mind your own business call center

Jonathan A Cabante www.systm26.webs.com

Mind Your Own Business

Call Center

Mind Your Own Business Call Center

www.systm26.webs.com Your Success is our Business

What Covers on this Book Introduction Foreword The wise decision

Why do some of business failed? The business

Before Starting Engine, routine checking The license and Permits The Organization: Who were going to drive? Business name

The Plan: where to go? What is a business plan? Business Plan Outline Start the engine and vroooom On the lead

The Services Inbound Outbound Market Research and Reviews Help Desk and Virtual Secretary Web Receptionist Service

Technical Matters Securities Data recovery What bandwidth connection will you get? Structural Network Design

Financial Literacy How much do I spent for the call center business? How much call center gain? Financial Statements Forecasting Profit and Loss Shareholders Why the net worth is been deducted over half of the profit?

Marketing plan The Essentials of marketing plans: Marketing strategy The Product/Service Development of product or service Marketing/Sales Customer Services Advertising Customer satisfactions

The Management How will you motivate your people?

Sharing Prayers Conclusion



Introduction

Now a day’s call center is fast growing business specially in Philippines yet very complicated business and I think most of the businesses are, where it needs a balance on handling and management, where need attentions to an individual who are involve on upbringing the business

Building your own call center is by no means of a low cost and risk task; you can expect it to set of circumstances to set you back quite and scratching your heads. This will also include the costs and expenses. Forming your own call center will also include the cost of office space, hiring and training an entirely new staff. The cost of a staff does not end with training. You will still be expected to continue to pay off all wages, insurance, and various other expenses. When all of these things are added together the total can be quite overwhelming. However to minimize your business from losing and experience a terrifying troubles, try to minimize your overheads, plan it correctly, do a research and most special be passionate to it.

Foreword

First of all I would like to thanks to the Almighty God, who give me life, which is the most wonderful gift that I had, secondly to my Family, my Parents, to my wife Catherine, to our sons John Michael and Jess who are my other half and went me home everyday, as will to my friend who impart there experience on the call center business, I would like to thanks to Mr. Nino Gonzales Mr. Deodax Cordova, Mr. William Mata who shared there knowledge and experience and where I inspired to write up this material In addition to my personal observation and experience as I worked on Call center industry where I have seen the ups and downs issues of the business in different forms and reasons; This Material will not tackle those issues but instead viewing you the mirror side of Call center business. The objective of this material Mind Your Own Business will not comparing to the other existing call center business and not to provide information how they grow but instead to lead the small size call center business in the path where it could minimize unexpected situations, and provide tolerance to kept in competitive industry of call center business This informative material is distributed free, but pleases not to change any information’s and altering information is prohibited, provided send a feedback, comments or suggestion to the writer, this material is under copyright of systm26 I would like to begin with a question ‘why do some businesses failed?’ in the reason not to mislead but to guide. The wise decision

It is a best practice prior to your business, must have stable primary source of income while your business consider as your second or other line of streaming your income and not your primary source, because having business will not provide result immediately it takes time, effort, financial and a great challenges to take before you can attain your goals and have profited from your business.



Why do some of business failed? Business is like a gambling, where gamblers walk out losing there money most of a time they play, as some of business owners how they define it. Business undergo on the trial and error period which is mostly of them failed and only less are been successful, TRIAL and ERROR are pains on the business owner’s, because it waste of time, effort and money day by day until the business is profited, if profited but what if not, that is a loss same with the gamblers who quit playing, although time, effort and money are pre-requisites on business operation as well on the business attentions, Honestly its not that easy to earn money and be a successful business because there are challenges need to encounters and must survive but there are means to skip some of pressure to attain the desired living in business. Learn your business or knowledge is One of the requirements in the business to get successful as well attitude, attitude it is within us since we are birth but some of us are blind in greedy, it is up to individual like you on how you will developed it

The business

Business is similar on driving a car, you need to learn how to drive a car, know the basic on car and road regulation to follow for safety driving, and later license to drive, same in business, must have a foundation on knowledge, attitude and legalities. Prior to putting up business the following are necessary on business.

• Space or location – space to operate the business, it doesn’t required to start at the big space to start a call center business although it’s a big factor, but it will cost high rentals and high expenses, any vacant space well do as long it is decent and comfortable to run the business, some of startup call center start at there home as there office where they run there business.

• Legalities – business are necessary to comply the legalities of papers for the business such as Business permits and Revenue for Taxes permit.

• Contacts – a telephone, fax, and email to rich your business

• Printer/Fax Machine – it is very useful in operation cause lot of time used to print for document and materials during operation, as will fax machine

• Bank Account – where to receive client payments

Business name Business name is your service mark or symbolized your service that will be known to your customer and clients, with success your business name will be very know on long period of time. There are three references on choosing business name;

• Creative – a business name that are ideally and promote to the field of industry; such as Convergys, Accenture and Sykes

• Related – business names that are in related to product or service; which names that are in relation to call center and communication, such as Etelecare and People Support

• Name – business name that came from the family, places or in combination of investors and owners names

Once you have a business name in mind for your service to mark, you have to provide an objective such as your goal, your mission and your vision on delivering your business to inspire and motivate you.



Before Starting Engine, routine checking Same with driving a car, must check the routine on fuel, brakes, and battery and most specially must have a car to drive, business have essentials as follows:

• Internet Connections – Internet connection is the means of medium to deliver calls to the VoIP provider send to the destination number

• Computers– Computers are usual used by most of Call centers, where some information to type-in while in call

• Headset or Phone Adapters – Headsets or phone adapters are used to place and take calls

• Cubicles or Stations – Cubicles or Stations used as workstation partitions to separate Telemarketer Agent and not be able not to hear or disturb each other while engage on call

• Comfortable chair – telemarketer are sitting in this chair for many hours and are necessary during time of operation to have back support on Telemarketer Agent and their comfort while on call

• Filling Cabinets – in purpose for documents and office supplies

• Office Supplies – basic office supplies that requires do for office used

• Good lightning – must have a good lightning system on the office

• Good ventilation – to provide comfortable of living the center in the sense of gaining and attaining performance

The license and Permits In starting your own business, you need to process registration on some government agencies for license and permits to operate your business, here are some of government agencies you have to register:

• Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) – it protects the right of business owner from individuals or groups from using your business name for any legal or illegal means.

• Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) – if your business is in category of corporation or partnership business registration.

• Local Barangay – local business are required to register and have secure Barangay clearance from local barangay office.

• Local Municipality – you are required to have register and require a Mayors Business Permit.

• Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) – you need to have registration on BIR to have certificate, in protection to your employee and business taxes from their compensation, as will on your business receipts.

• Medicare – you need your employee to have registration on the following government such as Social Security System (SSS), Philhealth and Pag-ibig. To ensure that they have a benefits while they are working, as will it helps them a lot in time.



The Organization: Who were going to drive? In a driving a car it needs a driver, car and passengers to the trip, same with the business there are personnel’s are necessary and accompany the success of business, which are essentials as follows:

• Owner’s or Investors – provides financial assistance for the maintenance of the business operation, investors don’t matter either the business is losing or profited they after on interest they must gain.

• CEO or Manager – reliable in good relation with the investors and client’s, and business success.

• IT Personnel – in-charge on Technical aspect of the business operation, such as maintenance on the system, monitoring of Internet Activities to avoid braches and viruses

• Operation Manager – in-charge on campaigns of client, monitoring the QA and reports to the CEO/Manager for updates regularly.

• Team Leaders – reports and supervise the campaign activity and observe the Quality Assurance of calls.

• Telemarketer Agents – are professionals will perform many different functions. They provide assistance to your clients for billing, orders, technical issues, and any other form of help they desire. Customer service representatives also provide you with market research, lead generation, and appointment scheduling.

• Accountant and Bookkeeper – in-charge on in and outs of financials aspects for business operation used.

• Utility and maintenance personnel



The Plan: where to go?

Same with driving a car to a trip must have a map of destination and route where to go, business must require also a plan a business plan, where it leads and guide your business where to go from point of origin to your desire destination and it is your blueprint for success. What is a business plan? A business plan is a written statement that describes and analyzes your business and gives detailed projects about its future, also covers the financial aspects of starting or expanding the business, how much money you need and how you’ll pay it back. Your business plan should not be consigned to your business archives. Just as you use a road map to monitor your progress toward your destination, you should use your plan to monitor progress toward where you want your business to be. If your business is developing as planned, you can proceed confident in the knowledge that if you stay the course you will achieve your overall goals. If things are not developing as planned you can make corrections to modify your destination so that it more accurately reflects your operating experience. Your business plan can and will serve as an effective road map for you, you must, however, consult it regularly. Putting business without a business plan is like your playing wining or loss same with the Trial and Error, where the probability of success is about 5% and why is it? Because the Business is blindly on what’s up ahead in the long run. Business plan help you to get money or borrow from lenders or investors, help you decide to proceed or stop the business, able to improve your business concepts, improves your odds of success and helps you keep on track, business plan helps you to anticipate problems and solve them before they become disasters A business plan serves to: 1) outline your foreseen business company finances, management team and marketing strategy 2) present plans on how your idea and service or product will be commercialized 3) prove your ideas financial viability. Writing down your ideas and plans also takes out the guesswork. Consider the following questions:

• Which consumer need/s will your service or product address? • Who are your potential customers and why will they purchase from you? • How will you reach your potential customers? How will the idea be transformed into a viable product

and brought to market? • Where will you get the financial resources to start your business?

A business plan does not only convince a lender or an investor that your idea can do well; as you develop it, even in writing, it teaches you a lot about the business you’re going to go into along the way.



Business Plan Outline

1. Summary 1.1. Business Description

1.1.1. Name 1.1.2. Location and plan description 1.1.3. Product/service 1.1.4. Market and competition 1.1.5. Management experience/expertise

1.2. Business goals 1.3. Summary of financial needs and application of funds 1.4. Earnings projections

2. Market Analysis 2.1. Description of total market 2.2. Industry trends 2.3. Target market 2.4. Competition

3. Products or Service 3.1. Description of product line or service 3.2. Proprietary position 3.3. Comparison with competitors' products or services

4. Marketing Strategy 4.1. Overall strategy 4.2. Pricing policy 4.3. Method of selling, distributing, and servicing products or services

5. Management Plan 5.1. Form of business organization 5.2. Board of Directors/Advisors composition 5.3. Officers, organization chart and responsibilities 5.4. Resumes of key personnel 5.5. Staffing plan/number of employees 5.6. Facilities plan/planned capital improvements 5.7. Operating plan/schedule of upcoming work for two years

6. Financial Data 6.1. Personal financial statements (previous 2-3 years), if seeking a loan 6.2. Two-year financial projections

6.2.1. Income statement (profit/loss statement) 6.2.2. Balance sheets 6.2.3. Cash flow 6.2.4. Capital expenditures

6.3. Explanation of projections 6.4. Key business ratios 6.5. Explanation of use and effect of new funds (loans, etc.)



Start the engine and vroooom Not means the driver know how to drive and had a point of direction are ready to go, it needs time to consider being familiar of the car and the route of the road and experienced, by starting the engine drive and run to the road, In Business it requires knowledge and patience cause not on the first day or week you could have you’re your sell where investment start returning, don’t be so greedy on the business situations cause it might lead your business to unexpected situations, which are most common on call center business happens where failure begins. On the lead while driving along the road there were uncertain situation that will hindrance to the road trip such the road excavation, road rerouting, humps and traffic, same with the business there are issue and circumstances encounter during the operations that would hindrance to the business success, where need attentions, focus and patience accompany with the business plan, that is why business plan is necessary on most business. To improves your odds of success and helps you keep on track The Services

Call center offers services to there prospect client company’s needs by providing customer care to both potential and existing clients. Inbound call centers specialize in not only serving your clients needs but also in helping you to better your business by helping you improve the services you offer. The following lists are the most common and descriptive services that most of call center offers Inbound

Describe to take and support the needs on any customer assistance that would like internal and external clients for various services from technical support, customer complaints or simply product or services inquiry such as order taking and booking. Outbound outbound call center provide Selling, Surveys, Registration, Appointment settings, valuable marketing and other business intelligence

Market Research and Reviews Data gathering lead generation, research, consumer reports, online chat and interviews and a host of other solutions can provide you and your company with your much needed requirements to realize any goal or activity. Help Desk and Virtual Secretary Whether for technical support, membership program details, client verification and inquiries or promotion detailing. Virtual secretary is the assistance that provides on behalf, it can help improve customer service satisfaction and increase company performance Web Receptionist Service Web Receptionist Service allows instant replies to your product and service queries online. The assistance that provide on your behalf can help you improve customer service satisfaction and increase online sales. We offer full sales and customer support utilizing online chat, email, and telephone web integration tailored to your company's needs.



Technical Matters

On all of the business there is a system, system on managing business, system on handling personnel and system to lead the business to success, but technically most of the call centers had there IT facility System, where voice and data are integrated on one common protocol of VoIP, delivering the voice and converted into data, send over the network.

Securities Security is one of the most important on call center business, having breach by intruders or leaking of information could cause damage on your business, security must tighten for the purpose of security of customers and client information. The following are technical reference on securities:

• Network security – having a firewall or Network Address Translation (NAT) could strengthen your Network security to minimize breaches on possible malicious activity on internet such as hackers and viruses

• System security – by having password protection and anti-viruses applications on systems and most specially only authorized personnel are allowed to have access, to prevent misuse of the system, hacking activities, and system recovery

Data recovery Since the system is working mostly 24/7 a week, and the devices as it is in processing the devices cause heats that’s why good ventilation on the system is big help to longer and avoid on system failure, but time came where failure on system to operates and able to shutdowns the system, without having data backups and recovery there is no way to restore the system, by practicing of back-up or copying information on safe storage, the backup information could help you in time of failure as will by redundant or having 2 system where could use as load balancing or a backup system it could help either when one system fails to operate, your service will kept on going because of the other system. What bandwidth connection will you get? In order to know the precise internet connection it would be better to know how bandwidth required on a voice call, let’s define the two most common used codec on voice conversion the g711 and g729 codec. For g711 which the standard code used on POTS line, it has 87.2 for one way or half-duplex call, since voice is 2way or full-duplex the total consumption for a normal voice call is 174.4kbps where it consume to much bandwidth for a single call, while g729 the quality is almost the same on g711 for 2way or full-duplex call it consume 62.4kbps which it could cater more simultaneous calls at a time base on draft for g729 codec with 24 simultaneous calls it consumes of 1497.6Kbps or equivalent to 1T1 Connection. While on g711 for 24 simultaneous calls it consumes of 4185.6Kbps approximately 3T1 connections. While data processing service does not required too much bandwidth.



Codec Kbps simultaneous calls

bandwidth consumption 1 way (kbps)

2way In and Out (kbps)

g729 31.2 24 748.8 1497.6 g711 87.2 24 2092.8 4185.6

Tips: It’s a good connection if the Internet Service Provide could provide fewer hops on routing and time-to-live not more than 250ms, because if time-to-live is higher more than 250ms the possibility, you will be able to encounter the Quality of Service on your call which causes distorted and choppy voice. Having two internet connections is good practice in the absence on other connection fail to operate you still able to do your service using the other connection.

Structural Network Design

IPPBx Dialer Process the call initiated by Agents/Telemarketers out the VoIP Provider and connects to the destination number wish to call or prospect customers by means of Internet connection, refer on the diagram below:

VOIP1

ISP 1

INTERNET

IPPBx Dialer

ISP 2

Switch

Router

Patch Panel

Modem 2Modem 1

VOIP 2

Workstations



Financial Literacy

Business is about leadership and most specially numbers, numbers that you could used as data to analyze whether your business is growing or losing, and from it, you have your actions to take, action to kept you growing or action to recover you from losing, that’s what numbers are related to you, although you have possible accountant to analyze your numbers, but you still need to know cause numbers is one essential to sustain.

How much do I spent for the call center business? The usual question ask by the business owner to startup the business is the initial capital to run the business, the cost depending on how you want your business, like other business before they are leading in industry now a days, they start at the small business and expanded at the time they are profited. Considering your Start-up amount will be 1Million Pesos on which base on the drafted you may have reserve to sustain and cover the next month of operation expenses enough to find and market client, to generate income to cover-up some expenses, the figures below is a draft list of start-up expenses, but all are tangible and be change in time. I will not elaborate the very detail of the figure below but Under Facility base on the draft for Small size office the range of rent is around at 20000 pesos on which the landlord will claim 3months deposits and 1 month advance, under Optional which is Integrators are the IT professionals who are setting up your Dialer system, for voice processing, some business owners hire a consultants to guide the business but in reality, they are just claiming for consultation fee for nothing to do but these are all optional depending on you. As much as possible maintain your cost at minimal stage, but it doesn’t mean you won’t spend money



Startup Cost for 10 Seats

ITEM Amount Reason

Owners Equity 1000000 Start-up Money

Legalities

Business permits 20000 Permits such as Mayors, Business, taxes and others

Facility

Rent 80000 about 20,000 per month for small office size

Water

Electricity

Internet connection 35000 most of Internet connection is bundled with telephones

Telephone

Office Equipments

Computers 300000 a workstation machine

Headsets 24000 a handset to workstation

Aircon 20000 providing ventilation

Office Supplies 10000

Printer/Copier/Fax 35000

Server/System Dialer 150000 a voice gateway to deliver a call out to VoIP

Network Devices 20000 provide data tranfer to LAN or WAN

Automatic voltage regulator 20000 power interruption supply

Cubicles/computer tables 20000 to station the computer machines

Network Cable and Connectors 15000 to link up the computer machines to network device

Software

Windows XP Installer 60000

MS office 4000

Other service

VoIP1 5000 used to send the calls to dialed number wish to call

VoIP2 5000 back-up VoIP provider

Optional

Consultant assist, consult and providing information for call center to operate and grow

Integrators/System developer 100000 Technical or an Engineer who are very familiar with the system

Total 923000

Reserve cash 77000



How much call center gain? In order to accurately determine how much should be spent on the services of telemarketing call centers you must closely analyze your expectations. The amount of time you expect to have spent on a project affects the cost to a great extent. Another determining factor is the proficiency of those who will be working on the project. In addition to all of that, your individual expectations for the company’s performance will also affect the rate to some extent. Commonly the charges for the use of telemarketing call centers are billed by the hour. An hourly expectation determined between your self and the call center manager will determine the exact number of hours. Typically telemarketing call centers have a minimum number of hours you must commit to paying for during that period of time. Most telemarketing call centers lower the hourly rate if you purchase a large number of hours, the draft below are reference base on the number of telemarketer and rate per hour charge Considering the rate per hour in the market for a small call center billed to there client is ranging $4 - $5 US dollar and operate 8 hours a day, all the data and numbers are been compute base on the conservative numbers and made in simple presentations. Conservative Computations individual at 4USD

exchange rate 1USD to Peso 47.00

rate per hour 4

no. of hours per day 8

no. of telemarketers 1

telemarketers/day operation 32

week (5 days) 160

month (4 weeks) 640

Converted in Peso 30080

Conservative Computations

10 Telemarketers at 4USD

10 Telemarketers at 4.5USD

10 Telemarketers at 5USD

exchange rate 1USD to Peso 47.00 47.00 47.00

rate per hour 4 4.5 5

no. of hours per day 8 8 8

no. of telemarketers 10 10 10

telemarketers/day operation 320 360 400

week (5 days) 1600 1800 2000

month (4 weeks) 6400 7200 8000

Converted in Peso 300800 338400 376000



Financial Statements the Profit and Loss, the IN and OUT of Cash in the business, where the net worth is the result of the amount receive deducted over the payable expenses, Net worth is profit of the business and from it figure the business of fail and success and source of ROI (Return Of Investment) as well. Gross Income is receivables payment which is the generated income of the business. Considering on the information below on the second column of the spreadsheets having a negative result which mean a possible of losing at that period of time basing on the computed data, and from it you could adjust some expenses cost to maintain the Break-even by preventing Loss as possible, for example base on the data below where you retain only one Technical to maintain the System temporarily to cover the operation cost from with out losing.

Monthly Expenses

4USD at 10

telemarketers

4.5USD at 10

telemarketers

5USD at 10

telemarketers

Source Amount Amount Amount

Gross Income 300800 338400 376000

Facility

office rent 20000 20000 20000

Electricity 5000 5000 5000

Water 2000 2000 2000

Internet 35000 35000 35000

VoIP 10000 10000 10000

Salary

Telemarketer 150000 150000 150000

Operation Manager 18000 18000 18000

CEO 20000 20000 20000

Technical (2 IT personnel) 30000 30000 30000

Utility/Maintenance Personnel 10000 10000 10000

Misc

office supplies 5000 5000 5000

Advertising

VIP treats

Total Expenses 305000 305000 305000

Networth -4200 33400 71000



Forecasting Is the predicted result of the cash flow of the business bases on the monthly results of net worth over the total business expenses over the period of time, but the figures are vary depending on necessity of business in time. The assumptions of ROI in this business is about two years enough though to build your credibility to your customers and be one of the big business in the call center industry, under on the third column of the draft below where considering in six months your business grow and you have expanded your business and doubled your 10 telemarketers, your are profiting to almost triple giving an earlier ROI to accomplish, by the time you are done on ROI your business is now an assets to you generating money in your precious time, money works for you then. Forecast at 4.5USD 10 Telemarketer expansions to 20seats

Source Amount Amount Reason

Gross Income 338400 676800 Payments receive / Income

Facility Fixed Expenses

office rent 20000 20000

Electricity 5000 10000

Water 2000 5000

Internet 35000 35000

VoIP 10000 15000

Salary

Telemarketer 150000 300000

Operation Manager 18000 18000

CEO/Owner Share 20000 20000

Technical (2 IT Personnel) 30000 30000

Utility/Maintenance personnel 10000 10000

Misc Variable Expenses

office supplies 5000 10000

Advertising 5000

VIP treats 20000

Others 5000

Total 305000 503000

Net worth 33400 173800

Forecast in 6 months Revenue 200400

Forecast in 6month in Expansion Revenue 1042800

Return of Investment approximate 2 years at least



Profit and Loss Profit and Loss refers on Income and Expenses of your business, Profit is what generates you income while Expenses is what you spent related to your business. There are two type Expenses

• Fixed expenses – refers on your standard and constant monthly payments such as rent, electricity, water, salaries and internet connection.

• Variable expenses – refers on additional expenses cover on the period of time, such as customer accommodation where under VIP treats, Advertising and others

In order to identify the Profit and Loss, you have to know the Break even point, break even from the word; you are on marginal portion from Profit and Loss, meaning your business generating income enough to cover the expenses with out having profit, refer on the picture:

The applied formula to for break even BEP = FE + VE Where stands as: Break-even point (BEP) Fixed Expenses (FE) Variable Expenses (VE)

But on most business especially on corporate and investment business, break even is practice and modified in the formula of BEP = FE / 1-VE; although the operation is similar on the standard applied formula: BEP = FE / 1-VE Where VE is been computed in percent of FE; Example: your FE is equal to 305,000 per month and your additional VE is equivalent to 50% of your FE, to have a break even point on the modified practice formula your break-even is 610,000; since small size call center operate 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, with 22 days a month, so you need to coop-up with amount of 27,727 per day and approximately 2,772 in equivalent for per telemarketers quota. Quota is been implied in most call centers specially if you are running on commission based campaign, but clients do required quotas even in hourly rate campaign, quota that shall and required to met for customer satisfactory.



Shareholders If your business running by you alone, no need for shareholder, if your business are in partners, business corporate, business venture and investors, then you have to applied sharing, sharing of profit is a reward of investors and partners in business, the formula follows by business owners in sharing are: For corporate that are equally distributed profit is:

Example: your net worth is 33,400 with 10 members; base on the formula each member had a share of 1,670.

For individual shareholder having percentage of share is:

Example: one investors had a share of 20 percent, base on the individual share is 33,400 – 16,700 X 20%, the allocate amount on a shareholder is 3,340. Why the net worth is been deducted over half of the profit? The purpose of half deducted from the profit is to have a reserve cash to sustain the operation to cover-up in times of business loss.



Marketing plan

The concepts of marketing plan addressed in 'generic' strategies, strategies for pricing, distribution, promotion, advertising and marketing; essential for keeping odd spending and your business on track in detail with the time line. The Essentials of marketing plans:

To project what you are spending? To identify why you are spending at? To provide your client and staff the overview of the business To determine what exactly what you do? To strategize actions:

• Find your target; who are your marketing to, who you going sell to? who are the people going to buy

• What you are going to do; how you will approach them, how you will market your business? Should you do it by online, personally, media (radio/tv)

• evaluate of how effective and of which marketing tool that are progress, and to omit unnecessary marketing that doesn't work unto your business

To determine what exactly what to accomplish To evaluate what best marketing practice suite for you

Marketing strategy In the process of creating a marketing strategy you must consider many factors, some are more important than others. Because each strategy must address some unique considerations, it is not reasonable to identify 'every' important factor at a generic level. However, many are common to all marketing strategies. You begin the creation of your strategy by deciding what the overall objective of your business should be. There are two major components to your marketing strategy:

• How you will address the competitive marketplace • How you will implement and support your day to day operations.

Having selected the direction most beneficial for the overall interests:

• the concept that you can produce and market a good quality product or service at a lower cost than your competitors. These low costs should translate to profit margins that are higher than the industry average.

• product or service that is perceived as being unique "throughout the industry". The emphasis can be on special service features, superior service, a strong distributor network or other aspects that might be specific to your business service. This uniqueness should also translate to profit margins that are higher than the industry average.



Pricing

pricing is mostly influenced by your requirement for net income and your objectives for long term market control that have created a 'price expectation' in the minds of the marketplace. In this case you can price your offering comparably to those of your competitors.

Promotion

to sell an offering you must effectively promote and advertise it

The Prospect the prospect characteristics you have selected as the target for your offering service:

• The potential for market penetration involves whether you are selling to past customers or a new prospect, how aware the prospects are of what you are offering product or services and competition.

• The prospect's willingness to bit your offering provides a better solution to their problem. • The amount of time it will take the prospect to make a purchase or subscribe, decision is affected by the

prospects confidence in your offering, the number and quality of competitive offerings, the urgency of the need for your offering and the risk involved in making the purchase decision.

The Product/Service

you should be thoroughly familiar with the factors that establish products/services as strong contenders in the marketplace. Factors to consider include:

• The benefits the prospect will derive from use of the offering. • The extent to which the offering is differentiated from the competition. • The extent to which common introduction problems can be avoided such as lack of adherence to

industry standards, unavailability of materials, poor quality control, regulatory problems and the inability to explain the benefits of the offering to the prospect.

• Impact on customer's business as measured by costs of trying out your offering, how quickly the customer can realize a return from their investment in your offering, how disruptive the introduction of your offering is to the customer's operations and the costs to switch to your offering.

• The complexity of your offering as measured by the existence of standard interfaces, difficulty of installation, number of options, requirement for support devices, training and technical support and the requirement for complementary product interface.

The Competition Although in most business it is essential to know who the competition is and to understand their strengths and weaknesses. Where each of your competitor's experience, staying power, market position, strength, predictability. But as long you have a good customer service at your customers and clients, competitions is out of the pictures, so take care of your customer, because they will lead you to your success



Development of product or service

A review of the strength and viability of the product/service development program will heavily influence the direction of your strategy. Factors to consider include:

• The strength of the development manager including experience with personnel management, current and new technologies, complex projects and the equipment and tools used by the development personnel.

• Personnel who understand the relevant technologies and are able to perform the tasks necessary to meet the development objectives.

• Adequacy and appropriateness of the development tools and equipment. • The necessary funding to achieve the development objectives. • Design specifications that are manageable.

Marketing/Sales The marketing and sales organization is analyzed for its strengths and current activities. Where:

• Experience of Marketing/Sales manager including contacts in the industry, familiarity with advertising and promotion, personal selling capabilities, general management skills and a history of profit and loss responsibilities.

• Sales promotion techniques such as discounts and special pricing. • Sales capabilities including availability of personnel, quality of personnel, ability to generate sales leads

relationship with clients, ability to demonstrate the benefits of the offering and necessary sales support capabilities.

• The appropriateness of the pricing of your offering as it relates to competition, price sensitivity of the prospect, prospect's familiarity with the offering and the current market life cycle stage.

Customer Services the strength of the customer service function has a strong influence on long term market success.

• Experience of the Customer Service manager in the areas of similar offerings and customers, quality control, technical support, product documentation, sales and marketing.

• The availability of technical support to service your offering after it is purchased. • One or more factors that causes your customer support to stand out as unique in the eyes of the

customer. • Accessibility of service for the customer. • The reputation of the company service for customer service. • After defining your strategy you must use the information you have gathered to determine whether this

strategy will achieve the objective of making your business competitive in the marketplace.



Advertising Advertising is one way of marketing by advertising your service to any possible medium to promote of what are capabilities of your service to offer, on most of call center doing there advertising on internet, where now a days it is new means of delivering information distributed all over around the globe.

• Have your own web site and domain name, to be visible on your customer and prospect customer, where also provide your listing capabilities of service offers as will company information

• Registering adwords on most common search engine such as Google, yahoo and msn, it doesn’t need to be number one on any Search Engine Optimization service, as long you are posting you web site.

• Go on Call center directory listing and post your web site for reference

• Go on forums and broadcast your web site, to gain more traffic hits on your web site, building more traffic on your web site another way of optimizing your web site, where doesn’t need for SEO pay.

Hot TIP:

How and where to get client for campaign?

These are the most common questions of mostly small size business on call centers, the concept of getting client and where to find it, is similar on looking a persons, friend or relative on telephone directory; wish to call. With this concept Internet as medium of information is a Huge Contact Directory such as yellow pages and other directory listing. By finding and contacting, emailing your prospect customers such as individual or business and corporate to inform them the business opportunity you could offer to them that they wouldn’t miss. The 2 ways to get clients are:

• Brokers and third parties are most common on call center industry where some of them offer commission, monthly base campaign, and some of them are scammers.

• Direct contact – a direct contact relation to prospect client, where I am sure you have lots of known and trusted friends out there having there own company or working on established company where you could list them as your prospect for your service to offer, and enhance personal networking through referring your friend friends or simply do, a friends of your friend are also your friends.

• Advertising – by using internet you could post adlinks information about your business services on forums and call center directory listing as will registering on organization deals and related to business which also help to assists such as chamber of commerce, where mostly business met and exchange

How to avoid SCAM? There are lots of people out there thousand or millions of them wanting to one step ahead on you doing SCAM because of there greedily on money. To avoid them set a check list to follow to avoid them, interested clients once they know what you are offering them they will look for you, but it doesn’t mean your action remains on waiting, instead follow up them, the three guides are steps to be aware of possible scammers.

• Do a background check there company information are they not using bogus and fictitious information

• ask business proposals

• ask for advance down payment, to suite for your estimated operational cost



Customer satisfactions If you did not have any client your business would not exist. For this reason it is important to make your customers satisfactions as happy with your service as possible so that they will continue to do business with you and become what is known as loyal customers. By providing fast, accurate, and convenient customer service you help to ensure that your company stays on top and building you’re trust, confident, credibility with your customer having business with you.

The Management 101 There are questions that most of us in the managing business profession such as How do I manage business? have been asked more than once. And questions we asked once in our careers too. The following is a basic look at management, a primer, Management 101.

Art and Science Management is both art and science. It is the art of making people more effective than they would have been without you. The science is in how you do that. The four basic pillars: plan, organize, direct, and monitor.

Make Them More Effective Four workers can make 6 units in an eight-hour shift without a manager. If I hire you to manage them and they still make 6 units a day, what is the benefit to my business of having hired you? On the other hand, if they now make 8 units per day, you, the manager, have value.

The same analogy applies to service, or retail, or teaching, or any other kind of work. Can your group handle more customer calls with you than without? Sell higher value merchandise? Impart knowledge more effectively? etc. That is the value of management - making a group of individual more effective.

Plan Management starts with planning. Good management starts with good planning. And proper prior planning prevents… well, you know the rest of that one.

Without a plan you will never succeed. If you happen to make it to the goal, it will have been by luck or chance and is not repeatable. You may make it as a flash-in-the-pan, an overnight sensation, but you will never have the track record of accomplishments of which success is made.

Figure out what your goal is (or listen when your boss tells you). Then figure out the best way to get there. What resources do you have? What can you get? Compare strengths and weaknesses of individuals and other resources. Will putting four workers on a task that takes 14 hours cost less than renting a machine that can do



the same task with one worker in 6 hours? If you change the first shift from an 8 AM start to a 10 AM start, can they handle the early evening rush so you don't have to hire an extra person for the second shift?

Look at all the probable scenarios. Plan for them. Figure out the worst possible scenario and plan for that too. Evaluate your different plans and develop what, in your best judgment, will work the best and what you will do if it doesn't.

TIP: One of the most often overlooked management planning tools is the most effective. Ask the people doing the work for their input.

Organize Now that you have a plan, you have to make it happen. Is everything ready ahead of your group so the right stuff will get to your group at the right time? Is your group prepared to do its part of the plan? Is the downstream organization ready for what your group will deliver and when it will arrive? Are the workers trained? Are they motivated? Do they have the equipment they need? Are there spare parts available for the equipment? Has purchasing ordered the material? Is it the right stuff? Will it get here on the appropriate schedule? Do the legwork to make sure everything needed to execute the plan is ready to go, or will be when it is needed. Check back to make sure that everyone understands their role and the importance of their role to the overall success.

Direct Telling people what they need to do. I like to think of this part like conducting an orchestra. Everyone in the orchestra has the music in front of them. They know which section is playing which piece and when. They know when to come in, what to play, and when to stop again. The conductor cues each section to make the music happen. That's your job here. You've given all your musicians (workers) the sheet music (the plan). You have the right number of musicians (workers) in each section (department), and you've arranged the sections on stage so the music will sound best (you have organized the work). Now you need only to tap the podium lightly with your baton to get their attention and give the downbeat.

Monitor Now that you have everything moving, you have to keep an eye on things. Make sure everything is going according to the plan. When it isn't going according to plan, you need to step in and adjust the plan, just as the orchestra conductor will adjust the tempo. Problems will come up. Someone will get sick. A part won't be delivered on time. A key customer will go and not paying. That is why you developed a contingency plan in the first place. You, as the manager, have to be always aware of what's going on so you can make the adjustments required. This is an iterative process. When something is out of sync, you need to Plan a fix, Organize the resources to make it work, Direct the people who will make it happen, and continue to Monitor the effect of the change.

Is It Worth It Managing people is not easy. However, it can be done successfully. And it can be a very rewarding experience. Remember that management, like any other skill, is something that you can improve at with study and practice.



How to Manage?

We are beginning a new feature on About Management - a series of "how to" designed to give you a short lesson in how to handle the basic tasks of management. Each will be linked to more in-depth information if you wish to dig deeper into a particular topic.

What do I want to do? Perhaps the first thing you need to do is to figure out what you want your people to accomplish. A mission statement is a short document that tells your people, your customers (internal and external), and your suppliers what you are about. It makes it easier for everyone to pull together if everyone knows what the objective is. How to Draft a Mission Statement lists twelve things you can do to start drafting a mission statement for your group.

How should I set it up? After you figure out where you are going and you write up your mission statement, you need to look at whether your organization supports that objective. If your organization does not support your objective, you need to change it so it does. When you have rearranged your organization so it does support your objective, you need to communicate that organization structure to everyone involved. This is done through an organization chart, an org chart for short. How to Build an Org Chart is a quick guideline on how to draw an org chart for a department. You can easily expand it out for an entire company.

How does this look? If anyone in your organization deals with the public, you should have a dress code for all employees. A dress code is a simple document that tells people in various functions what is appropriate work attire, and why. How to Set a Dress Code guides you through the steps of creating a workable dress code for your company.

Management Pros Share Their Secrets

Remember when you got your first management job. What do you wish someone had told you then? What would be the one tip you would give to a manager just starting out?" Their answers reflect the character and style of these individuals; their wisdom; their experience. Here's a list of Ten Top Tips from PROS:

• Consult, consult, consult.

• You are managing people, not projects or product development or customer service or any other departmental mission. People are complicated and messy. They aren't machines any more than you are; they won't be the same every day, no matter how much you'd like them to be. So stay alert to what's going on with them.

• Get to know your staff!! For the first couple of days, sit down and get to know your staff. Find out what they do, what their goals are, what they like to do in their free time, etc. Several years ago, I watched a

new manager start with a company and for the first month or so, didn't talk to any of his staff. A month

later, he wondered why people were handing in their two week notices.

• Learn how to deal with problem or resentful employees, developed a good relationship.

• Avoid re-inventing the wheel. Everything doesn't require your unique hand-print. Some things probably work just fine already. Also don't think or act like you know everything, nothing breeds resentment more than arrogance. You may be smart, but there's always someone smarter.



• You are responsible for everything that happens in your scope of authority. Don't ever think that just because you may not be doing the actual work, you are not responsible---you “are”. Unless you are comfortable with this basic fact, management is “not” for you.

• The rewards come at a price. You will have to make decisions that will benefit the company as well as your staff and quite often they are in direct conflict with each other. (You cannot be place all things to all people).

• You do have a right to be human. Just because you are now management, does not mean that you can (or should) throw emotion out the window.

• Laugh with your people....let them know that you are not a humorless troll.

• Be honest with your people...you expect the same from them. Even if it's bad news, honesty does help lessen the blow.

• Defend your people! They will reward you with their loyalty.

• As exciting and as insightful as these tips for new managers are, there is one more we should add, Management is not for everybody. As put it "it's never too late to say thanks but no thanks....I'm happy where I am."

TIPS:

Managing business is neither an easy responsibility nor task but instead a burdensome to you, you need to have a good leadership rapport and skills to have of balancing on handling financial, manpower, quality and credibility. Miss-management is one factor of business loss where putting business in critical and risk situations. Management either will deliver your business in path you wish where to lead. Do structurally organize, organizer planner book would help. The following are essentials on the Manager.

• Leadership – is one essential of being a manager, you are the captain of your ship where ship is your business, what ever happens to your business it will fall back to you, being committed to your responsibility and motivation to your people is a one key to your success career.

• Financial – reality finance is handling by bookkeeper and accountant but you need to know how to read and analyze numbers, because most of decision in business relies on and be done in the process of what ever the results number is.

• Manpower – hiring a good responsible employee is not easy to have, it cost to much where good employee demand much more, but having a motivated employee is one factor that build credibility and provide good result of service quality.

• Quality and Credibility – having a customer satisfactory will build your credibility and quality of service.

How will you motivate your people? Motivating people is not an easy responsibility although it is not your responsibility, but to have a motivated people was a good result outcome of your leadership.

• Train them well – by providing workshop, training and guidance to your people on there work will provide them confident, and improvement results on there work as they do there responsibility

• Good compensation – having a good compensation, benefits and promotion on performance such a meeting the weekly quota required by client whom they could have extra allowance on it; will encourage your people to have a good performance on there responsibility.

• Involvement – an interaction of thoughts, guidance, and suggestions of your people prior to a possible decisions; having inform your people of what is the standing and status of your business, will gain loyalty, sympathy, and trust to one another and will result a productive service and responsibility of duty.



Sharing Having your business profited or on way to success, don’t forget not to be greedy with the blessing you have, obey the golden rule “do unto others, you want others do unto you”, and why is it? By helping others, the blessing will back multiple times to you.

Prayers By practicing prayers regularly for thanking the almighty GOD on all blessing you had, for giving you strength to sustain, guiding and enlighten your way as you face the challenges. Where it doesn’t requires what religions you are practicing instead believing in him.

Conclusion It is a mistake to go into business without having knowledge about business. In Business it requires knowledge, attitude, discipline and patience cause not on the first day or week you could have your investment be return to you, don’t be so greedy on the business situations because it might lead your business to unexpected situations, which are most common on call center business happens, but you are able to minimize your issues at attainable point of tolerance of taking the problem issues that you might encounter on your business as long you have the good business plan and marketing plan and taking care of your client and customers of having a best customer service and building trust with them then you are on lead your business on the peak of success. This material is a baby step on Small to Medium size business, for call center business that are already establish and entrepreneur who wish to go on the business of call center, my apology if I miss something that are not clearly define on this material but it is made in simplest way and easier to understand I would like to thank you for reading this material and my apology it is not written well, honestly I am not good on writing articles and doesn’t have a formal study on business administration nor an accounting or any business and account management relation, this are base on the actual observation and experience that are compile… If you have any comments regarding on this material please send me an email at [email protected], and I am please to thank you reading your feedback and comments… God Bless and Embrace your Success Thank you, Jonathan A. Cabante Systm26

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