by Chlei Von Garcia | Aug 7, 2023 | Industry Knowledge
Outsourcing is a common practice among startups that are scaling. It’s also a topic that many startup founders and CEOs need help approaching.
In this article, we’ll discuss the role of outsourcing plays in helping in startups, the different types of outsourcing you should consider, and how to find the right providers for your business.
1. Cost Savings
Cost savings can be one of the most compelling reasons to outsource. Small businesses may find investing in hiring, onboarding, and training new employees challenging, as it can be a significant financial burden. Startups, especially those still in the early stages of growth, have limited resources and time. The added expense of a new hire’s salary can be felt for a prolonged period and may even hinder the company’s ability to recruit someone with the necessary skills full-time.
With outsourcing, your business not only stands to do away with tedious and time-consuming tasks that are not central to satisfying your clients; but can also cut at least 70% of your labor costs; according to OutsourceAccelerator, Your startup has various options to consider for outsourcing, including information technology, manufacturing, creative, and the most popular type, business process outsourcing.
2. Efficiency Gains
One of the most significant benefits of outsourcing is the efficiency gains from having a team of specialists focused on a single task.
Outsourcing allows you to focus on what you’re good at, like product development or marketing, and then use a team of experts to help you with everything else. This can include customer support or even simple things like accounting and bookkeeping.
You can dedicate your time and energy to what matters, which means more time for innovation and less time worrying about managing an increasingly complex business.
3. Rapid Scaling
Startups often adopt rapid scaling as a growth strategy to swiftly expand their business by increasing their workforce, procuring additional equipment and supplies, and venturing into new markets.
Outsourcing can be a valuable action plan for startups looking to grow quickly. By partnering with a company like SOPHI, startups can identify their specific needs and delegate tasks to experts in those areas while freeing up their resources to focus on their core competencies. This enables startups to scale faster and more cost-effectively than if they tried to handle everything internally. By leveraging the expertise of outsourcing companies, startups can accelerate their growth and achieve their goals more efficiently.
It is crucial for startups to also ensure that they find a suitable outsourcing provider who can support rapid scaling and deliver quality work that meets expectations. They must evaluate certain qualities of potential providers. These qualities include scalability, quality, cost-effectiveness, and cultural fit. By carefully assessing these qualities, They can identity the right outsourcing provider that can meet their needs and help them manage their rapid scaling process effectively.
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by Chlei Von Garcia | Jul 24, 2023 | Industry Knowledge
If you work in customer service, you’ve dealt with customer complaints in the past. And if you haven’t, don’t worry. It will be your turn soon.
You must be able to deal with every type of customer complaint, from those who are merely irritated to those who are outright furious, to put an end to the conflict, satisfy the customer, and leave them with a positive impression of the business you are representing.
In this article, we’ll look at handling customer complaints to achieve the above and ensure you and the customer are happy with the outcome.
Here are some tips on how to resolve customer complaints effectively.
1. Listen to the customer.
The first step in resolving a customer complaint is to listen actively. Allow the customer to vent their frustration without interrupting them or becoming defensive. Sometimes, customers need to be heard; listening can make them feel valued and respected. While listening, take notes of their concerns, and ask clarifying questions to ensure you understand the issue completely.
2. Apologize sincerely.
Once the customer has expressed their complaint, apologize sincerely. Even if the issue wasn’t your fault, we apologize for the inconvenience caused to the customer. Show empathy and understanding, and let the customer know you take their complaint seriously. A sincere apology can go a long way in diffusing the customer’s anger and creating a positive interaction.
3. Offer actionable solutions.
After apologizing, offer solutions to the customer’s problem. Depending on the nature of the complaint, several options may be available. For instance, you could offer a refund, a replacement, a discount, or a credit for future purchases. If the customer is unsatisfied with your first solution, be open to exploring alternative options until they feel satisfied.
4. Follow up.
After providing a solution, follow up with the customer to ensure the problem has been resolved satisfactorily. This step demonstrates that you care about the customer’s experience and are committed to providing excellent service. Following up also provides an opportunity to ask for feedback and suggestions for improvement.
5. Practice active problem-solving.
Active problem-solving involves identifying the root cause of the complaint and taking steps to prevent it from happening again. This approach resolves the current complaint and prevents similar complaints from arising in the future. Encourage employees to identify common complaints and work with management to find ways to address them proactively.
6. Monitor and analyze complaints.
Monitoring and analyzing complaints regularly is essential to improve your call center’s complaint resolution process. Collect data on the types of complaints received, the resolution time, and customer satisfaction levels. Use this data to identify trends and areas for improvement and make changes to the complaint resolution process as needed.
7. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.
When offering a solution, ensure you can deliver what you promise. Making promises, you can’t keep will only worsen the situation and erode the customer’s trust in the company. Instead, be honest and transparent about what you can do to resolve the issue.
In conclusion, as customer service representatives, we must understand that complaints are inevitable, but they allow us to showcase our commitment to exceptional service. Using the seven techniques outlined in this article, we can effectively manage and resolve customer complaints, building strong relationships with our customers and enhancing their overall experience. Remember, a satisfied customer is a loyal customer, and customer loyalty is key to the long-term success of any business.
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by Chlei Von Garcia | Jul 17, 2023 | Industry Knowledge
You must manage your time and information appropriately to learn from a training manual effectively. If you are like most people, information overload is the most common reason for the difficulty in studying from a training manual. Properly managing your time and information can decrease information overload during call center training. This article will provide tips for managing time and knowledge to reduce the likelihood of information overload during your call center training.
1. Focus on what’s most important.
You’ve been given much information to absorb if you’re in a call center training program. You may have heard about handling different types of calls, demanding customers, after-call work, and so on. But there’s only so much information you can process at once. So when it comes time for your training session, focus on what’s essential for you—the information that will help you do your job better and more effectively.
For example, if you’re training to handle demanding customers who tend to get angry quickly, focus on learning how to calm them down and keep them from escalating their anger into something worse (like hanging up). If you’re learning how to handle sales calls from potential new clients, focus on qualifying them as leads first.
2. Don’t try to learn every little detail or procedure.
You may feel like you’re drowning in information during training. It’s important to remember that there are two kinds of information: the kind that matters and the kind that doesn’t.
The best way to manage information overload is by focusing on what matters—the information that will help you do your job better. If it doesn’t help you do that, then it’s just noise. Don’t try to learn every little detail or procedure. Instead, focus on the big picture and what you need to know to start.
3. Rather than focus on memorization, practice skills that will become second nature with experience and repetition.
When you’re in a call center, you need to be able to think on your feet. You may have to solve problems with little information, and you’ll need to know how to handle yourself in that situation.
Rather than focusing on memorization, practice skills that will become second nature with experience and repetition. If you can master these skills early on, you’ll have a huge advantage as an agent when it’s time for actual work!
4. Practice good self-care habits.
One of the best ways to combat information overload during training is to practice good self-care habits.
As simple as walking around the block, drinking more water, and ensuring you’re eating well can do wonders for your well-being. It can also mean taking time away from your phone and computer—yes, even during training.
When you feel like there’s too much information to handle, it’s important to remember that you can only do some things at a time. Take a break from the screen and step away for a few minutes to give yourself space to process what you’ve learned, helping you get back on track and ensuring your learning is not derailed by stress or exhaustion!
If you remember our tips and advice, you should be better prepared to handle information overload during your call center training. Our suggestions can help you learn new concepts and retain and internalize those concepts for future reference. Remember: it’s all about managing your time and staying on schedule. If you can do that, information overload shouldn’t be a problem for you.
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by Chlei Von Garcia | Jul 10, 2023 | Industry Knowledge
Agents in call centers deal with a range of calls, each of which takes a varying amount of time, depending on the problem. While still offering excellent customer service, it’s critical for call center agents to shorten call times. You can contact more consumers and resolve more issues if you learn how to lower your average handling time (AHT).
How is AHT Calculated?
You must first determine your AHT to lower it. The following equation can be used to determine AHT:
Total Talk Time + Total Hold Time + Total Wrap Time / Number of Calls Handled = AHT
What Causes High AHT?
There are explanations for why a company could have a high AHT. A large portion of the issue stems from ignorance and ineffective procedures. Other factors that could result in a high AHT include the following:
- Unseasoned customer service personnel
- IVR (interactive voice response) system deficiency or absence
- Not reviewing calls and processes on time
- Improper call routing
8 Effective Ways to Lower Average Handling Time (AHT)
Efficient call handling is crucial to maintain customer satisfaction and retention. AHT is a critical metric that measures the total duration of customer interaction from the moment the call is answered to its conclusion. High AHT can indicate inefficiency in call handling, leading to increased costs and customer frustration. Therefore, call centers need to find ways to reduce AHT while maintaining quality customer service. In this article, we will explore eight practical ways to lower AHT.
1. Provide Comprehensive Training
Practical training is essential to reduce AHT, and ensuring your employees are adequately equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to handle customer inquiries efficiently. Make sure that your team has a good understanding of the company’s products and services, as well as the tools and technology used in customer support. A well-trained team member can quickly handle queries, saving time and resources.
2. Simplify the IVR
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is a system that directs customers to the appropriate department or agent. It can be an effective tool to reduce AHT, but it must be easy to navigate. A complex IVR can increase frustration and lead to longer wait times, ultimately causing customer dissatisfaction. Simplifying the IVR and using clear and concise prompts can reduce AHT by quickly directing customers to the appropriate department or agent. IVR systems can be implemented using various communication platforms, such as Twilio, Genesys, or Cloudtalk, but it’s essential to design the system with simplicity and clarity to improve customer experience and minimize AHT.
3. Improve Call Routing
Call routing is another essential aspect of customer support that can impact AHT. Routing customers to the appropriate agent or department is crucial to provide effective and efficient service. Ensure that your team has an effective routing system that assigns calls to agents based on their expertise and availability. This helps reduce the time spent on transferring calls, ultimately reducing AHT.
4. Use Knowledge Management Tools
A comprehensive knowledge management system can be a valuable tool for reducing AHT. Ensure your employees have access to a well-organized knowledge base that includes FAQs, troubleshooting guides, and other relevant information. Effective knowledge management is crucial for businesses to improve customer support and reduce ticket resolution time. Using knowledge base software like Document360, Zendesk, or Confluence can help organizations store and manage their knowledge effectively, allowing agents to access the information they need to resolve customer issues quickly and efficiently. Effective knowledge management is crucial for businesses to improve customer support and reduce ticket resolution time.
5. Empower Employees
Empowering employees can also help reduce AHT. Give your team members the freedom to decide and solve customer problems independently. Encourage them to take ownership of customer inquiries and provide solutions quickly. Empowering employees can reduce the time spent on escalating queries, ultimately reducing AHT.
6. Use Chatbots
Chatbots can effectively reduce AHT by automating simple queries and providing immediate customer responses. Chatbots can quickly resolve routine inquiries, leaving more complex questions for human agents. This helps reduce the time spent handling common queries, ultimately reducing AHT. Implementing chatbots with advanced features like natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning (ML) technologies can enhance customer interactions and reduce AHT. Platforms like GeekBot, Infobip, and AIOC offer powerful tools that enable businesses to build and deploy intelligent chatbots that can provide personalized customer service around the clock.
7. Monitor Performance
Monitoring performance is crucial to reducing AHT. Regularly review your team’s performance metrics and identify areas for improvement. This can help you identify any recurring issues and address them promptly. Monitoring performance can also help identify top-performing agents and replicate their success across the team, ultimately reducing AHT.
8. Implement Quality Assurance
Implementing a quality assurance program can help improve the quality of customer support, ultimately reducing AHT. Regularly monitor calls and provide feedback to agents, highlighting areas for improvement. This can help promptly identify and address any training gaps, ultimately reducing AHT.
In addition to saving money and enabling your representatives to respond to more inquiries, reducing the average handling time will also improve customer satisfaction because it will take less time for them to get answers to their questions. Reducing the average handling time is one of the main elements of providing a service that satisfies your clients, which is essential for the success of any product or service. Use these tips and watch how your handling time eventually decreases.
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by Chlei Von Garcia | Jul 3, 2023 | Industry Knowledge
If you’re managing an offshore team, then you know that it can be challenging. There are time zone differences, cultural barriers, and language difficulties to deal with. You need to make sure that the project manager is ready to communicate with the offshore team daily so they feel supported. Communication is the key when it comes to managing an offshore team, and here are some tips on how you can manage yours well.
1. Be transparent with them.
If you want your team to be successful, you need to be transparent with them. This means letting them know what’s happening and what they must do. It also means being honest about how much work is required for specific tasks and when deadlines are coming up. Transparency is essential because it helps the team feel like they have a say in the process—and that’s an integral part of feeling engaged in their work.
2. Set clear goals and expectations.
You need to ensure that everyone on the team knows exactly what they’re supposed to be doing and why. That way, if one person needs help with a particular task, they can go to another team member who has already completed it successfully—and everyone will feel like they’re working toward a shared goal.
If you don’t set clear goals and expectations for your team members, you risk having them work in silos and not helping each other as much as they can.
3. Provide regular feedback.
When you’re managing an offshore team, it can take time to see the big picture. You might have dozens of people working on your project at any given time and only know a few of them by name. It’s easy to lose track of their progress—and even harder to stay in touch with how they feel about the project as a whole.
You need regular feedback: an opportunity for each team member to voice their opinions on the work they’re doing and how it fits into the bigger picture. This helps give them (and you) a sense of ownership over their work—and it also gives you an idea of where things are going wrong so that you can fix problems before they become too big.
4. Don’t micromanage them.
In a remote team environment, it can be tempting to micromanage. You’ll want to keep an eye on what your remote team members are doing and give them some tips. But if you’re not careful, this can have the opposite effect of what you intended: Instead of helping your team members get better at their jobs, they’ll feel like they’re being watched too closely.
Instead, focus on setting clear expectations for each task and giving them space to do it. If you need something done in a particular way, make sure everyone knows that—but then trust them to figure out how best to do it themselves!
5. Give them space to learn and grow on their own.
When you’re managing an offshore team, it’s easy to get caught up in the daily operations of the project. You want to ensure everything goes according to plan, so you spend much time checking in with your team members. But this can be counterproductive if you’re trying to build a strong team culture and a sense of ownership among employees.
Companies like SOPHI promote autonomy and ownership within offshore teams. By delegating tasks and providing efficient project management tools, SOPHI empowers team members to take ownership of their work. This approach fosters a strong team culture and engaged workforce, while intermittent time off from constant contact allows individuals to focus and contribute effectively.
6. Be prepared for cultural differences.
When you’re managing an offshore team, it’s essential to understand that there will likely be a lot of cultural differences between your team members and yourself. There will be different ways of communicating, working, and varied expectations.
There’s no getting around it—you’ll have to learn how to manage across cultures to succeed with an offshore team.
You can start by thinking about what your own culture is like: what do people expect from their managers? How much feedback do they need? Do they need a lot of support or autonomy? It can help you get into the right mindset when thinking about how your team might respond to these things.
7. Recognize and reward Initiatives.
You want to establish a culture of recognition in your offshore team management. This helps to motivate your team and also makes sure that they’re consistently receiving feedback on their work and performance.
Initiatives can be big or small, but they should consistently be recognized. An employee who takes the initiative to create a new process that saves time or money will be rewarded just as much as an employee who completes an assignment ahead of schedule.
Inevitably, running an offshore team is a challenging task. It requires more than just good management practices to succeed. You will also need the right tools and technologies to help you manage your team more efficiently and stay in close contact with your distributed teammates.
For more tips and articles like this, visit our website and follow us on our social media—Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
by Chlei Von Garcia | Jun 26, 2023 | Industry Knowledge
Creating engaging and shareable social media content can be a challenge. How do you know if it will get shares? What topics work best for your business? There is no magic formula that works for everyone, but there are some things you can do to try and increase your odds of success.
Below are eight tips to help you create engaging and shareable content for your business.
1. Make sure your content is relevant.
The first step to creating shareable content is to make sure your content is relevant. If you want people to engage with your posts, they must be interested in your offering.
As a general rule of thumb, if you can’t explain your post in one sentence, it probably isn’t shareable. Keep it short, sweet, and interesting!
2. Engage with others in the comments section.
So if you’re wondering how to create engaging and shareable social media content, an excellent place to start is with the comments section. When people engage with you and your content, they are likelier to share it with their friends, family, and followers.
This can increase your brand awareness and gain new followers while ensuring your audience feels like they matter.
3. Add images to your blog posts.
The first step in creating a social media post is to ensure you have an image ready to go. This will help your post stand out and get more engagement.
Take advantage of the images that you already have on your site. For example, if you have a blog post about how to make cookies, you could use an image of some cookies in the post.
Or, if you’re trying to promote a new product, try using an image of someone using the product and talking about how much they like it!
4. Make use of hashtags on Twitter and Instagram.
We spend a lot of time thinking about what you should be saying on social media, but we also want to ensure that you’re taking advantage of all the tools available.
One of those tools is a hashtag or keyword generator. Hashtags are those little words or phrases that come after a pound sign (#). They help people find your content more easily because if they’re interested in a particular topic and use hashtags like yours, they’ll see your content pop up in their feed.
Using hashtags correctly can help increase your visibility on social media platforms and drive more traffic to your website. But if you don’t use them correctly, it could negatively impact your business. Outsourcing to a service provider for your social media content is also helpful. Outsourcing centers, such as SOPHI, use various tools to find the right hashtags for your business.
5. Write interesting headlines on Facebook and LinkedIn (not just a link).
In this day and age, it’s important to write engaging headlines.
Headlines are the most critical part of social media posts because they’re what people see first. That’s why you should give them some thought.
On Facebook, you should use a question or an interesting statement that makes people want to click on it (e.g., “I wish I could…”). On LinkedIn, you’ll want to write something more informative and tell people what they’ll get from reading the post (e.g.,”5 things you need to know…”).
Also, try not to just link to your website in a headline—make sure it has something interesting!
6. Use GIFs in tweets, Instagram posts, and Facebook statuses (they work!).
Use GIFs. Okay, not just any GIFs. But if you want to get your information out there and make a splash, adding GIFs to your social media posts is a great way to go. They’re fun, engaging, and sure to be clicked on by other users looking for something visually stimulating in their feeds.
7. Give away freebies (but don’t overdo it).
People love free stuff, and social media is a great place to give it away. But you must be careful: if you give too many things away for free, people will stop paying attention to your brand. We recommend offering something for free once every few weeks or months. This way, it’s still exciting for your followers, and they will remember who gave them the freebie (you).
8. Experiment with live video so people feel they’re having an honest conversation with you.
Live video is one of the best ways to ensure your content is engaging and shareable on social media. People love interacting with live video because it feels like you’re having an honest conversation with them, which is especially important in social media, where ads and sponsored posts constantly bombard people. If you can make your audience feel like they’re part of something more than just another piece of content, then you will be better positioned to earn their attention and share of voice.
Engaging, shareable social media content doesn’t happen overnight. It’s something that you must be intentional about and create regularly. Shareable content is the first step in creating an influential presence on any social network. If social media is an essential aspect of your business, or if you’re looking for new ways to engage your audience, outsourcing your social media can be an excellent method to help your business expand.
For more articles and tips like this, visit our website and follow us on our social media—Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
