Call Centers In India
This is one thing that has drove me nuts from the time that I have been here is call centers in India! I should have been in India about 5 years ago, I had my pass port and visa stamped and I should have been on my way.
Now here is the big reason that I did not go! It’s India I had seen the pictures and heard from a lot of other friends that it was not a place that I wanted to go but I do have one friend Bob that lived there for three years and said that he loved it but I did not think that it was for me.
There is a huge deference in the English in the Philippines compared to India but I will say that India is really good in IT.
Outbound Call Centers
Are you having trouble finding outbound call centers? What if I told you that you could get one for 7 dollars an hour USD? Unique Interaction is now offering prices better than any other call center in the Philippines!
When you are dealing with any outbound call centers in the Philippines you want to make sure that you are going to get your moneys worth and most important is the quality of the sale that you are getting.
We have ran a lot of outbound campaigns in the past four years so we know what we are doing in order to give you what you need to make your account work. We have the most advanced predictive dialer that is out there with great reporting and stats to make sure you know how well your team is doing.
Even better, we give your outbound call center a chance to really listen to your agents real time or even if you want barge there calls so that you know that they are doing the job that you paid us to do.
Without your reports, you would never know what is going on.
We are Unique that is why our name is Unique Interaction.
Call Center Outsourcing Damn you Obama
Obama is hitting some of the large corporations with making it harder to outsource but it sounds more like they are targeting India than any other country. Well from a lot of the news on TV and the internet, nothing really is said about the Philippines. I my eyes you are going to see a big growth in smaller business outsourcing than the big one’s because I think at the end of the day the tax break is not that important if its five to ten agents than hundreds.
The last couple of days its been all over the news about what Obama has said.
The US and many over countries are really getting leasing to call center outsourcing because it has been going on for many years now, I think Philippines really started around 1998 and India around 1990. For Obama to pass these laws they still say its going to be very hard to get approved and a lot of the outsourcing companies don’t seem to worry about it.
I did not vote and I with that I did and if I would have I would have voted for Obama because I believe he will make a change.
Other Countries Are Trying To Get Into The Business
I have been seeing a lot of different countries trying to get into the BPO business like Mexico, Kenya and China.
Now the problem that they have is that their English is horrible compared to the Philippines. I don’t know why their English is not good in these countries maybe the British? I guess that they are trying to go after the back end BPO like data processing but a lot of them are trying to do voice also which I think is a bad idea.
The big difference in the Philippines is that the US has been in this country for over a 100 years, you walk around here in the major cities like Ortigas, Makati, Cebu and Baguio you will see every store or fast food on every block. I don’t think that there is anything closer to the States as far as accent and American English.
I can sell the services all day long that we offer at Unique Interaction but at the end of the day I want to sell the Philippines and how good the English is.
Once you step outside Manila then you will start getting into where things are a little different than what you would see home and the way that they are running things.
Anything you can do I can do better
Headset Fashion
About a month ago, I have been buying headsets for the agents so that they would really take care of them because they own them and they can take them home to use. I got some nice ones that would fit in a small case and I noticed today that some agents are making them look COOOOOOL.
Hosted Dialer
I have really been looking into hosted dialers or hosting my dialers in the US instead or keeping them here in the Philippines because of not having to worry about the hardware and then also being able to host them in the States might improve the quality a little bit more.
I have also been looking at buying a commercial dialer and hosting it in the US to help improve the reporting of the dialer that we are currently using which is Vici dial. The problem that you have with buying a commercial dialer is the cost, Touch Star told me the other day that it was $1,000 dollars per seat and that’s only the licensing then you have server cost and dialogic cards and many more.
And there are many other commercial dialers out there
Back to a hosted dialer
I have heard about:
1. Touch Star - I think its a great dialer to sign up with for hosting a dialer but the problem is the cost is a lot, about 300 a month per agent plus 1.9 telco. Also set ups. This is a good dialer but its going to cost you and it still breaks like the other ones just cost a lot more.
2. Magnalogi - I sign up for this company, I talked to the VP of sales but found out he had no idea what he was selling, I would suggest not using this company. Cost looks good $150 per agent including telco for the first month second month is $250 per agent per month. I had a lot of problems and decided in 3 hours to cancel the account.
3. Hosted dialer - I just found this company and I think that they would rock, $190 per agent per month with telco. The nice thing about this is they will let you test it before you sign up, I believe for 3 days maybe one person. I talked to their person in sales and he knew what he was talking about, it made me feel a lot better about signing up with them after what I went through with Magnalogi. I think I could get them down to about $150 a seat with more seats.
I have seen some other hosted dialers but for now I just wanted to talk about these three, like I said go for hosteddialer.com because they put there money where there mouth is and let you test it first.
Small Call Centers Philippines
There has been a huge amount of large call centers in the Philippines that have been down sizing their staff or retrenchment agent because of the economic crisis in the US and through out the world, there has been some lay offs as much as 200, 400 and 600 at a time.
A funny thing is that there has been a boost in outsourcing for the small Philippines call centers, I’m not sure why but we are seeing a lot of the smaller call centers that might have been scared back when everyone thought the sky was falling but even at Unique Interaction we have seen about two new clients coming in every month for the last three months.
I’m not sure what the out look looks like for the bigger call centers as companies around the world are laying people off like crazy but it looks like the small call centers are going to be alright.
Call Center Seat Leasing
One of the things that helps a lot of new companies that are coming into the call center game or offshoring there operation in order to get the best outsourcing price out in the market is to look at call center seat leasing. This has been around for a couple years, started by some companies like Callworx and Uniuqe Interaction. If you are new to the Philippines its best to start off seat leasing and getting used to the Philippines and how everything works here. You will see a lot of call centers here coming out and setting up first instead of seat leasing and running into a lot of problems or even going out of business. This mistake could have been prevented if you started with seat leasing, because it lowers some of the risks just like dipping your toe in the water before you jump in the lake.
