Distress in Globalization

Global businesses aren’t just concerned with gaining enough revenues and making it to the top, the competition now has fallen on the capability to stay afloat with the stiff competition and the downfall of the global economy. With the help of modernized technology and super computers, business have expanded and developed faster and faster every day.

BPO or Business Process Outsourcing has become one of the few reasons why businesses across the globe have become competitive. Having a virtual call center from a professional and trusted BPO company is your answer to the questions about making it through a globally competitive business world, with a fraction of a cost. You will be able to give your customers the kind of service they deserve plus not burn a whole in your pockets.

Having the aid of a call center is not new; it just evolved into something more beneficial and advanced. Call center services has become the secret of leading businesses, it allows the company to operate in a systematic and smooth manner without the determined costs and payments. It is still a popular plan for emerging businesses with $85 Million of investments. And because of this, there are many who are going into battle with more skilled and proficient call center agents. The proof of this ever popular method is in the way virtual call centers are popping up everywhere.

But the number one reason why the strategy is popular among businesses is the way it reduces the actual spending of money by companies. Outsourcing means not having to pay for an additional room in the company building, hiring new people and buying new equipment. Outsourcing has become popular in countries like India and the Philippines because costs of operations are actually cheaper and there is a steady pool of workforce.

The number of people who are equipped with skills and talents for a call center job are surprisingly huge in these countries. And this is actually a positive thing for big businesses and companies. Handling the multiple tasks of running a business is no easy feat, and you cannot simply ask someone to do all those things. Call centers do all this for you, they hire professionals that have knowledge and skills to address the issues you have to your company. They will be trained and taught how to handle your clients and to give them the best customer service they deserve. Not only that, they will also be in-charge of lead generation and sales for your products. By hiring a virtual call center, it eases your worries about the troubles that come with running a company.

Retain Motivated Entry-Level Employees

One of the most difficult challenges facing HR departments are recruiting and retaining motivated entry-level employees. This is particularly true for companies that operate virtual call centers and customer service centers. In this article I will discuss a 4-step process that will help you recruit and retain motivated entry-level employees.

Defining your job opening is the first step in recruiting motivated entry-level employees. By defining your job opening, you will be able to write a better job advertisement, which will lead to recruiting better performing employees. The questions you need to ask include: What is your company trying to accomplish with this position? What job duties will this employee perform on a daily basis? What performance level defines success in this position? What performance level defines failure in this position? What skills are required for quality job performance?

What is the personality type of an employee that will be a top performer in this position? When defining your job opening, talk to employees at your company who are top performers at this position and ask them what makes them successful at their job. Also ask them what type of person you should be looking for when recruiting new employees. Your current employees will provide you with valuable insight into both defining your job opening and in determining the type of person that will be successful at that position.

Once you have clearly defined your job opening and the traits that lead to high job performance, you are ready to write your job advertisement and start marketing it to job seekers. In order to recruit highly motivated, entry-level employees, you must write an outstanding job advertisement. Understand that the purpose of your job advertisement is to attract targeted job seekers. Your job advertisement is a marketing tool and should be written as one.

Now that you have a pool of applicants that have applied to your job advertisement, you need to determine which applicants to interview. This is the stage where most hiring mistakes are made because we still tend to hire with our heart instead of with our head. To help solve this problem, have applicants take assessment tests to test for skills and personality (i.e., personal motivation) associated with high job performance within your specific industry and job category. Assessment testing provides you with an unbiased means to filter out applicants that do not have the skills and/or personality profile necessary for high job performance. Applicants that receive high scores on assessment tests are the candidates that should be considered for interview and possible hire.

It is unfortunate, but companies do a lousy job of retaining their high performing employees. When a great employee says they are leaving, what steps do management and HR take to try and keep that person? Usually very little. Instead of asking the employee what it will take to persuade him or her to stay, and then doing what it takes to keep that employee, we start writing a job ad to find a replacement before the employee's seat is cold. Normally, what it takes to retain your high performing employee is far less expensive than recruiting and training a replacement. Therefore, do whatever it takes to retain your high performing employees.

Considering the time, effort and money involved in hiring new employees, it makes smart business sense to hire and retain motivated employees. This is especially true with entry-level positions where turnover and training costs are high as in the virtual call center industry. Motivated employees have higher job performance, they respond better to training and they remain with a company longer. This in turn increases job performance while lowering future recruiting and training costs due to lower turnover. To see the positive impact of hiring motivated employees, look at your company's star performers. I bet they all have one personality trait in common—they are all highly self-motivated.

The second part of this strategy is that once you have hired motivated employees, do everything you can to retain them. Understand that employee retention is primarily a management issue. Motivated employees stay at companies where management makes them feel good about themselves and good about the job they are doing. Compliment and reward your employees when they perform well. Tell them they are important to the success of your company. Build a career path for motivated employees and advance them within your organization because if you don't, your competitors certainly will. Realize that your company is only as good as its employees. Therefore, give your company the best opportunity for success by hiring and retaining the best people--highly motivated people.

Integrating Workforce and Quality Management

The centrality of customer satisfaction is a given in today’s ultra-competitive environment. However, the focus on service quality in contact centers slows behind the rest of the business world because these organizations were developed primarily to serve customers in a cost-effective way. Even today, contact centers have become familiar with complex quality management systems designed to drive customer service but have yet to achieve the right balance of efficiency and service quality.

And so at first, contact centers focused on KPIs such as average call handle time (AHT), agent occupancy, agent adherence and efficiency of resources. Agents were evaluated on speed rather than building their company's relationship with customers, and management lacked a complete picture of their contact center’s performance.

Integrating QM and WFM Systems

On the surface, integrating service quality and efficiency may appear to present a conundrum. Efficiency requires speed, but service quality demands more time to understand and meet the customer’s needs. When the principles of cost control still likely to predominate and return the focus to efficiency, so how can contact centers reconcile the two? The best way involves integration of workforce management (WFM) and quality management (QM) systems used by contact centers to drive both efficiency and service quality.

The Areas of Integration

Here are some key areas open to integration between WFM and QM systems:

*Forecasting

*Integration of call classification data, call volume trends and improvement programs avoids unnecessary and repeat calls by enabling increased accuracy within a fluid, changing and more effective contact center environment.

*Scheduling

*Through integration of skill levels based on QM evaluation of agents, the WFM system can be used to schedule more skilled agents for complex call requests.

*Quality Measurement

*Integrating agent schedules with the QM system helps supervisors choose the best calls for evaluation.

*Allocating Training

Often, QM training is scheduled with little regard for the agent’s other commitments or changing service levels during the course of the day. As a result, agents may be penalized for lack of adherence during training, or for failure to improve if they skip the instruction. Training can automatically be scheduled at appropriate times by integrating the two systems – giving agents input to improve their skills without negatively impacting WFM service levels.

Eventually, each organization must determine the best way to retain and grow its customer and revenue base while keeping expenses in check. An integrated view of all drivers will prove essential for management to make informed decisions in this area.