It is like everywhere in the world you get for what you pay for. The agents are the capital of the call centers. Like it is everywhere usable are getting better agents a higher monthly salary than not so good agents.
Call centers at the Philippines are usually paying for their agents around US$ 1.20 (rural area) and US$ 3.80 (metro area). Quality centers have agents, which are earning an hourly wage between US$ 3.65 and US$ 6.80 depending on their performance.
Agents, who are earning too less money, are taking a second job to survive. The result is that they are coming already tired to their work and are not able to give their best. Everybody needs even at the Philippines at least US$ 455 per month for living (that is an income of around US$ 3/hour).
Think about it, which quality you’ll get, when you are reading some unbelievable offers. Think too, that the broker or the consultant, which you have hired, likes to earn money. You can be sure, that you are not hiring the best agents for a very low price.
Found at http://outoftheboxsolutions.weebly.com/blog/archives/01-2015:
There are so many unscrupulous so called brokers, sharks and predators out there ready to pounce on the poor unexpected call centers these days, who are desperate in some cases to expand and once they have been conned by the already above mentioned, feel disgruntled and apprehensive about using campaign brokers, especially if they had been shafted with a upfront fee!
When selecting a campaign broker, first test then, ask why are would they be asking for a upfront fee to start with? How do they justify it, what will your center get out of it? Press and push them and never ever take on a project in hast! If they don’t like this, walk away!
I always advise all my clients when it comes to selecting a campaign broker, to ask the broker to put their money where their mouth is! If they want a fee, thats fine as long as it based on the performance that a center is getting. Never ever pay a fee up front, as you are the one that is doing the campaign broker a favor, not the other way round.
Also test the campaign broker on how knowledgeable they are about the campaign, is the broker so knowledgeable about what they are providing they could actually be an agent on the campaign as well, if not walk away.
Also ask the campaign broker what happens after the campaign is running, do they walk away or offer help, advice and free consulting, if not walk away because this crucial and sometimes even through your best efforts, a campaign can start to go south, a great campaign broker should be able to show you how to turn it round for you.
If you run a call center and require free help and advice, my door is always open and I hope this article has been of help. After all an excellent campaign broker should not be there to grab your money and run, or only look after their clients interest, they should be protecting the call centers interest too.
A few weeks ago, I found a posting at LinkedIn where call center agents got searched, which even not need to speak with the called person. As I did not understand how it should work, I have been interested in this kind of job, but I did not get any reply.
Three days ago I have found a posting in the group "Campaigns Outbound & Inbound" with the title "Lead Generation with Avatar Technologies":
Lead Generation under $5.00 per hour
No other BPO company can generate as many live transfers or set appointments at the cost or the quality that we can. Avatar's software enables our agents to convert prospects into potential sales, while giving our clients the benefit of cost effective...
I have been thinking that $5/hour are too less for offering call center work. For this I have commented this posting with my opinion:
It is like everywhere in the world you get for what you pay for. The agents are the capital of the call centers. Like it is everywhere usable are getting better agents a higher monthly salary than not so good agents.
My comment:
Call centers at the Philippines, a low wage country, are usually paying for their agents around US$ 1.20 (rural area) and US$ 3.80 (metro area) per hour. Quality centers have agents, which are earning an hourly wage between US$ 3.65 and US$ 6.80 depending on their performance.
Agents, who are earning too less money, are taking a second job to survive. The result is that they are coming already tired to their work and are not able to give their best. Everybody needs even at the Philippines at least US$ 455 per month for living (that is an income of around US$ 3/hour).
Think about it, which quality you’ll get, when you are reading such an unbelievable offer, where even the broker or the consultant likes to earn money. You can be sure, that you are not hiring the best agents for this price.
This time I got a reply from Ted Nehls, he calls himself to be Executive Vice President of Intelligent Virtual Agents from the area of New York City and surroundings:
Rudolf,
Thank you for your reply to Lead Generation under $5.00 per hour. Avatar uses technology to ensure the sales pitch is 100% accurate 100% of the time. Unlike traditional voice agents which you are referring to in your posting, an Avatar agent doesn't need to speak all they simply need to do is press the correct soundboard button at the correct time. 97% of Avatar customers not only have increased their Avatar team size they have also hired more US based agents to handle the leads generated for them.
When it comes to lead generation a small investment in Avatar will go a long way.
Thank you,
Ted
A few years ago we have tried to implement a similar system for an Austrian Satellite TV company, which had the problem of finding agents, which are speaking German, French, Spanish and Polnish. Happily we tried it only and compared the result against the real call center agents. The result has been disastrous. We made with such a system only around 23% from the leads, which have been made by the real agents. Even the telemarketer, which had the worst German pronounciation sold more, then the system with the prerecorded messages from professional speakers.
If you are speaking with somebody, then you are observing their behaviour and their sound during your talk. On the phone you have only the sound and cannot see your behaviour. Good telemarketer are choosing their sales strategy by observing the whim of their customers. They are even able to make the whim of the customer better by making some jokes for making a sale. All situations during a sales pitch cannot get foreseen and for this you cannot make a a prerecording for them.
On the other side, the recordings are getting played from a soundboard, which is getting handled by humans. If the employees are tired, because they need to have an additional job to survive, they will make failures by handling the soundboard. So the system of Avatar seems to have a lot of problems by generating leads.
It is like everywhere in the world: "You get this for what you are paying for".
A very good description about the NEGATIVE IMPACTS from a robot gives Tom Pulmones from Linkedin:
Utilizing a specific number of lines based on a standard script, agents are confined to only a few responses and even fewer ways of conversing with customers over the phone. This limitation to a telecommunicating agent is crippling. The basic skills that an agent develops through experience at a call center are proficient oral communication, conversational spontaneity and call handling skills. Having a few buttons to press cuts down these skill sets to a zero and seals away the chances of an agent to grow and develop himself in the field of communications, which is the no.1 capital of a call center agent. As a result, the agent of a non-voice call center will be stuck with the non-voice skill sets with no opportunity to grow out.
In terms of Operational Costs, paying for non-voice agents who use dual-dialers cuts the BPO’s operational costs by half, at the same time cuts the quality of calls by a larger percentage. Also, this is unfair to the agents who are paid for less than ¼ of what the client is paying for their hours and yet they work for and are paid for as TWO people.
Source: LinkedIn group Call Center & BPO World
A few days ago, I got at LinkedIn a comment from Richard T. at my post about making fair business between campaign brokers and call centers. Richard T. seems to be such a broker or consultant, which feels himself attacked by my posts. He seems to be afraid about losing his golden business. He calls himself to be a "Senior Accounts Executive at BlueStar Marketing".
He has written: "Fair Business" LOL,what planet are you from? Your evaluation of risk is shallowly determined.It only takes into consideration finance.The biggest risk I take in my dealings goes far beyond immediate financial risk.When brokering a deal I am risking reputation as well.My reputation is priceless.Whats fair is what ever you contractually agreed to.The word FAIR is very subjective Sir.When we negotiate a contract we are evaluating risk to reward and trying to find a settlement that works for both parties.Some times it just doesnt work.Trying to create a universal agreement based from your bias perspective is very cute but very naive in the real world.For what its worth,I do find your posts entertaining.I also think your proposal can be fair but you must remember that fair is subjective and unfortunately an oxymoron when placed besides business......."
It seems that he has a reason to hide himself in the anonymity of the internet. His domain bluestarmedicalsupply.com is hidden by a proxy service and his toll free phone number 1-855-328-2317, written at the homepage cannot get found by a reverse lookup.
alexa.com says about the bluestarmedicalsupply.com: We don't have enough data to rank this website.
worthofweb.com gives a value of $102 for the domain bluestarmedicalsupply.com
google gives for bluestarmedicalsupply.com a pagerank: 0/10
Google lists only 12 links to the site bluestarmedicalsupply.com. All of this links are only about valuing the site ranking in a different way. There is not one relevant link, which can be used for a reputation.
I did not find one positive or negative comment about Richard T. and his website bluestarmedicalsupply.com. Only his comment at my post here at LinkedIn destroys his own reputation and makes him untrustworthy.
The only question is now: About which reputation is he writing in his post? I did not find any reputation about him. The one recommendation, which is listed in his profile, can be coming from a good friend too.
LinkedIn group posting
Recently I got a message, where I got asked: "Are not all scammer from ..... and ........?"
My answer has been very simple: You’ll find in each country good and bad people. Each country has jails with prisoners in it. The only difference is that countries with bad economics have a higher criminal rate. Depending on the size, the population and the economic situation of the country, you’ll find more or less scammers in it. In every life, whether animal or human, the survival instinct is the strongest one. Only some are thinking that they have found an easy way to get what they need by being lazy. You find this kind in the world of humans and animals.
For this reason don’t bash against a country. Be respectful to each other and don’t let some religious differences stand between you. There are some many different rules for showing respect as countries or areas are at the world, that nobody can know them all. For an example are even the greeting procedures different. In Europe is it usable shaking hands. At the Philippines the younger one takes the hand of the older one and leads his hand to his own forehead. Such a behavior is in Thailand impossible, there each one put his palms with their fingers at chest level close to their body and bows slightly. As higher the hands are placed as higher as more respect is shown. To touch the head of another one is in Thailand the worst case. For the Thais is the head considered sacred and must be respected.
How to identify scammer by using free tools