers or clients of the brand. They are the most essential part of a successful business and there is no way you can ignore them. A strong customer base and customer satisfaction are of paramount importance.
 


In simple words, customer service is the support you provide your customers for using your services and products. It is important to ensure that they have a hassle-free experience and they are willing to use your brand again. Many businesses rely on customer service outsourcing to maintain their customer base.

Customer service call center is a rising trend. Many businesses are shifting their focus to this domain and consider it the key to achieve business goals. Earlier, marketing and promotional activities were considered the most important way of creating a brand image. However, things have changed and entrepreneurs believe that customer satisfaction and customer assistance must be the top priority when it comes to fulfilling core business goals.

Call center services in the Philippines focus their customer assistance activities to create and maintain positive brand image and reputation, create brand awareness, improve sales, acquiring feed backs, solve after or pre-sale queries, and provide solutions. All of this is important to retain customers and ensure customer loyalty. If you are looking to improve your customer services, here are a few effective ways to do so.

1.    Train Professionals with Strong Customer Service Skills: Most of the customer service call center begin their training by imparting the right skill set to their team. It is extremely important that the professionals are experts in the right skill sets to fulfill customer needs and expectations. No matter how technologically updated the business is, it is important that the customers are empathetic and patient towards their clients. Every customer and their needs are unique. The professional must be able to handle the customer query and provide adept solutions.
Besides, they must have excellent communication skills in order to communicate effectively. They should be able to clearly convey and receive the message. In addition, they must be knowledgeable. The professionals must have complete knowledge of the products and services offered by the company.

2.                Customer Feedback: Another important way to improve customer service is through customer feedback and surveys. This is not only important for customer service call centers but also to improve the overall business. These days there are many ways to acquire feedback from your clients. Telephonic feedback, feedback forms, emails, and SMSs are some of the common techniques businesses rely on seeking customer inputs. This is an excellent way to learn more about customer expectations and needs. Thus, improving your customer service and overall business strategies.

3.                Updated Technology: Technology plays an important in customer service outsourcing. It ensures an enriching experience for the customers. Many business processes outsourcing in the Philippines rely on sophisticated technology to cater to their customer base. It is imperative that the businesses deploy the right kind of technology that will help them interact, communicate and assist their customers and clients in just the right spirit.  Poor and outdated technology can stagger even the most efficient employee of the company. Hence, it is important to stay updated and have a good structure.

4.                Focus on Customer Interactions: Interacting with the customer is the core intention of setting up a customer service call center. Therefore, make sure that customers are heard well when they talk about their problems related to the products and services of the company. Make sure you are able to establish trust and rapport with your clients. Finally, a regular follow-up until the problem is solved is a must to make customers satisfied. 

Apart from this clarify the core intention, mission and goals of your business. Make your team aware of the sales target and strategies to achieve those goals. Design strategies that will help your customer gain an enriching experiencing. Remember, an impressive customer care is a key to ultimate success.

Tuesday 22 January 2019

Best Reasons to Outsource to the Philippines

Philippines and Business process outsourcing are almost pronounced in the same breath.  So, why is Philippines scoring big in the BPO department while the other countries are falling short? There are not one but several reasons why the Philippines is slowly but surely taking over the outsourcing world. 


Support of the Philippines Government
The Government supports the Call Centres in the Philippines by implementing programmes which will help develop the outsourcing industry. The government helps the industry by providing tax breaks and ensuring that the industry is able to meet up to its workforce requirement. Some of the things which are really helping the industry are:

  • University tie-ups that are part of the curricula and can be constructed to help in the workforce who would be working in the near future. 
  • The Technical Education Skills and Development Authority (TESDA) that helps extend funding support for call center training. 
  • Foreign investment gets a tremendous boost when taxable and non-taxable incentives are offered to foreign investors.
  • The government’s initiative in creating National and Communication technology councils are further boosting the prospects of the call center in the Philippines.

Ideal Location
The Philippines is located in what is called the business hub of Asia. The location acts as a gateway to western countries to have direct dealing with the Philippines but the rest of Asia as well thanks to its strategic location. 

Minimal Labour Rates
Most of the BPO companies pay less to the employees in comparison to the other countries. So, despite them paying less quality of work is not compromised in any way. 

Pool of Talent
The outsourcing industry greatly benefits from a talented pool of workers. They give a big boost to this industry in a number of ways. 

Similar to American Culture
Filipinos have a strong affinity to American culture and hence they are able to adapt well to their accent and also emulate it better. They speak the English language well with the required accent. 

Work Ethics Par Excellence
The Filipinos take pride in their professionalism. They have the right values, culture, work ethics, and create a work-conducive work atmosphere. They have fun but they also amalgamate it well with generous doses of integrity and responsibility.

Time Difference does not matter to Filipinos
 Filipinos are said to be very flexible with night shifts and handle erratic schedules better. They are accommodating to the requirements of the clients residing in different countries.

The destination is Ideal for Work as well as Play
Let’s just say it is not difficult to lure investors to the Philippines. The scenic beauty complete with historical sites helps in its business prospects too. 

It is Start-up Conducive
Both big business and small businesses thrive in this market.  Companies can get competent employees at a low pay scale, this improves the prospects of small scale businesses. 

Economic Stability and Growth
Philipinnes as the country is politically stable and the economic growth is growing 5% every year. Even the global recession has not been able to affect economic stability in any way. 

The success of the BPO Philippines industry has provided a major growth spurt to the economic growth of the country which is quite evident as the country has enjoyed a 6% growth in Gross Domestic Product. This unprecedented growth has provided millions of job opportunities for the people. This prevents the situation of brain drain in the country. Young Filipinos want to stay put in the country as they are lured by exciting job opportunities and they do not have to move out of the country for better opportunities.

Thursday 10 January 2019

The Best Way to Outsource Your Call Center - A Quick Guide

Reaching the company goals, making a business successful and maintaining it requires a strong customer base. Good customer service is the backbone of the company, therefore many businesses, big or small are inclined towards outsourcing a call center. This is an emerging trend and it has proven to be beneficial to companies in many ways. 


What is Outsourcing?
While it’s a rising trend, many people still don’t understand the true meaning of outsourcing. Outsourcing is an act of obtaining services from an outside source on a contract. In other words, it is hiring services of an outside supplier to fulfill certain company’s tasks. Most of us think of customer services when we refer to outsourcing. This is not wrong as the majority of call centers in the Philippines or other countries cater to this particular segment of their offshore outsourcing partners. This reduces the workload of the company and helps them increase the productivity at the base office. At the same time, it provides a great opportunity achieve the core goals of the company. Another most attractive reason why companies prefer to outsource call center to the Philippines is cut in the operational costs and money savings. 

However, these call centers are not only restricted to provide customer support. These are efficient sources of hiring services like technical support, data entry, marketing and sales, creative processing, knowledge processing, and more. There a huge number of tasks these call centers are specialized in.

When Do You Need to Outsource a Call Center for Your Business?
It is worth noting that every business is different and has different goals. It is true that each business has a different culture and an organizational structure that is unique. Therefore, there is no one factor that determines whether you need an outsourcing partner or not. However, there comes a time when one must recognize that it’s time to change a few things in the company and seek help from outside. The company’s employees must be able to manage their core tasks than overspending time on duties related to customer service. This will definitely burden the employees and will not allow them to fulfill company goals. At the same time, it is important to determine whether the cost of outsourcing a call center is more economical than the cost of creating your own customer service department. Meanwhile, if the core employees of the company are unable to meet customer needs, expectations and queries, it is time to find an outsource call center in the Philippines or any other location.  

How to Outsource Call Center: A Few Tips
As mentioned, good customer support can be a deal breaker for your business. It can either take you closer to achieve your sales and company goals or do exactly opposite. The outsourcing partner must be able to understand the company’s mission and should be able to facilitate the process. It must be able to optimize the potential and profits. Therefore, choosing the best call center is of paramount importance. Consider a few tips to choose the right match for your business.

1.    The first and the foremost requirement is to research the reputation of the company that you are planning to partner with. This must directly impact the business and its credibility.
2.    Find out who their clients have been and how was their experience with the company.
3.    Research and review their performance through the feedback of clients or customer reviews.
4.    Another important factor is to find out about years of experience. A skilled set of experts and professionals must have a long experience behind them. This will define their efficiency and success rate.
5.    Each business is unique with their own set of goals to achieve. Therefore, it is important the outsourcing partner is able to understand your business and its vision, and they are a match to your industry needs.
6.    Finally, they must be able to fit in your budget. It is important that outsourcing call center is more economical than establishing an in-house one. 

In addition, you must go through the services agreements and policies with a call center outsourcing service provider. At the same time, the location of the partner must fit the cultural needs of your customers. It is important that they are effectively able to communicate with your audience. Lastly, both the partners must be a match for each other’s business’ objectives and success.


Monday 7 January 2019

Top Reasons Why You Should Knowledge Process Outsource to the Philippines?

In less than a decade, the Philippines has emerged as businesses’ top choice for business process outsourcing. The country is often referred to as the World Capital of the BPO industry. Over the years, the industry has grown by leaps and bounds and continue to do so. After BPOs, the country’s Knowledge Process Outsourcing industry is growing at a fast pace and leading the world. The industry is expected to reach the same market size as BPO in no time.

What is Knowledge Process Outsourcing?

When it comes to outsourcing, Knowledge Process Outsourcing is relatively newer than Business Process Outsourcing. This industry specifically involves information-related business tasks. In simpler words, jobs in this industry include skilled roles like market research, survey analysis, data mining, equity research, research and development and more. These jobs are essential to the growth of the business and cannot be ignored. When such tasks are allocated to an outside organization that belongs to a different geographic location, it is called Knowledge Process Outsourcing. Many companies prefer to knowledge process outsourcing to the Philippines because these tasks require specialized knowledge and expertise. Besides the Philippines, the other countries that have prominently contributed to this global industry are India, China, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Baltic States.

Why Knowledge Process Outsource to the Philippines? 
 
The Philippines has consistently been leading the outsourcing business globally. While cost savings remain the prime reason why companies like to invest in the Philippines, talent and skilled labor are a few other important motives. The company has a lot to offer and businesses around the world have experienced the same. Let’s take a look at the reasons why companies prefer to knowledge process outsource to the Philippines.

Cost Reduction: For many businesses, this is the prime reason for offshore outsourcing to the Philippines. Studies suggest that companies can reduce as much as 45 to 50 percent of operational and overhead costs by hiring services from the Philippines. While the operational cost is much affordable even the average salary of a Filipino is at least 50 percent lesser than the employees of the west. Cheap yet efficient labor is a great reason why companies from all over the world are attracted to the Philippines. In addition, these companies have an established system that saves the extra cost of infrastructural arrangements, training, recruiting, and more.

Neutral Accent and English Proficiency: Another reason why Filipinos are the top choice for creative process outsourcing, business process outsourcing, and knowledge process outsourcing is their neutral accent. It makes them incredible communicators when it comes to interacting with clients from the West. At the same time, most of the Filipinos are as proficient in English as any native English speaker. This is due to the cultural influence as well as due to the emphasis on education and high literacy rate.

Skilled and Specialized Talent: KPO industry extensively relies on specialized skills and knowledge-intensive experience in risk management, financial studies, research and development, analytics, IT and engineering. With a pool of talent streaming out educational institutions, every year making the country a strong contender.

Time Difference: Another reason why outsourcing to the Philippines a good idea is because these companies work 24/7 a day. This means that the work continues even at the night, when you are sleeping. At the same time, different time zones and cultures contribute to the factor that the work never stops which is the key to enhanced productivity and efficiency of the company.

In addition, strong government support encouraging foreign investments and growth of the industry has made it one of the prime sectors in the company contributing to the economic growth and national GDP. Meanwhile, the legal laws of the Philippines are similar to that of America which makes it the perfect choice for outsourcing business. There is high-level cultural compatibility between the Philippines and the countries from the west. For those unfamiliar, the Philippines was colonized by Spain, USA, Portugal, and a few more other foreign forces. This has influenced the culture and ethical values massively. Finally, it is centrally located on the world map with well-developed ports and airports that provides easy access and trading options. 

The future looks bright for the Philippines’ outsourcing industry. The BPO and KPO industries are forecasted to improve and grow at a faster rate in the near future.

Tuesday 1 January 2019

Save on Valuable Time and Money by Outsourcing Data Entry Services

Outsourcing data entry services is a trending business strategy among big and small, all sizes of business houses. The experts have identified the numerable benefits of outsourcing this essential yet a redundant business task. Entering, processing, verifying and recording huge data from a large number of documents can prove to be a tedious task. It may not be the core function of the business, but it cannot be ignored. 

Anyone who has performed data entry tasks would know that this task is an ongoing process and it requires indefinite hours of dedication which may cost the business important manhours and investment. Therefore, experts have established that the best solution to the problem is outsourcing data entry services to the Philippines, the leading destination for outsourcing back-end jobs and customer support. It is a strategic way of bringing down the costs and save time in performing redundant tasks. This trend is gaining popularity rapidly and data entry has become a significant industry in the business world. It has become a common way of operating all types of businesses. 

How Outsourcing Data Entry Services Can Save Time and Money

Time and money are the two important factors that contribute to the success of a business. These two resources must be used judiciously and efficiently. Therefore, outsourcing these services has become a significant form of performing business. This is an important step in order to not compromise on the core functions of the business. 

Outsource data entry services to the Philippines and save investment funds massively. Finding the right offshoring partner is the key to reduced operational costs. Experts recommend hiring full-time data-entry companies can save a lot more money than setting up an in-house department. The data entry providers have a full-fledged structure where they carry out every aspect of data entry job. This means that you don’t have to worry about setting up the infrastructure, that requires the machines, equipment, and employees. Besides, you definitely save money on hiring and training the staff. 

Simultaneously, by hiring data entry services partner, the company can focus on their core mission and other activities that are central to the growth of the business. This strategy allows businesses to capitalize on the opportunities that are essentially time and money. This saves the staff’s time and energy that can be utilized in performing their jobs efficiently. Therefore, hiring data entry services contribute to improved efficiency and increased the productivity of the businesses. 

Other Benefits of Outsourcing Data Entry Services 

Outsourcing data entry services to an established BPO is definitely going to provide you with the best quality input services. Most of the data entry services of the Philippines are equipped with state-of-the-art technological equipment that is operated by expert coders. Hence, the result is organized and faster data inputs that are created with the best knowledge and technique. 

Meanwhile, these data entry companies have the means to provide data systems that are highly secured. To stay relevant in the market, they operate with top-class data safety protocols and software that ensures that the information is safely encrypted and protected. Moreover, these companies work round-the-clock, so they provide 24/7 assistance. They are quick to respond to any technical glitches and are experts at providing the best solutions to technical mishaps. Outsourcing data entry services has proven beneficial to businesses in innumerable ways. It is a strategic move for any business that values time and money.