In call center outsourcing news, Sitel’s Don Berryman, general manager of the Americas, gave a recent interview where he discussed nearshore locations, expansion plans, the ideal employee, plus how to build a good team, according to the industry journal Nearshore Americas. Obviously this is of interest to those involved in call center outsourcing, since Latin America is an increasingly attractive area for the industry.

When assessing a country for call center outsourcing, Berryman said, “The single-most important element is the employable workforce. That they are smart and we will be able to have long-lasting relationships with them. We assess the infrastructure, stability of government, the ease to get in and out of the country.”

He noted that they can train employees for the job, but they look to hire people who “think well, handle client situations, work on computers, have good typing, have good comprehension skills, or a certain skill set like technical abilities.”

And it’s not just fluent English speakers they’re looking for, Berryman said, noting that bilingualism is important in some markets such as “in Nicaragua where most of our products are for English-speaking clients. We went into Colombia to support our Spanish offshore clients and we found that we could service a number of North American clients from there.”

Discussing the Latin American market overall, Berryman observed that most countries have limited resources, as opposed to call centers in India and the Philippines, but that “Nicaragua and Colombia are outstanding, Chile is a little different because of the tax structure and cost of doing business. A number of our competitors have moved to Peru. We are mostly serving domestic clients in Chile. In Panama we have about 4,400 employees. It is very competitive with a low unemployment rate.”

He said operating costs in Nicaragua and Colombia are good, adding to their attractiveness. “Things like rent and telecom are good. The infrastructure in Bogota is good and the mass transit system, Transmilenio, is great for our employees.”

When asked which nearshore countries offer the most favorable incentives and investment climate, Berryman explained that none really offer many incentives to come into the country, but “Nicaragua made it very easy to get established. We have been in Brazil for a long time. Colombia has a good business environment. Chile – if anything – has become a little bit more difficult over time. The strength of the labor unions makes it a little difficult. But the employment and people there are really strong.”

Source:http://call-center-outsourcing.tmcnet.com/topics/call-center-outsourcing/articles/203465-assessing-lat-america-market-call-center-outsourcing-options.htm

Companies with a global reach and keen focus on customer service have been known to leverage call center outsourcing business models to cost-effectively support a growing client base. While not all stories are rooted in happiness, those offered by Sitel generally have proven success stories that support the move to call center outsourcing.

As captured in this case study, Sitel partnered with one of the world’s largest direct sellers of personal computers in 2000.The two worked together to deploy a global sourcing strategy that called for call center outsourcing locations in the Philippines, India and the United States. The facilities offered high quality support for multi-channel technical and warranty issues, as well as IT management and hosting, IVR-based self help and faxback solutions.

This approach to call center outsourcing helped the personal computer seller to drive revenue growth, strengthen its brand, build customer loyalty and deliver operational cost savings as a result of the global sourcing solution. The results from this call center outsourcing initiative demonstrated the strength of the partnership and the effective reach Sitel has in the marketplace.

As a result of the call center outsourcing agreement with Sitel, this computer marketer has been able to increase its revenue per call by 100 percent in just three months; bring average handle time to 10 percent below target; reduce service costs by 70 percent with its up-sell strategy; increase customer satisfaction by 16 percent; increase customer issue resolution by 20 percent in a 12-month period; and honor Sitel with a quarterly vendor award recognizing globalization, flexibility, cost and quality three times.

In the call center outsourcing space, Sitel offers a unique service model to create business process outsourcing solutions that appeal to businesses throughout the global market. The company offers an integrated talented global workforce, proprietary and proven processes, as well as a world-class infrastructure.

There are three key components to the call center outsourcing offered by Sitel. First, the global sourcing element enables the company to select the best option for its clients from more than 135 centers throughout the world. The main focus in global sourcing is flexibility so that the most appropriate talent and skills are leveraged to fit the needs of the client.

Second, the company takes a global approach to standard operations. Sitel’s proprietary set of processes and methodology ensures the delivery of exceptional customer experiences. The company’s operating standard is focused on applying 32 years of experience supporting 2.5 million customer interactions a day to deliver consistent service every day for every client.

Source:http://call-center-outsourcing.tmcnet.com/topics/call-center-outsourcing/articles/201123-sitel-delivers-excellence-with-call-center-outsourcing-methods.htm

New York’s dBusiness News website has a useful list of points to keep in mind when looking for a call center outsourcing provider.

“Do they have the right technology?” This means financial soundness and the correct technology, as well as the ability, experience and institutional stability you’d expect from somebody you’re going to trust with such an important part of your business. As the article suggests, this should really be your starting point, not a later consideration: If a possible vendor fails this test that’s all you need to know about them, better find it out earlier than later.

“Are they helpful?” Don’t underestimate this one – especially for a call center, whose entire mission is to be helpful. As the article observes, if it is not helpful to you, chances are that it won’t be of much help to your clients either. How do you determine their level of helpfulness? As the article sates, check their management operations and talk to them to find out if they actually understand the nature of your business.

“Who is recommending them?” Again, don’t underestimate this one and don’t shirk this step as busywork or time-wasting. As the article says, when you talk to any VoIP providers, of course they’ll say they’re the best thing in the world, and of course you know what that’s worth. Get a much clearer picture by asking them for some recommendations. Yes, they’ll give you clients they know will give them a good word, but the key is to look for ones that are in roughly the same line of work that you are.

“What is their culture?” Visit the call center, look at the people working there – “are they smiling and relaxed? Or tensed and rushing? If the employees seem happy and helpful, this would be a good sign.” You do know, of course, that happy, satisfied employees are the #1 factor in happy, satisfied customers.

And as the article says, once you put potential vendors through these paces, you will “have a really thin list of VoIP call center companies. There will most probably be just one company that would satisfy all these criteria. Hire them.”

Source:http://call-center-outsourcing.tmcnet.com/topics/call-center-outsourcing/articles/199282-call-center-outsourcing-provider-selection-checklist.htm

It’s the end of another week, and it was a good one for call center outsourcing news. So sit back and relax, and let us recap it for you.

TMCnet’s Jamie Epstein wrote that while the call center outsourcing market in Europe continues to expand, users that have consistently looked at cost as the greatest benefit of outsourcing are now looking at other factors including high-quality and value-added services. A recent article from BusinessIntelligence Middle East said that industries, including the public sector, travel/hospitality and retail/consumer packaged goods, will all continue to show record growth from the period 2011 to 2017.

TMCnet’s Susan Campbell wrote that in the customer service space, it’s not uncommon for a company to deploy call center outsourcing as a means to reduce their overhead and ensure optimal customer service delivery. The concept of call center outsourcing can mean a number of different things, including partnering with a company that leverages at-home agents through a virtual call center or moving operations to a site offshore.

TMCnet’s David Sims wondered this week what intelligent Web engagement might look like. David summarized a new white paper on the topic by Sitel, a call center outsourcing provider, called “Sitel Intelligent Web Engagement: A Social Engagement Model for Incremental Return on Customer Investment.”

Said David, “Basically if you’re using social media to either attract or interact with you customers, you need to read this white paper. And if you’re not, well, you probably need to read it even more.”

Also this week, the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) announced the 2012 Outsourcing World Summit to be held February 20-22, 2012, at Disney’s (News – Alert) Contemporary Resort & Conference Center in Lake Buena Vista, Florida. The 15th annual summit will focus on the future of outsourcing, especially in the present scenario when the financial and economic crisis has reshaped and transformed the outsourcing industry.
AP Telecom, a facilities-based telecom consulting and service company that provides call center outsourcing and cable system management, this week revealed some significant milestones the company has achieved since it launched in January, 2011. To start with, the company has added leading brands in the telecom space as well as consulting services segment. They include several call center outsourcing contracts and ISP customer wins. Some of them include Guam Telecom, Wharf T&T, Global Telecom Solutions and an Indonesian carrier, company officials said.

On the expansion front, call center outsourcing services provider StarTek has announced it plans to open a new call center in Honduras later this year. This will be the fourth foreign contact center StarTek has opened since 2009. The company already operates two call centers in the Philippines and one in Costa Rica in addition to more than a dozen in the United States and Canada.

Finally, TMCnet’s Brendan Reed wrote that in researching and deciding on whether to go hosted or premise-based for key contact center components: IVR, dialing and routing, one of the best sources of information could be your call center outsourcing provider, especially if they offer hosted platforms for in-house contact centers in addition to live agent services. To learn more, TMCnet.com reached out to global BPO firm TeleTech, which supplies onshore – including at-home – nearshore and offshore plus automated customer contact and hosted solutions for enterprises.

That’s all for this week. Visit us again next week for another recap of all the news in call center outsourcing that’s fit to print.

Source:http://call-center-outsourcing.tmcnet.com/topics/call-center-outsourcing/articles/197467-tmcnet-call-center-outsourcing-week-review.htm

An ITES (Information Technology Enabled Services ) company, Faith Call Center, is offering business process outsourcing services. The company services can provide your business a lot of saving and also allow you to focus on your core business. Services provided at Faith Call Center also includes data entry services and software development services as well.

The spokesperson of the company said, “ Today, outsourcing is the order of the day. Business process outsourcing services hand over an entrepreneur certain advantages. More and more global companies are choosing to outsource today. By outsourcing your business, you can focus on core business activities, get cost savings, staffing flexibility, access to specialized services, competitive edge for business and so on.”

India has evidently become one of the ideal offshore places where you can outsource your business. Factors such as high-end technology, best-of-breed infrastructure and time zone edge have facilitated India in easily becoming the hub for offshore business processes outsourcing. Faith Call Center is one of the service providers with a flawless track record.

The spokesperson stressing on the advantages of the service added saying, “We can give you reasons why you should select us from Indian business process outsourcing companies. Faith Call Center assures swift response and precise solutions with a dedicated handling of customers in line with their requirements. We provide round the clock and all round the year customer service using only state-of-the-art technology. To ensure high accuracy and data security, every Faith Cal Center client is assigned a dedicated team. We assure all these and a rigorous and multi-tier quality control.”

Extensive training and constant quality monitoring at the company has produced highly competent staff guarantying high professionalism and efficient handling of any business. To know if the company can render your business with the most cost saving and efficient outsourcing service among various business process outsourcing companies, you can contact Faith Call Center and let them run a requirement analysis.

Source:http://www.onlineprnews.com/news/114636-1299740792-faith-call-center-offering-business-process-outsourcing.html