Inbound call center efficiency

Inbound Call Center Efficiency

The inbound call center department is probably more important than the other call center wings. The reason is that the callers who call up do so with the idea that they will be talking to an in-house representative of the company. They like to believe that they are talking to a person in authority. The call center agent needs to have that element of responsibility in the voice, and be friendly with the caller at the same time. This requires training and in most cases, years of practice. This is the department which can make or break your sales drive. The caller who has taken the effort to ring you up is definitely someone who is more than interested in doing business with you. How you turn that interest into revenue for your business is that you have to focus on.

With time, the inbound call center services have diversified. There are modern appendages like the interactive voice response system (IVRS). These facilitate the callers into obtaining the call center service that they need without much of a hassle. However, ask any caller and he will tell you that getting what you need in an IVRS system is a pain in the neck. There are too many unwanted options filling up the menu. While you are paying for every second ticking on the call, the answering service end is playing on hold music that refuses to end. When you finally get through to a live voice, you are asked a thousand inane details that are not needed to be recorded! That is the general plight of the IVRS system in most cases.

Even when you are calling up a customer care number that is manned, the time it needs to put forth your query really gets to you. Sometimes there is a barrage of stupid questions thrown at you. But the bad experiences with inbound call center services are not to be generalized. There are many premiere call centers out there that go a long way into ensuring that the callers get what they want in the minimum time possible. Such efficient answering service agents are not born, they are made. Your team of managers and trainers has to be at them so that they can be coached on the basics of telemarketing. The key point to keep in mind is that these agents would be the face of your business. So you better keep them in good shape or that might adversely affect the performance of your company in the sales department.

An efficient inbound call center department is like having a celebrity at the door to welcome guests to your house! Customers feel special and they are more interested in your products/services. The call center units realize this huge potential and that is why they sweat it out to make this department work in the true sense of the term. When it comes to BPO, the callers are the assets of the firm. To retain customers and to build up on the customer database, you have to welcome them properly and provide them services that will keep them close to your company.

It was just a misunderstanding

It Was Just a Misunderstanding

It was just a misunderstanding… that’s not what I meant…. Have you heard those, or similar statements, recently? If you have, then you are in the midst of a breakdown in communication. The best leaders are excellent communicators, and they encourage a clear, effective exchange of information in their teams. Yet we often experience confusion and misinterpretation at work (and at home). What is going on? Quite simply, we don’t work at stating our ideas explicitly. We take communication for granted, we get lazy, we get careless—and then, bad things happen.

With all the communication tools at our disposal, we are more at risk than ever for miscommunication. Isn’t it great that email has that «receive receipt» function? I think there is a «read receipt» message also. In using these, we are notified that the receiver of the message did, in fact, get the message from us.

Of course, there is no «understand receipt» to insure that the receiver actually «got» what we were trying to say. When we are face-to-face, body language and changes in pace, tone and vocal inflection help us to determine if our message has been understood. In email, we lose these important visual and aural cues, making successful communication much more difficult. Misunderstandings become frequent, and additional emails meant to clarify can make the even situation worse.

At this point, it would be appropriate to visit the classic (and often misquoted) study on communication by Dr. Albert Mehrabian, Professor Emeritus at UCLA. Dr. Mehrabian examined the process by which people decide whether they like one another. The results of his research tell us that how we say something is critically important to others’ understanding of our message. And, as we noted above, this is precisely the factor that is lost in written communication. Therefore, the more we use such quick and easy means of communicating as email and text messaging, the more at risk we are of being misunderstood.

Don’t get me wrong; I love email. It is a very convenient, efficient, and effective method of sending and receiving information—but sometimes, it just isn’t good enough. I also love looking someone in the eye and seeing that they «get it.» Last week, I flew to San Francisco on short notice for this very reason—to make sure my meaning was received and understood clearly. I didn’t want to fly cross-country for a four-hour meeting, but I did anyway, because it was that important.

How often do you send an email or leave a voice mail when you would be better served by interacting face-to-face? It’s tempting to hide behind email. But vital nuances can easily fall through the cracks. What about your people? I spoke to a friend about this the other day and he said this about his managers, «I tell them to call someone and they send an instant message. They are missing my entire point.»

Misunderstandings cost money. For that reason alone, we must work to eliminate them. Always remember the «understand receipt» function when you are communicating with someone—no matter what method you are using.

Improving business performance by creating high performance teams

Improving Business Performance by Creating High Performance Teams

As a manager, executive or business owner your top priority today is exceeding company goals. You can’t do it yourself, so the best way to exceed your goals is to have what we call «High Performance Teams» working for you.

Your goals may include growing your business, increasing revenue, improving business efficiency, doing more with less, creating competitive advantage, improving customer satisfaction, reducing costs or leveraging intellectual assets.

Your team, which may include (sales, marketing, finance, strategy, HR, IT, operations, shop floor, etc.) represents a very powerful mechanism for getting significant results in organizations today.

High performance teams are a special class of team that has the ability to easily adapt in a rapidly changing environment and is an essential element for highly successful organizations.

The first step in building a high performance team is understanding the essential team ingredients that create a recipe for success.

Building high performance teams is a top priority for many executives. The benefits and value produced by these teams are very clear and being viewed as essential tools in their business strategy.

High performance teams produce many benefits.

1. Increased sales revenue
2. Increased productivity
3. Improved customer service
4. Ability to do more with less
5. Increased innovation
6. Ability to quickly adapt to change
7. Ability to solve difficult, critical problems

Sales Team Essentials — The Ingredients

So where do you begin? Like a great chef making the perfect soufflé, you must follow a recipe that will deliver the best possible outcome. This recipe includes the ingredients, preparation and the process for making the perfect soufflé. If you forget an ingredient, add too much, eliminate preparation steps, or change the process you will not end up with the results you are expecting. For business executives, this translates into ineffective teams that cannot meet critical business goals.

Let’s look at the ingredients necessary for building a high performance team.

1. Trust

Trust in your team, their trust in you and the trust between the team members is the core ingredient that holds everything together. You develop trust by setting guidelines for team behavior and decision making, where the people have certain freedoms to make decisions, take risks and speak their minds. They will also have certain obligations to always speak the truth, work with other teams, be accountable for decisions and actions and to learn from the their mistakes.

Business executives who have rules and policies for everything create an environment of bureaucracy and stifle team performance. The environment is orderly and structured, but leaves little room for team members to use their own judgment, take ownership or be motivated to complete tasks quickly. On the other hand, executives who have no guidelines for the team run the risk of leading a team in chaos. Neither of these work.

Implementing guidelines where people are trusted, promotes an environment where team members will give their best, produce more and with improved quality.

2. Vision

High performance teams share and support a «Vision» of what the team will accomplish. Team members are highly focused on meeting their goals and objectives. Business executives work with the team to develop a vision that brings real meaning to the work that is being performed. The vision defines the future state and is clear, defined and concrete. The team needs a winning, inspirational vision that will motivate them to go above and beyond when the effort is required.

3. Optimism

The next key ingredient is «Optimism». High performance team members have dreams of achievement. These dreams are fueled by the executives optimism. It is true that team members will flourish when they have hope and they will give up when they don’t. High performing team members thrive on accomplishment and recognition they get when working through difficult problems and persevering. This perseverance requires optimism.

The responsibility of a business executive in an optimistic environment is to be realistic and optimistic at the same time. Realism is important because it acknowledges the facts of the situation no matter how unpleasant they are. An optimistic environment dictates that given the facts of the situation, the team will continue to work toward their goals. When teams lose optimism, it is the responsibility of the executive to coach the team to get them back on track. Together the team acknowledges the situation and begins to generate ideas for solving the current problem.

4. Enjoyment

A business executive must make the environment enjoyable to work in. Team members perform at their peak when they enjoy what they do and with whom they do it with. Enjoyment doesn’t mean you play cards all day long. Real enjoyment comes when the executive and team are deeply involved in working a critical problem and they persevere together as a complete unit.

The executive sets the tone for the team. Setting the tone for an enjoyable work environment is accomplished by showing that you enjoy your job, that you like the people you work with and that you appreciate their hard work. Thank team members for working through the weekend. Let them take a long lunch if they worked 12 hours the previous day. Praise them for new ideas. Never blame team members for mistakes, laugh and learn from their mistakes. Keep the team focused on winning instead of failing.

5. Empowerment

High performance teams are self directed. When empowered to accomplish a goal, these teams take ownership of their responsibilities and are committed to succeed. Business executives leading high performance teams work to focus the team on «what» needs to be achieved. The «What» is defined as the vision, goals, objectives and milestones for the team. The «How» work is to be accomplished must remain the sole responsibility of the team. When executives start telling their teams how the work is to be done, the team becomes de-motivated and performance drops dramatically.

6. Opportunity

The final ingredient for a high performance team is developing an environment where team members can grow. Team members need to learn new skills and be permitted to develop and implement new ideas to work at their peak. Creating an environment where team members can experience different roles, cross train, work with diverse teams and learn new specialties will develop team members who are more self assured, who listen, and are more open to new ideas. This strategy of continuous learning will keep the team energized and motivated to perform at the highest levels.

A Final Word

As a business manager or executive, you have the power to influence the people and performance of your teams. If you truly believe in creating an environment where Trust, Vision, Optimism, Enjoyment, Empowerment and Opportunity are encouraged, then you will build a solid, sustainable and high performing team.

© Copyrighted by Dennis Sommer — CEO, Executive Business Advisers. All rights reserved.

Dennis Sommer provides the guidance you need to take your business to the next level. His specialty is improving business performance. Delivering quick, dramatic results has made Dennis a highly sought after business consultant, CEO and executive adviser.

Dennis works with a wide range of clients from small growth start-ups to Fortune 500 companies, helping them find new strategies for stimulating sales revenue growth, attracting new customers, increasing profits and reducing costs without sacrificing service.

Dennis is also highly sought after keynote, seminar speaker and author. His latest bestselling book is «Adviser Secrets — How to Become a Top Performer».

Currently, Dennis is the founder and CEO of Executive Business Advisers, a business and management consulting firm.

Company: http://www.executivebusinessadvisers.com/
Author: http://www.dennissommer.com/

Contact Dennis Sommer at 800-627-6512.

How to get recruiters to help you in your job search

How To Get Recruiters To Help You In Your Job Search

Recruiters can be of tremendous help in your job search. Most often they are the gate keepers to the first interview. Gaining their help gives you a big advantage in today’s competitive job market. Recruiters fall into two basic categories. Either they are part of a Human Resources team of an organization or they are external third-party recruiters. Regardless, all recruiters have one job: to provide hiring managers with the best possible candidates. With that in mind, these three tips for getting recruiters to help you apply to all recruiters.

1. Provide them a user-friendly resume.

Your resume is the recruiter’s tool to help convince hiring managers that you are a good fit for the job. The more time and effort you put into your resume the better your chances of convincing the recruiter to present you as a candidate.

There are two vital elements to your resume that will be of great help to recruiters. First, it must reflect all the key words that describe the qualifications of the position. This allows the recruiter to convince the hiring manager that you qualify for the job. Second, your resume should be full of accomplishments which give the recruiter important selling points on your behalf. Think of your resume as a selling tool to convince hiring managers that you are the best possible candidate and that you are ready to step in and solve their business problems.

2. Demonstrate polished interview skills.

From the moment a recruiter calls you he/she is judging how well you will present yourself in a face to face interview with the hiring manager. How well you interview reflects on the recruiter. If you do well you make the recruiter look good and he will go out of his way to cooperate with you in helping you through the interview process. If you fail to impress the hiring manager it will embarrass the recruiter and he’ll most likely never present you to another hiring manager.

Before a recruiter calls you make sure your interview skills are top notch. That means working out good answers to the toughest interview questions. Practice out loud your responses to questions that have made you nervous in the past. To name a few, make sure you know how to answer questions like:

«What would you do if …?»

«Tell us your strengths and weaknesses.»

«Tell me about a time when you ….»

«Why did you leave your last employment?»

3. Be thankful.

A good recruiter works hard behind the scenes to insure that the interview process runs smoothly. It is a thankless job at best. Once the interviews start the recruiter is very often forgotten in the candidates enthusiasm to impress the hiring manager. Since the recruiter can be of help to you throughout the interview process it pays to acknowledge their support with a thank you note after each interview.

For best results take the time to send a hand-written thank you note that reflects genuine appreciation for their time and effort. Use this opportunity to express your enthusiasm for the job and mission of the organization. This little bit of effort will return to you in added cooperation of the recruiter when you need information about the status of the job opening.

When you extend uncommon courtesy and take the time to provide recruiters the selling tools (your resume and interview skills) you go a long way in building a solid working relationship that will reap benefits for years to come. In short, recruiters can be your best friend or they can be the screen that keeps you out of the running for great jobs. A lot of it depends on you.

How you can earn dollar with affiliate marketing

How You Can Earn Dollar With Affiliate Marketing!

Affiliate marketing is a wonderful way to create an online income and many web entrepreneurs have made a fortune on the back of it, however, it isn’t an automatic key to Internet profits. You have to get a number of things right to succeed with Internet marketing. These things aren’t hard to do, but they are necessary and you have to be prepared to take the time to learn and apply them. 

There are three main aspects to affiliate marketing success: choosing the right programs, implementing successful Internet marketing strategies and consistency. 

How to Choose the Right Affiliate Marketing Programs. 

The affiliate marketing programs you choose need to be related to your niche and complimentary to one another. This way, go to www.greatpromotionsite.com your Internet marketing can accommodate all your affiliate products and not have to be unique to each one. For more info visit us at (www.affiliate-directories-online.com) your targeted website traffic will already be generally interested in the various offerings on your website or bog. 

Other things you should look for in an affiliate marketing program are: quality products with money back guarantees, excellent customer service, high commission rates with low payout thresholds, well written sales pages to maximize conversion, and customer tracking for at least ninety days (preferably longer). 

Successful Internet Marketing Strategies 

Without website traffic, you will be unable to make any sales — no matter how great your affiliate products are. It is therefore crucial to learn and apply proven Internet marketing strategies to build traffic and encourage those visitors to click on your affiliate links. Internet marketing begins with website design, content and search engine optimization strategies (SEO). 

Your website needs to be easy to navigate, focused on one particular niche (although it can include sub-categories), contain unique, relevant and useful content which is updated regularly and optimized for search engines by using (but not overusing) keywords related to your page content. Once you have created your website you can implement traffic building strategies such as article marketing, paid search engine listings, press releases (where appropriate), go to www.affiliate-sale-booster.com write bogs related to your subject and link back to your website (also have direct affiliate links on your bog), and engage in social networking sites such as Face book. 

These are basic starting points for generating website traffic that is targeted and likely to be interested in one or more of the affiliate products you are promoting. There are plenty of online resources that can teach you how to apply these various strategies to promote your site and increase your affiliate marketing referrals. 

Consistency 

if you truly want to become successful at affiliate marketing then you need to work at it consistently. For example, your website and bog needs to be updated regularly with new and original content that is relevant to your niche. This is essential to encourage visitors to return but it is also important to gain free search engine traffic. Article marketing is also a very effective traffic building strategy but it will only work if some one-visit site like (www.affiliate-windfall-secrets.com) it is done on a regular basis. As soon as you stop working on your online business, your traffic will die off and your business will fail.

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