Telemarketing Services and High Risk Merchant Account Providers<p style="margin-bottom: 0in" align="center"><strong><span><font size="2"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font color="#000000">TELEMARKETING SERVICES AND HIGH RISK MERCHANT ACCOUNT PROVIDERS</font></font></font></span></strong></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in" align="center"><font color="#000080"><u><a href="http://businessweek.buyerzone.com/marketing/telemarketing/buyers_guide1.html"><span><span><font size="2"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font color="#000000">by Gerri Bryce</font></font></font></span></span></a></u></font></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font color="#000000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2">Telemarketing merchants have always looked on certain aspects of their business to find out whether they are operating smoothly or not. Yes, with the onslaught of outsourced call centers these days, what could be the best thing to do but focus on quality service instead of how to pay for in-house overhead costs? Many telemarketing firms offshore have benefited from the low cost of outsourcing by <font color="#0000ff">allocating the extra budget on high risk merchant account services instead</font>. Not only did it work more to their advantage, it also took away most of the headache associated with handling hundreds of thousands of customer accounts.</font></font></font></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font color="#000000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2">Managing a call center has always been a challenge for supervisors, especially if the latter have not done telemarketing hands-on. The best that they could do is follow standard operating schemes. For example, they outsourced call centers cannot hire underqualified sales persons, or substitute selling jobs to incumbent office employees who do not have selling skills. This is exactly the reason why a lot of Western companies outsource to Asia. Not only are the costs ridiculously low (about 25% that of total cost in US in-house telemarketing firms), <font color="#0000ff">the call centers are also dedicated companies focused on handling all aspects of inbound and outbound calls, 24/7, and in multiple languages, with competent and intensively-trained professionals.</font></font></font></font></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font color="#000000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2">Call center operators must have a checklist of accomplishments to help them determine whether operation is working successfully. Among a few should include:</font></font></font></p> <ol><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font color="#000000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2">how many scheduled calls are made</font></font></font></p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font color="#000000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2">how far and how many customers are being contacted</font></font></font></p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font color="#000000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2">how many customers made orders (reached or not)</font></font></font></p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font color="#000000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2">how many field sales calls are made</font></font></font></p> </li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font color="#000000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2">how many/much products are sold in total</font></font></font></p> </li></ol> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font color="#000000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2">But is the high risk merchant outsourcing a call center business still concerned with the hiring process? Since telemarketing uses human resource for its operation, then it is also your duty to see through a successful operation by hiring the right telemarketers in the firm. <font color="#0000ff">Telemarketing, especially outbound, is all about sales and establishing relationships with clients. </font>They should be engaging, patient with customers, pleasant on the phone, emotionally capable of handling differences in customer personalities and oft-unreasonable complaints, sales-oriented, and professional in appearance. </font></font></font> </p> <p><font color="#000000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2">Telemarketing is also highly criticized for frauds and scams even when as a high risk merchant you have never been involved in such troubles. Sales done on the phone are also susceptible to chargebacks and complaints. This is the reason why you need the support of a high risk merchant account provider. Of course, you can do without it even from the start, but<font color="#0000ff"> secure credit card processing is one of the most important elements of doing sales online.</font> You can sleep soundly at night knowing your customers put their faith on secure transactions being done by your payment gateway, bank, and merchant account provider. </font></font></font> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font color="#000000"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif"><font size="2">Merchants from all over the world have done this before. <font color="#0000ff">Taking the first steps is often the hardest</font>, cliché as it may seem, as you will have to furnish requirements from your provider. But in the end, after hiring the right people, or picking the best outsourcing company, the only thing left to do is set up an efficient infrastructure. And this is where a reliable third party credit card processing system comes in.</font></font></font></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"> </p> |
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