Call Centers_ More than Just a Job.When it worked podcast. Using a nearshore contact centre to generate sales with Richard Blank.
Success is about moments...
When it worked podcast shares the experts who over came the odds to forge success on their own terms. Listen as Julian Leahy shares with us the key moments that changed everything for them.
Cost Savings Of Using Offshore Telemarketers
We are considered near shore because of our distance to the United States the agents that we have here are bilingual spanish and english which in the United States spanish could be the most spoken language in the next 10 years and also in regards to our cost savings you can get a turnkey agent here for salary benefits, hr telecom and overhead for the same price you would be paying an hourly agent in the United States.
https://youtu.be/s5O_Zr6tElI
Call Centers: More than Just a Job
It can be a very grueling job for people making phone calls. And if you've got somebody that is looking out for the people, allowing them to be treated as humans, the clients are going to get better results because happy people on the phone is what you want after all, isn't it? Oh, absolutely. And, you know, this is not a job. This is a career. And call centers pay more than most vocations in Costa Rica. So I do have people here with law degrees and engineering degrees because it's much more lucrative. But as I mentioned before, there's nothing better than someone being an amazing speaker, because what happens then is that your potential is limitless. You're able to represent yourself properly. You can speak for others. And once again, your earnings potential is incredible.
It's Different When Telesales Agents Really Enjoy The Job
Most of the agents in the States believe that call center and telemarketing jobs are transitional or they look down on it. I don't know why because many people earn a living making and receiving calls.
In Costa Rica they find a second language stimulating and so they're constantly looking to increase their english skills and thus their marketability.
So by making these calls in the United States they really find it fascinating and so what we try to do is to cultivate and grow their second language skills by expanding their vocabulary by explaining certain genres that we have.
Incorporating Soft Sales Skills
We are also serious about incorporating certain soft skills that some people claim that we've lost today because most people are chatting or sending emails.
I prefer to speak with somebody. I think there's a much better chance to retain that client to get a referral, possibly an upsell and even worst case scenario if someone is not doing business with you. Maybe through an exit interview they can tell you ways in which you could improve or what your competition did in order to earn their business.
Positive Escalation
The best thing about making an outbound call to a business is a positive escalation let's just say hypothetically I'm trying to get in touch with you but there's an individual that will be answering and filtering this call prior to transfer what I like to do is to find out the plethora of information about your company we could find about anniversaries or promotions or the company culture but this is the thing this individual that assisted me prior to transferring to you I will a let them know that they were amazing and I'm going to talk about them so when I do get transferred I'm going to let you know that you have the most amazing people at your organization.
I'll do it verbally but then at the end of the call I will write you something as a follow-up and mention this individual as well in writing so the Richard circle comes where if I call your company back first they're going to know me they're going to thank me so much for talking about them to the boss and adding to my momentum they cannot wait to transfer the call to you and you're going to see the relationship I have with your company prior to any sort of contracts so I think you might take our good faith and our intentions much more into consideration compared to somebody just trying to angle their way in there for a sale with you.
1. Interpersonal Communication Conflict Management Strategy
2. Phonetic Micro Expression reading for mastering verbal tell signs.
3. The Famous Buffer-Boomerang Technique
Advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, pinball machines, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading.
Richard’s vision quest journey is filled with twists and turns. At 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers over two decades.
Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008.
Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain.
A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. In addition, entered into the 2023 Hall of Fame for Business along side other famous alumni. Paying it forward to Abington Senior High School is very important to Mr. Blank. As such, he endows a scholarship each year for students that plan on majoring in a world language at the university level.
Costa Rica’s Call Center (CCC) is a state of the art BPO telemarketing outsource company located in the capital city of San Jose, Costa Rica. Our main focus has been, and will always be to personally train each and every Central America call center agent so that we may offer the highest quality of outbound and inbound telemarketing solutions and bilingual customer service to small and medium sized international companies, entrepreneurs as well as fortune 500 companies.
https://costaricascallcenter.com/en/outbound-bpo-campaigns/
#JulianLeahy #Whenitworkedpodcast #RichardBlank #CostaRica #CallCenter #Outsourcing #Telemarketing #BPO #Sales #Entrepreneur #B2B #Business #Podcast #Gamification #CEO #learnpodcasting #podcastepisode #podcastguest #podcasting #podcastinterview #podcastplaylist #podcasts #podcastskills #podcastshow
Julian Leahy, When it worked podcast, Richard Blank, Costa Rica's Call Center, Outsourcing, Telemarketing, BPO, Nearshore, Sales, Entrepreneur, B2B, Business,Podcast,Gamification,Leadership,Marketing, Radio, Guest, Money, education, trainer,
https://youtu.be/s5O_Zr6tElI
https://youtu.be/XfXTCN19zCo
Vintage Gaming Machines as Office Therapy
And I'm more than willing to drive a couple of hours to pick up a 1961 Ricola Regis and restore her. So since I have the space and my wife allows me to buy this stuff, I currently have 13 pinball machines, six jukeboxes, a bunch of retro arcade machines and an air hockey table. And so I've created a neutral environment through gamification. These agents can let off steam. They can recharge their batteries. They can meet people from other departments. And they also hang out with El Jefe. And it's an excellent place for us to be able to build that sort of culture where people become friends and they have a lot of fun. So instead of being on the phone for Instagram, Why go outside and smoke a cigarette or sit by yourself at lunch? Go and hang out at the arcade and have an excellent time. And so for me, gamification, and especially now that I have the room for it, I plan on expanding it. So maybe when we speak next year, you'll be hearing about all the different machines I have.
Legal and ethical management of call lists and client responsibilities
No, they want to get some leads happening for themselves. Do they need to have their own list of phone numbers to provide you with or do you have any sort of ability to provide a phone list? My clients supply me with the list and there's something in the United States, the DNC, which is the do not call list. So legally they have to have this list scrubbed for me because my company is inscribed in the United States. So I do follow all US business and banking laws. They in turn hire my Costa Rican corporation, which follows all the Costa Rican labor laws. So as much as somebody might want to use me as their face man or their fall guy, there's absolutely no way that we're going to compromise our ethics, values, and morals to make phone calls for you. I have to make sure everything checks out. And we're also in a very quick Catholic country. Julian, these agents have to go home and tell their parents what they do for a living. So as much as I want to fulfill the needs of the client, it's much more important to show empathy, dignity, and allowing the agents to feel good about themselves and the job that they're doing.
