What can you sell? Who can get started and how?
Where do you get new ideas? Let’s consider a few things. If a man is sitting on a donkey facing the rear, why do we automatically think that it is the man who is backwards? Isn’t the donkey backwards? How about this? Is the best way to hear something is with your eyes? Because you have heard the sound of tinkling bracelets, when you see them, don’t sometimes imagine hearing them?
Some will look at an old bicycle and see either possible parts to repair other bicycles or mere trash. Pablo Picasso, a great Spanish artist, took the seat and handle bars of one, and welded them together into the head of a bull. He saw something that was not there in the eyes of other people.
The African American female inventor Grace Murray Hopper, was "Amazing Grace" to those who knew and loved her. Her mission was to make computers accessible to everyone. Without her vision that computers could be programmed in plain English and her invention of the first computer compiler, it is unlikely that many of us would be on the web today.
What is the point here? There is an infinite number of possibilities in opening call centers in Pakistan and making Pakistan THE CHOICE, but maybe we cannot see them right now. One out of every twenty readers of or listeners to this seminar clearly understand the possibilities available to the nation, the economy, the labor and even the individual entrepreneur.
Case Study 1: Case Study 2: Case Study 3: Case Study 4: Case Study 5 OBJECTIVE: Case Study 5 SUPER TECHNOLOGIES’ RESPONSE: Case Study 5 RESULTS
Maria Ramos of Houston, Texas has been buying refurbished computers at $50 each and reselling them on eBay.com and Half.com from $300 to $500 a piece. She also holds down a part time job in small business consulting. Her resale business has gotten so big that she had to analyze the situation and hire someone else to assist. Maria found Suchitra of Chennai, India who had skills that complimented her own. Suchitra could graphic-edit, web-edit, answer sales inquiries by email, chat or even phone, and relate to potential buyers in a very friendly, professional manner. Maria shipped one of those refurbished PC’s (ready to use with FrontPage, MSN chat, FTP, spreadsheets, and other software) a $99 router, and an Internet phone device for unlimited USA outgoing and incoming calling ($299 purchase with $99 per month flat rate) to Suchitra. Maria pays for Suchitra’s DSL service, approximately $40 US dollars/month (common range of DSL price is $20-$50USD/month).
Now, Maria has a “back office” in Chennai. She buys wholesale still, takes the pictures, and ships the product when auctions and buys close. Customers get immediate attention. Maria’s ROI and number of closed sales have increased tremendously. She has more time for other ventures.
What is in it for Suchitra? She has always been a night owl. She is most creative in the late evening, perfect timing for USA eBay customers. Her DSL service is paid for by Maria. Her new career provides new job experiences and the opportunity to improve her English language skills. The extensive research required on what is selling and what is not on eBay and how best to sell is supplying her with material for her Master’s thesis. She never has to leave her home for work. Plus she is making $75 more per month than she would have locally. It’s a win-win situation for all.
A large multinational cell Phone Company needs billing, MIS and customer care support. Its headquarters are in the USA where the local labor force cannot fulfill these positions lucratively. The employment must be flexible, multi-lingual, and savvy to technology and market change. The local cost of living puts wages at $15 per hour. High turnover in employment results in high costs for the company. They turn to third world countries for help. The cell phone company saw the value of the "discarded bicycle." In addition, now there are 50 agents improving their way of life intellectually and economically. They value their new jobs at the call center, where they are treated with more respect than they have experienced before, and they will not quit because of trivial reasons such as their USA counterparts would. Overhead for the host company is much lower. There are surprise issues that arise, but the positive aspects of the call center solution outweigh the problems.
A travel agency sees more and more of its clients needing service between 10 PM and 7 AM EST. They cannot find a qualified employment force willing to work overnight hours at an affordable pay rate. Half a world away lays waiting in its day time hours with the right skills and the desire to fulfill the travel agency’s customers’ needs. Just a PC, fast Internet access, the right software, an affordable VOIP solution for incoming/outgoing calls between the customers in Europe and the Americas and the beckoning call center on the other side of the world will get the show on the road.
A fashion outlet in a rural area of Alabama serves a diverse clientele that want unique ladies’ wear. Something different! In addition, this same clientele has been surveyed to find that they are increasingly now shopping online for shalwar kameez and saris. These clients are African, Anglo, Latin and Asian-American women with a taste for Persian and Indo-Pak styles. They are so bi-lingual Americans. Should the outlet continue simply offering discount blue jeans and t-shirts, or do they venture out of the box and try to meet these needs? How can they meet them? The outlet has the collateral and USA point of presence. Just a few Karachi families can complete made-to-order items sold through a web site and shipped directly to the customer. Bulk items can be shipped to the store. A call center can be set up in a spare area of one of the Karachi homes for customer service, billing, and sales. Internet access, a PC, and VOIP affordable long distance solution is put in place and bingo! The fashion outlet is the most popular ladies’ shop around. The Karachi residents have never been so busy in their lives. Profits sore for all involved. The clients are enthralled.
A large retail toy company began to sell merchandise through catalogs. They had developed both a multi-ethnic small-scale catalog and a science-technology for kids’ small catalog, but the company wanted to start marketing this new merchandise year-round, worldwide, not just during the holiday seasons. They needed a call center to handle what was predicted to be a huge increase in sales by phone volume from both the retail and wholesale catalogs.
This company was referred to Super Technologies from one of their current clients. They needed Super Technologies to help set up the call center’s telecommunications facet in the Middle East. Basically, one was needed that would balance cost reduction with customer satisfaction. This was a brave decision, to open a call center in an area where English was a second language; they were starting from ground zero in a country that was very new to call centers.
Following Super Phone long distance solutions since 1999, Super Technologies assigned a special marketing team to the company’s project. A customized long distance calling solution of Super Phone Unlimited (http://www.superphoneunlimited.com/ and http://www.virtualphoneline.com/ ) was chosen. Why? Unlimited incoming calls from anywhere in the world and unlimited outgoing calls to any USA phone number for a flat monthly rate, perfect! The center was set up with the local DSL service and DHCP-enabled router technology. The center started with five Virtual Phone Lines using the Super Phone Unlimited service. Area codes chosen were Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, New York City, and Detroit. Each had a 1800 number forwarded to them from our partners at http://www.kall7.com/. Incoming calls would be placed to the domestic USA number or the toll-free number by the customers.
Local managers hired in the Middle Eastern country implemented quality customer service, customized training (such as accent training) and monitoring to fulfill the company’s call center mission statement.
Before this solution, the company would never have dreamed of opening a call center in the Middle East, no matter how much was saved through reduced labor costs. Now, the unlimited incoming and outgoing calls on each phone line coupled with the reduced labor costs made this a realistic solution. Since the project began, the average revenue for each order has increased by approximately $40 per order (retail). The toy company has enjoyed a cost decrease of 15% and at the same time a revenue increase of 35%. The toy company has started with inbound sales at the call center. Within just a few months’ training of call representatives and a few additional purchases of equipment and software, they will add outbound cold sales.
Important web links
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/asia/july-dec02/telemarketing_11-05.html#
Dialing for dollars. A look at international source of telemarketing calls.
http://www.maair.net/
Offshoring
Maair Ventures : Outsourcing and Offshore Business Processing Solutions
http://www.sellingpower.com/
Zero cost articles on every topic imaginable for sales success.
http://www.callcentermagazine.com/
Technologies, services, and strategies for contact centers. Everything you need and more for success.
http://www.callcentermagazine.com/article/CCM20011204S0007
The smell of predictive dialing success.
http://www.callcentermagazine.com/article/CCM20021127S0002
Quality control.
http://www.ptcl.com.pk/call_center.html
PTCL position on call centers.
http://www.outsource2india.com/why_outsource/articles/call_centers.asp
Call centers: catalysts for corporate change.
http://www.erlang.com/forum/callcenter/
Share ideas on call center operations and engineering in this forum.
http://www.callcenterops.com/
Call center operations.
http://www.callcentrevoice.com
Call Centre Voice discussion forums.
http://www.callcentercareers.com/home.jsp
Call center careers.
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/
World time zones.
http://www.xe.com/ucc/
Universal currency converter.
http://www.supertec.com/
Innovative and cutting-edge VOIP solutions for call centers and back offices.
http://www.k7.net
Get a USA voice mail and fax number.
http://a4esl.org/q/h/
About 1000 self-study quizzes for ESL students. Free!
http://www.ebay.com/
Become an eBay seller with online auctions.
http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/famous.aspx
Famous USA places for more cultural literacy.
http://www.incoming.com/
Host of Incoming Calls Management Institute seminars and workshops.
http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/templategallery/
Templates for business documents.
http://www10.americanexpress.com/sif/cda/page/0,1641,15565,00.asp
Business articles and tools for success.
http://www.multi.net.pk
DSL in Karachi.
http://www.dsl.net.pk
DSL in Islamabad.
http://thecallcenterschool.com/
The Call Center School.
Creative Whack Pack. Roger von Oech. Copyright 1983. Creative Think, Menlo Park, California. (Excellent source of ways to think “out of the box.”)
Website Desingn
posted by Abdul Mannan @ 9:38 PM
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