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The Benefits of a Virtual Call Center

What do these companies all have in common: Kodak, eBay, Coca-Cola, Pizza Hut, Hilton, Apple Computer, U-Haul, 1-800-Flowers, Cruise.com, Convergys, Level3, SalesForce.Com and JetBlue?  The answer is they all use virtual call centers.

In today’s economic climate, businesses are trying to cut costs while improving their customer service. But, how do you add call center staff without expanding your existing facility?  These days more companies are relying on virtual or web-based call centers.

What is a Virtual Call Center?

A virtual call center operates just like a traditional brick-and-mortar call center however the company’s representatives are geographically dispersed.  Rather than working in cubicles at a call center facility, virtual call center employees can work in groups at a number of smaller locations, or often they work right in their own home office.

Employees enjoy this arrangement because the hours are usually flexible, there’s no dress code to follow and they save time and money by not having to commute.  American commuters spend an average of 51 minutes getting to and from work each day.  Imagine having an extra hour each day.  No wonder employees enjoy virtual call center work.

Companies benefit from this model because it saves the costs associated with a building (rent, insurance, electricity, taxes, security, etc.) while improving employee morale and lowering employee turnover rates, which tend to be high for traditional call centers.

The tools used to monitor the employees are the same whether the employees are all in one location or spread across the country.  All calls can be monitored and recorded.  Wages can be easily calculated by totaling the talk time from the calling logs.  Training can take place using virtual desktop meetings.  Virtual or traditional it comes down to this; the quality of the job will depend upon the quality of the people.

Permanent Headcount vs. Contractors vs. Outsource

The question most people ask is “Should I add permanent staff, outsource or hire contractors?”  There are good reasons for each of these options. 

If your business is fairly stable and you’ll need the staff year-round you should probably hire permanent employees.  One of the best ways to start with virtual call center employees is to reward your best performers by allowing them to work at home.  You may be surprised to find their productivity actually increases.  They’re happier.  They don’t have a commute.  And you’ve recognized and rewarded their hard work.  They’ll work harder to maintain the privilege of working at home.

If your business is cyclical, you expect a downturn or you only need the staffing for a short period of time then you should probably hire contractors.  Changing staffing levels with contractors is much less painful than with full-time staff.

If you need specialized services, like lead generation or appointment setting, you may want to consider outsourcing. 

Benefits of a Web Based Call Center

While flexibility and affordability are the top two benefits of using a virtual call center, easy access to systems via the Internet, employee satisfaction and availability of industry and technical experts are also key benefits.

Cost savings is clearly a huge benefit. Not only are you saving on the facility and associated costs, but also if you’re outsourcing it means you are only paying for the resources you’re using.  While you may be able to save a few dollars outsourcing to an offshore facility, most companies have found that outsourcing to a U.S.-based companies with U.S.-based representatives is a more productive option.

Today’s web-based CRM/Call Center technology is another huge benefit. No matter where your reps are, they have access to the same systems via the Internet. No sending software to load onto computers then having to troubleshoot when it doesn’t load properly. You simply give reps access credentials and they are up and running. And it doesn’t matter if you have two reps or two hundred the systems are generally scalable to meet any company’s needs; making your call center as small or as large as you need it to be.

Geographically dispersed employees allow for industry specialists to be hired providing the most experienced reps for your company’s needs. Whether your hire permanent employees, contractors or outsource to a vendor, there are industry experienced, professional people available across the U.S. And you won’t need to pay relocation costs!

With a plethora of web savvy people and easy to use interfaces training time is kept to a minimum helping reps become more productive in less time.  A rep working from home increases job satisfaction leading to less turnover. This is a win-win for both employer and employee.

Features to Look for When Choosing a Virtual Call Center Service

First and foremost, you’ll want a look for a service that offers specialists in your industry. You wouldn’t want to hire medical experts to represent your real estate business. Do your research and find a vendor with experience in your industry. Your business can only benefit from having the most experienced talent on the phones.

Second, search for a call center solution that offers a full array of services.  For example, if you need help finding sales leads and setting appointments, look for a virtual call center that provides services such as account profiling, appointment setting, audience acquisition, channel development, market analysis, market segmentation, inside sales, lead generation and lead nurturing. This will allow you to get a wide range of services from a single vendor saving you time and money.

And finally, be sure to choose a call center that is scalable to your business.  Today you may need a little help; tomorrow you may need a lot more.  Select a vendor that can scale up and down as needed.

In choosing to use a virtual call center for your company’s customer service needs, you’re investing in the people, not in a building. This will make a world of difference in your ability to offer professional customer service at a reasonable cost.

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For a free demo, visit www.telax.com Capture some astounding benefits in cloud computing with Telax Hosted Call Center, a solution that’s remarkably simple and utterly flexible! Your agents can learn to use the applet in under 20 minutes and can log in from anywhere! There’s no more hardware which means no more headaches and a cap on boundless maintenance costs. With Telax you secure peace of mind that’s gained by cost certainty and a partner that is 100% accountable. For more information please visit our website at www.telax.com

See how Avaya contact centers can give customers the answers they need and agents the freedom to work from anywhere.
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Contact Centers Avaya Commercial

Inbound Call Center reduces operational cost of clients

Call Centers in India provide services to their International Clients through Inbound Call Center activities. These activities include Order taking, Customer services, Help desk support, dealer locator, Event Registration, Inbound appointment scheduling, and many other related activities. These activities are based on clients’ requirements.

Inbound Call Center works in unison with their clients to offer the best inbound call center solution to their respective clients. Inbound services are customized to meet the requirements of the client after drafting them as per customer specifications.

It is the unique ability of the call center to provide efficient services to their present clients, thereby enhancing their customer base. It is through efficient and timely delivery of services as per client’s specifications that Inbound Call Centers build a larger client base, by generating fresh clients and retaining past clients. Loyalty and hard work are two such aspects that make Inbound Call Center achieve their goals.

Inbound Call centers through their large pool of qualified, fully trained, web enabled and sale-focused inbound call center agents and skilled manpower tend their customers with care and attention and focus on providing up to date customized services that fit in organization.

The Inbound call Center services do not aim only at keeping their clients’ satisfied but also provide its services to satisfy the customer’s needs and requirements.

There are many attributes to providing efficient Inbound Call Center services. These include professionals to provide quality phone, email and chat support.

• One manager for one client to offer services exclusively for that client

• Inbound Call centers have regular meetings with the clients regarding feedback on campaign performance.

• They provide multilingual facility to the client to generate higher customer base.

• A regular supervision under quality assurance team ensures highest standards.

• A separate group of analysts deliver on-time reports with absolute accuracy.

• Up to data call handling, call monitoring and performance monitoring system that ensures highest productivity in least possible time.

• Inbound call Centers are equipped with an Infrastructure to support as many clients as possible without compromising on the quality of work.

These are some of the points that any efficient Inbound Call Center will take care of to deliver their services as per client’s specifications. Through all above facilities Inbound Call Centers aim to reduce operational cost for their clients.

Inbound Call Center increase revenue and ensure greater retention

A call center is one which handles inbound or outbound calls or a combination of the two, through their trained executives.

An inbound call center is one that handles inbound calls, exclusively. These inbound calls are answered as per the needs of that specific client.

Inbound call centers require a well defines advanced network and infrastructure, large client base, efficient staff and great retention capacity. Efficient Inbound call centers involve sophisticated interactive voice response systems, well-equipped internet services, teamed with dedicated trained staff to provide success to Company’s call center services.

Inbound call centers employ cutting edge technology by regulating calls for specific period of time and providing superior technology through efficient and trained staff.

Inbound call center services are customer specific and are provided within the guidelines and framework of specific clients. Although these activities are under the strict guidelines of the client, yet they are drafted by the trainers to get proper response. Trainers are appointed to train executives so that they are able to meet the Clients’ specifications and Inbound call center objectives.

Contact managers are those intellectuals who regulate the working of inbound call centers to meet specific requirements of individual client. All inbound call center services are highly integrated services as they involve a network of activities where each activity is intertwined with each other.

Client provides specifications to Contact managers. Contact Managers draft guidelines involving both client and trainers. Trainers provide training to the executives. Executives provide services to clients’ customers by providing them accurate solutions. The performance and efficiency of services provided by executives is judged by the contact managers and trainers, to maintain the quality of services at every end. All these activities together contribute to maintenance of quality standards of inbound call center activities.

As Inbound Call Center activities are customer specific, therefore the services provided to them should be more than accurate, then only an inbound call center will be able to provide customized services to their client.

Unbeatable knowledge, flexibility, and expertise, are the three main factors that contribute to the success of an inbound call center.

Realize More Sales With Outbound and Inbound Call Center Contractor

Growing companies as well as companies who want to increase their growth are turning to customer relationship management strategies to reinforce their marketing initiatives. To achieve the best results in the shortest period of time, many businesses are hiring an outbound and inbound call center contractor to design a custom solution for their communications with the buyers.

While the essence of a customer care program is to resolve support issues, manage information and promote a company’s brand, the personnel and technology required to make it possible can be complex and time-consuming to configure properly. It’s essential to hire a call center contractor who is knowledgeable in communication systems as well as being experienced in employing program managers, teams of live operators and account representatives.

In addition to the telephony equipment that routes customer calls on your toll-free numbers, there are many companies who employ a call center contractor to enhance their Internet operations. Your success is directly linked to the success of call centers experienced personnel and the technical communication solutions it employs.

The quality assurance program of your company reflects your respect for your customers. At the same time, you want to your business to achieve the best results from direct marketing efforts as well as increase the level of comfort and confidence of your customers. Using both telephone and web-enabled methods of interacting with consumers gives your company different ways to collect data that can be used to improve your product or service delivery.

The inbound and outbound call center contractor also plays a vital role in ensuring that your customer care specialists have the training and information that they need to provide accurate and timely information for the most complex programs. The most efficient call centers can offer your business a team of professionals that deliver personalized call management by being fully acquainted with your communication procedures to work as a department of your company rather than an independent firm.

Because of the variety of systems available, it is important to consult with an outbound and inbound call center contractor to determine which is best for you. Many businesses that manage telephone advertising campaigns need call centers that use automated systems such as interactive voice response or advanced speech recognition. These are usually coupled with call routing techniques that ensure high end resolution.

When you want to use a call center to implement your marketing solutions you need skilled professionals whose services are available around the clock to meet the needs of the international market. The outbound and inbound call center contractor should be able to facilitate every aspect of the communication process with an understanding of specific needs of different sectors such as education, healthcare, financial services, entertainment, publishing or insurance.

These professionals can be of invaluable assistance in helping your company make use of competitive marketing techniques and tools to meet your profit target. Developing a telemarketing call center solution for your company requires a comprehensive strategy to not only increase your customer base but provide them with a positive interactive experience with your business.

Call Center Software

To increase the productivity, a call center needs to operate very effectively and efficiently. To achieve this, there has to be lots of integration in the functioning as there are huge amounts of data that need to be monitored. Call center managers rely on lots of web-based tools for monitoring the performance of their staff. What if you can get everything in a single package and you are not required to depend on lots of individual tools anymore? It will be great and will also save time and effort to collect data from various sources.

Mekashron Call Center Software is such a package you are looking for. It provides everything from managing contacts, sending emails, SMS messages, and everything from unlimited numbers of on-site customer service workers to remote sales reps is catered for. Your staff will have everything on their fingertips. Our software drills down and analyzes your data in order to provide a true insight into all of your business processes. It provides a complete VOIP solution running on SIP. Your staff can manage thousands of calls to potential customers through hi-tech predictive dialer. It provides a complete history of any of your client’s data regardless of who has spoken with or emailed the client in the past. It has inbuilt email marketing feature to send out emails to millions of clients at the touch of a button. It provides an effortless database management enabling you to get access of wrong data. You can immediately take action to request for the replacement of data from your supplier. It provides powerful statistics and reporting feature. By using Mekashron Call Center Software you are in complete control of your business and your customer service. It satisfies all the attributes of good call center software.

So if you are going to set up a call center or are already running a call center, you must try Mekashron Call Center Software. You will definitely be benefited by the features it provides. Moreover, it is very easy to install, configure and setup. We provide you full support and assistance and are always available at your disposal.

Read the comments of our users and download the software here: Call Center Software

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Call Center Opportunities – Why You Want to Go Into the Business?

Multi-billion opportunity

According to Gartner, the worldwide market for customer service outsourcing is set to grow from .4 billion in 2004 to .2 billion in 2007, but the offshore component will remain small. Despite the hype surrounding offshore call centers, offshore customer service outsourcing represents less than 2 percent of the worldwide market in 2005, increasing to less than 5 percent in 2007.

Gartner reports that by 2007, about 80 percent of organizations outsourcing customer service and support contact centers with the aim of reducing cost will fail.

Despite these gloomy predictions, other analysts are predicting rapid growth of call centers in Asia Pacific. Frost & Sullivan foresees the number of call centers in 2006 to exceed 26,000, supporting 1.9 million-strong workforce. By 2011, it will mushroom to 40,000 manned by nearly 3 million agents.

Who wants to hire a call center?

Historically, a call center is a competition-driven internal response to provide better service or generate new sales opportunities. As businesses streamline operations and identify core opportunities, call center functions are outsourced to external providers for a number of reasons such as better utilization of internal resources, reduction of per unit call cost, increased focus on core competency.

There are two main types of call centers: consumer transactional-based systems, which lend itself to a lower cost location (and therefore readily outsourced); and the more complex interaction contact centers such as those that provide technical helpdesk services, which are generally kept in-house.

However, as improvements in technologies and processes take shape, businesses are turning to external call centers to provide everything from over-the-phone technical helpdesk support to helping execute lead generation and tracking campaigns.

The primary sources of business for call centers are the US, Europe and Australian markets. Companies from these countries outsource to Asia because of the perceived lower labor cost, improved computing/communication infrastructure, and the high level of English-language competency.

China, Korea and Japan represent sizeable opportunities for Asia’s growing call center market. However, language will be the biggest hurdle in serving the domestic markets as traditional call centers leverage English-speaking staff.

Transformation trends

Executive level managers must understand that the call center operation is a strategic element of a business and that the amount of time a call center agent spends with customers is greater than customer interaction by any other member of the organization, including sales people. The call center is therefore a critical element to the strategic success of the company.

There is a technology shift toward self-help systems. This automated interaction, enabled by interactive voice response systems, is as important as a live interaction and requires just as much focus to ensure positive customer experience.

“For many enterprises, the customer experience is the basis of competitive differentiation and the call center is at the heart of that experience. Empowered by IP-based solutions, next generation customer service practices are expected to undergo significant changes in such areas as matching the level of service to the lifetime value of the customer,” says Tom Cheong, managing director, ASEAN, Avaya.

Focus

Certainly, technology plays an important role in ensuring that campaigns are executed on time, on schedule and within budget. However, the customer should always be the focal point, whether the point of contract is through the phone, by email or via the web.

According to market research firm Gallup, lack of customer engagement influences customer attrition. Disengaged call center agents cost organizations millions of dollars in lost opportunities. Where customers rated their experience as much worse than expected, this equated to a loss of 15 percent of customers or .5 million in revenue.

Continuous training

Staff retention is a never ending issue within the call center industry. Having a well-rounded training strategy and program is tantamount to survival and success.

Ed Saldajeno, managing director of Alva Pacific Franchise, a thriving call center operator Philippines, reminds aspiring call center entrepreneurs of the importance of training. “Continuous agent skills training and development are critical to ensuring customer satisfaction.”

Dynamic, flexible organization

It is often said that as an organization grows in size, it becomes less and less nimble in the way it executes strategies. In a business that thrives on understanding peculiarities of individual customers, flexibility is key to success.

Peter Chai, country Manager, Southeast Asia, BT, suggests that: “Successful call center businesses have a proven ability to seamlessly ramp technology and agents up or down. They have use flexible commercial models that include risk and reward sharing, as well as utility-based costing. As competition builds up, building vertical expertise on existing service offerings will ensure sustained business relationship with clients.”

Location, location, location

The core elements of a call center are its people, and availability of appropriate communications service. A rural location may be cheap but if you don’t have a stable broadband connection, how will you do your business?

“Having good telecommunications infrastructure is important in a call center business. A lot of places in Asia currently do not offer stable and robust IP network infrastructure to support reliable center business. It is therefore important to identify the right location when setting up a call center business,” says Junie Pama, country manager for Five9 Philippines.

In the next issue we will cover the basics of setting up a call center based on discussions with existing call center operators in Asia. Look for this experience-rich feature in the March issue of Enterprise Innovation Quarterly Review.

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Call Center Software

“
The easy yet powerful way to manage your call center; implementing and using
Mekashron Call Center is straightforward – buy today and see your efficiency and
profitability increase tomorrow!”   
   
   
   
   
If you run a call center of any size… Mekashron Call Center is the solution you need!

  Do You!
 
 Run your own call center – large or small?
  
 Manage a corporate call center?
  

Whatever your call center responsibilities, Mekashron Call
Center could be the best single investment you ever make.
Mekashron Call Center gives you the COMPLETE call center software solution in a single package, transforming your call center into an efficient, well-oiled machine with YOU at the helm, in complete control.
If you’ve ever experienced the frustration of trying to run your call center with inadequate PC systems, or worst of all paper-based systems you’ll be familiar with the
problems of:

 Lost numbers, lost records, lost appointments.
  
 The inefficiencies of handing out paper-based lists to your telesales staff.
  
 Paying staff to retype information unnecessarily.
  
 
Lack of statistical information leaving you in the dark as to how your staff and campaigns are actually performing and unable to troubleshoot your operation.

  
Say goodbye to all of these problems and more with Mekashron’s time-saving and money-saving software, and benefit from:

 
Complete VoIP solution running on SIP, the new standard for digital telephony.
  
 
Seamless integration with your existing analogue systems.
  
 
Hi-tech predictive dialling, allowing your staff to manage thousands of calls to potential customers
with ease.
  
 Powerful statistics and reporting.
  
 
Automatically and effortlessly send out millions of voice messages, faxes, emails and SMS messages.
  
 
An incredibly easy-to-use central communication hub for your entire business, allowing you to telephone, email, fax or even SMS your clients and prospects – all at the touch of a button.
  
 Complete control over all of your customer data
  
 
The COMPLETE history of all of your business communications with any of your clients or prospects– accessible instantly regardless of who has spoken with or emailed the client in the past.
  
 The power to instantly pop-up customer data for your
staff before they make a call or pick up the phone.
  
 
An automatic dialing system and call list manager enabling your staff to make thousands of calls – quickly and efficiently.
  
 
Full control over the level of customer service, with complete audit trails of every time anyone in your company has been in touch with the client, including recordings of both outbound and inbound telephone calls.
  
 
Inbuilt mail merge functionality including address label printing.
  
 
Inbuilt email marketing powerhouse encompassing all of the functionality of expensive email-only programs – and more!
  
 
Full set of business templates from Invoices through to Shipping Labels – all of which can be easily tailored to your requirements and will be automatically customized for each client with NO extra effort.
  
  
At last, you will have complete control over every aspect of your call center data. You already know that contact data is one of your top expenses; with Mekashron’s effortless database management you will be able to:

  
 
Gain immediate access to reports that identify “bad” or duplicated numbers in your campaigns – and legitimately request replacement data from your data supplier.
  
 
As your staff work your lists using Mekashron, your data will be AUTOMATICALLY cleaned. This will give you complete confidence in your data, making it an invaluable resource that you can either sell or trade with a GUARANTEE that it is 100% clean and verified data.

  “Invaluable…” 
    
 
I have been using Mekashron
Business to manage my
business contacts and sales process for a year now and it is invalauble. Not only can I manage all the critical elements of my business without any stress or hassle, I get lots of extra sales that I would never otherwise tapped
into.
  U. Segel, Tel-Aviv, Israel
 
    
  “Successful Sales…” 
    
  I manage my sales department using Mekashron Call Center and compared to the other software packages we looked at it is definitely the simplest and easiest to use. Our telesales staff hardly needed any
training, they were up and running and making
calls with Mekashron the same day! We’re already seeing an excellent return on investment…
 J. Armstrong, California, USA 
    
  “Best Recommendation!” 
    
 Mekashron is my best
recommendation!
I love using this software and it has already been instrumental in expanding
my business. The Support and services are
absloutely second to none. Try it – you’ll like it!

 T. Klein, Haifa, Israel
 
    
    
   
    
    
   
 
  
  
Mekashron is powered with the very best and latest broadcasting technology, giving you the ability to manage millions of customers, sales and calls with ease, and freeing you completely from any constraints of how many customers you can service and how many staff you can effectively utilize.

With Mekashron, at last you have the power to be in complete control of your business and your customer service. Never wonder who said what to whom, or whether your staff are correctly representing your company to callers – with Mekashron you KNOW what is happening in your business and you have your finger on the pulse of your business at all times.
 

The easy yet powerful way to manage your call center; implementing and using
Mekashron Call Center is straightforward – buy today and see your efficiency and
profitability increase tomorrow!
The easy yet powerful way to manage your call center; implementing and using
Mekashron Call Center is straightforward – buy today and see your efficiency and
profitability increase tomorrow!

The easy yet powerful way to manage your call center; implementing and using
Mekashron Call Center is straightforward – buy today and see your efficiency and
profitability increase tomorrow!

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Aarkstore Enterprise-Global Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in Contact Center Software Market 2008-2012

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Contact Center application manages customer contacts, across all the touch points.
CRM software addresses the needs of marketing, sales & distribution, customer service & support divisions within an organization. It shares data among users about prospects, customers, partners, competitors, and employees. The purpose of CRM software is to manage the customers through the entire life-cycle, i.e. from prospect to qualified opportunity to order. The CRM applications include Contact Center, marketing automation, customer service, and analytic applications.
The CRM Contact Center application provides communication channels to customers; automates a wide range of individual & collaborative activities; and controls web activity for designing up-sell or cross-sell programs. These CRM contact center solutions balance the inbound and outbound communications, leaving no call unattended. In addition to cutting costs, improving agent efficiency, and maximizing the customer value.
The report by TechNavio Insights forecasts the market size of the worldwide CRM Contact Center application over the period 2008-2012. Further, the report discusses about segmentation of the total CRM Contact Center application market into various geographic regions. It also identifies the major market trends, drivers, and challenges existing for CRM Contact Center application.

Table of Contents : 
1. Introduction
2. CRM Contact Center Market Size & Forecast
3. Geographic Segmentation
3.1 CRM Contact Center Market in Americas
3.2 CRM Contact Center Market in EMEA
3.3 CRM Contact Center Market in APAC
4. Market Trends of CRM Contact Center
5. Sales Drivers of CRM Contact Center
6. Market Challenges for CRM Contact Center
7. CRM Contact Center Software Market Vendors
7.1 Astute, Inc.
7.2 Amdocs Limited
7.3 Chordiant Software, Inc.
7.4 eglue Business Technologies, Inc.
7.5 Microsoft Corporation
7.6 Pegasystems, Inc.
7.7 RightNow Technologies
7.8 Salesforce, Inc.
Other Reports in this Series
List of Exhibits
Exhibit 2.1: CRM Contact Center Market Size and Forecast 2008-2012 (In $ million)
Exhibit 3.1: CRM Contact Center Market Segmentation by Geography -2008
Exhibit 3.2: Americas CRM Contact Center Market Size 2008-2012 (in $ millions)
Exhibit 3.3: EMEA CRM Contact Center Market Size 2008-2012 (in $ millions)
Exhibit 3.4: APAC CRM Contact Center Market Size 2008-2012 (in $ millions)

For more information please contact :

http://www.aarkstore.com/reports/Global-Customer-Relationship-Management-CRM-in-Contact-Center-Software-Market-2008-2012-37644.html

http://blogs.aarkstore.com/

From:Aarkstore Enterprise
Contact: Neel
Email: press@aarkstore.com
http://www.aarkstore.com

The leading independent contact center software vendor for unified interaction solutions.
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