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
Since I’m bashing against spammers and scammers, I get a lot of messages, which are sounding similar. Today morning I got this message from India:
I am in process of setting up call center and has been discussing various business opportunities with the brokers. Everyone asked for upfront consultancy fees and their responsibility ends with the SLA signed up with the business client. I found it too much risky and when I questioned this process and suggested alternate business modes like you mentioned monthly royalty fees or consultancy fees after one month billing cycle or even asked for bank guarantee but none of these brokers has shown interest and were not ready to proceed further.
At the end I am happy that i didn't proceed as one of known contacts has wasted their time and money both with the broker.”
Brokers, I’m not your enemy, but if you are continuing like you have done it until now, you are destroying your own business! You need to do something against the black sheep’s (spammer, scammer and other criminals) in your branch. Even your best and largest customer can run into bankruptcy. How you will survive if you are getting rejected from other centers, because you are scamming the same way like others?
Call centers, I cannot help you with campaigns, because I’m not a campaign broker. A few days ago one contact from Spain has asked me, if I know a Spanish speaking call center. I have forwarded the contact data of the only Spanish speaking call center, which I have known at this time, which is based in Guatemala for free. I even don’t know if they are making or have made a contract. I can only recommend you to speak and help each other. Together you’ll be strong and this kind of brokers, which like to draw only money from you. It is better to earn nothing than to pay for nothing. As soon they are not able to sell campaigns on the way they have done it until now, the real brokers will accept your rules in making business.
Brokers and people, who are calling themselves to be “Consultants”, try to sell something to you. For this they are promoting their campaigns.
I think everybody knows already what promotion is and that promotion tries to make something better than it is and hiding the vulnerabilities. Good marketers are even able to make from the vulnerabilities of the product to an advantage for their victims (buyer).
If you are a newcomer, then think about my words and read the offers from campaigns with the critical eye of a consumer and think about it, that you are reading only a promotion. With the help of telemarketing mostly low quality products are getting sold for an exorbitant price. Good and usable products are getting sold inside of shops.
- Campaigns which are sounding too good to be true are SCAM.
Don’t look only at the money, which is promised. Think about it, that you cannot get more commission than a percentage of the sales price.
- As higher the proposed winnings per sale are, as harder will it be to sell the product. Nobody pays more than it is seems to be necessary for him.
- A serious company will give you all the necessary information and arguments, for selling their products. Compare their products with similar products for getting more information what are you selling and about the competitors.
- A serious company will provide you data for calling. They are able to make a better selection for their future customers then you. Data from other call centers are already many times used and for this it will be harder to sell something.
- Make a test drive by speaking with some people of the target customer base, if such a product is interesting for them and how high they would rate the proposed product.
- If you after all this unsure about the product, than offer only an hourly billing to the broker or consultant.
- Ask if you get a phone number provided by your customer, which you can use as caller id.
- Don’t register a phone number by yourself, because in this case you are getting the fraud complains and the fines from the telecom regulatory, for which is your customer responsible. You are working only for him. Fees from the local telecom regulatory can get executed internationally.
- If you shall make anonymous calls, then you would very seldom reach somebody. Very much people are not answering anonymous calls by suppressing even from ringing of their phones.
Don’t forget that you are doing the work and you should get paid for it. Don’t pay anything that you can get a contract. Contracts, which should be international valid, need to get signed in front of a notary and need to get legalized by the government of the involved countries. This procedure is not really cheap, but it is necessary in the case of a fail and one party likes to bring the other one in front of the law court. International contracts, without a confirmation of a notary and without legalizing them, have no value. The legalization process only confirms that the document has been signed in front of a legal and public notary. The last instance for legalizing a document is the ministry for foreign affairs. Your rights cannot get executed in another country without all the confirmation of the ministry for foreign affairs all involved countries.
How to identify scammer by using free tools