GoAutoDial Partners with World’s Large List Provider

Today, not only will the small business owner and call center companies just benefit from GoAutoDial’s low cost, high quality cloud based telephony solution for its sales, marketing, service and support campaigns, the customers can also avail of a huge discount resulting from a partnership with ListGIANT.com. Effective immediately, all GoAutoDial and JustGoCloud customers get an additional 20 percent discount on all purchased lists from ListGIANT.

ListGIANT is one of the world’s largest list provider, having been in business for the past 15 years providing the direct marketing and telemarketing industries with low cost, high quality and guaranteed lists to its more than 10,000 customers, worldwide. The partnership creates value to GoAutoDial’s customers whom many require the purchase and management of calling leads to run its campaigns.

Raffy Pekson II, vice president for sales and marketing of GoAutoDial Inc., has been a customer of ListGIANT, also doing business as Martin Worldwide, since 2002 when he managed and co-owned many call centers before. ListGIANT not only provides low cost, high quality lists, it also guarantees its lists against inaccuracies. When such errors happen during a predictive dialing activity, customers can request ListGIANT to simply replace the erring leads. That’s the value of a guarantee that ListGIANT provides all its customers.

Source: GoAutoDial Blog

Image from blog.goautodial.com

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A Subscription-based Hosted VoIP Service for Calling Within the Philippines

Most call center systems allow call center companies the ability to conduct voice-based services to its clients’ end-users in the most productive manner. This outsourcing scenario is common in Third World countries like the Philippines whose labor costs are almost one-tenth of many of the First World nations.

Now, the term “hosted solution” simply means removing all the servers and software from the call center company’s site and hosting it in a secure facility where these call centers can access the entire system using the internet. Hosted, or sometimes called “Software as a Service (SaaS)” or “cloud computing,” also means the company just needs to pay a monthly subscription charge on a “per license” (or per seat) basis, eliminating any large capital expense that’s usually incurred when one has to buy hardware and software.

However, one thing that’s missing in the Philippine market is a cheap, reliable hosted solution that can also provide the same features and services within the Philippines, not just (always) calling outside the country. If there is a hosted solution that allows small and mid-sized companies, besides large ones, especially non-call center businesses, to conduct its sales, marketing, service and support campaigns without being tied into long-term contracts, I believe the abilities of existing call center companies in the country can be enhanced to (also) offer local services; likewise, non-call center businesses like direct selling organizations and food delivery service units can now establlish better market reach by effectively communicating with its local customers without having to spend too much money buying and installing expensive hardware and software, much less hiring expensive technical support people.

Recently, Kunnect implemented such a Philippine-based hosted solution to a non-call center entity (Kunnect is a global Tier-2 class carrier managing 6 billion calls a year in 12 countries). A popular television media company started a short-term marketing campaign that involves receiving calls from local residents to provide contact information of their relatives abroad. The newly-hired agents that don’t really have call center experience but are sales and marketing savvy, also conduct cold-calling using the hosted solution’s predictive dialing feature and manually call back those who leave voicemails outside working hours. The beauty of using Kunnect’s hosted solution is that the company is not tied into a long-term contract – Kunnect only charges on a month-to-month basis. When the media company’s short-term marketing campaign ends, it simply terminates Kunnect’s service without incurring additional charges for doing so.

With the successful implementation of this “local campaign” scenario using Kunnect’s hosted solution, other Philippine companies, both call centers and non-call center firms, have given strong interest in implementing their ongoing campaigns or new projects using Kunnect’s services. The strong interest lies in the few facts that the hosted solution of Kunnect is:

• Subscription-based;
• Web-based;
• Cheap;
• Easy-to-use;
• Reliable;
• Secure; and
• Has no long-term commitment requirements.

Today, even a mom-and-pop store or a SOHO can now afford to use a hosted solution like Kunnect’s for its various sales, marketing, service and support campaigns without long-term contracts.

To know more about Kunnect’s hosted packages, please visit www.kunnectph.com.

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How Can You Get Referrals?

The simplest and quickest way to get referrals is to ask for them. Larry Prevost of Dale Carnegie Training offers two scenarios: (1) you ask a new client about people who are like them, and (2) you ask a lead, that will never be your client, for referrals.

Don’t just ask, “Can you think of anyone else who can benefit from this product?” That’s a yes/no question and they are too busy thinking about their new strategic advantage. The socially acceptable answer to look for is, “Let me think about it and I’ll get back to you.” For new clients, leverage on your new working relationship with them.

For leads that may not become your clients, never leave without asking the “Who else” question. Always strive to come away from a conversation with at least one new name that you can contact.

Read the entire article by Larry Prevost of Dale Carnegie Training by clicking on “Source” below.

Larry Prevost
Dale Carnegie Courses
5350 Transportation Blvd # 22 Cleveland, OH 44125
(216) 245-0092

Source: Manta

Photo by marleneford at Flickr.com

An Existing Typhoon in Asian Business Called KUNNECT is Here!

Asia is caught in a cyclone of repeating thunderstorms. That cyclone is called “KUNNECT.” In the Philippines, KUNNECT has been serving the needs of traditional call center companies since 2007, and serving the needs of thousands of seats or workstations all over the world since 2005. Today, KUNNECT also serves the needs of ordinary but varied businesses dealing directly with its customers.

KUNNECT has been shouting its rallying call to everyone – “Talk is Cheap!” It simply and literally is “Cheap!” when you use KUNNECT as your single, simplest means to contact your customers and allow the latter to contact you – anytime, anywhere.

Talk creates relationships with customers – a person talking is better than reading an emotionless message. Whether you’re trying to sell or market your company or brands, or serving the needs of those who already use your brands – including all these services being delivered by you for another client as an outsourced service provider, i.e. a call center, anywhere in the world – talking makes it easy for you and your teams to start the relationship, allows both your team members and your customers to maintain the relationship, and permits both of your to earn, gain and benefit from the relationship.

Talk creates relationships. Relationships create more business. It’s as simple as “apple pie.”

Your SALES teams, your MARKETING teams, your SERVICE teams and every backend SUPPORT team needs the correct, single tool to deliver the best customer conversation in the right time and the right way. To do this, you have to veer away from a costly set up and move towards an operation where flexibility, immediate action, reliability and a cheap way of doing things must all come together in one solution. This is where you start using KUNNECT so that you and your organization have access to all these features either as a direct supplier of products and services or as an outsourced service provider to your business client.

KUNNECT is a global Tier-2 class telecommunications carrier that provides “Software-as-Service” (SaaS) customer contact solutions full of features, reliable and cheap.

KUNNECT manages about 6 billion calls a year through its SaaS customer contact solution with small, mid-sized and large clients in 12 countries.

KUNNECT is redundantly hosted in several locations, worldwide, with its Asian hub located at the 4th floor MMR of One Wilshire Building in Los Angeles, CA – the landing site of all Asia-Pacific telecommunications to North America.

KUNNECT is web-based, which means all you need is a PC, broadband internet and a headset. Simple.

KUNNECT provides predictive and preview dialing, automatic call distribution (ACD) under multiple rules, nested interactive voice response (IVR) solutions, 100% recording of all calls, multiple campaign projects with multiple profiles, multiple integrated CRM screens and databases, dozens of live monitoring  and report generation tools, and much, much more.

So, wake up and smell the coffee – KUNNECT delivers MORE for LESS, literally!

For more information and pricing plans, visit www.KunnectPH.com and www.Kunnect.com.

How To Operate Your Business or Call Center On A Shoestring Budget

Here are a couple of scenarios you may be in right now:

You’re a head honcho marketing person that seeks to penetrate or establish new markets, especially the overseas and migrant Filipinos living in the U.S. and Canada. As a marketing guru, you know that the fastest and efficient way to do this is by one-on-one marketing. However, establishing a small, internally controlled business center is still expensive. “There’s no way my boss is ever going to approve spending hundreds of thousands of Pesos just to set an I.T. room full of whizbangs none of us will ever understand.” You’re stuck!

A couple of entrepreneurs decide to venture into the call center business because one of them happens to acquire a good telemarketing project that has good potentials for more projects in the immediate future, especially getting the customer service operations of the same client. After going around many would-be consultants, gurus and friends, they are stumped by the enormous capital costs just to set it up. Because of the start-up costs, they start raising their fees with the prospective client. This, however, turns off the client and the entire deal disappears faster than you can say “Mississippi.” What the?

A mid-sized call center has been operating on a shoestring; this time, they are using the ever-popular but very difficult to manage and maintain, Linux-based, open-source Asterisk system. It’s now taking a toll on their I.T. staff to continue upgrading and updating the campaign profiles in this system, besides already employing 10 full-time geeks who sometimes does nothing but wait for problems to occur. “This is asinine! I have more programmers than business developers!” Shifting to more robust, reliable systems is too expensive – the nice ones come with a $3,500 per seat price tag. Everyone is stumped as to how to overcome their current issues while looking for a way to acquire better technology.

You can bet your bottom Dollar you’ve been in the exact or similar situation at any of these three scenarios and, up ’til yesterday, you didn’t have a solution at hand. Well, brood no more. One solution has been here since last year and today, we’re gearing up to help solve your problems with the best “price for quality” package no one can beat.

Consider the table below:

The numbers presented above were actual operating expenses incurred by a call center that operated 15 seat campaign (or project) between July 2008 and January 2009 (the call center had a total of 25 seats). They closed shop after the owners one-by-one migrated abroad. ”Heck! We’ll just operate again once we get a good-paying project.“.

So, how could you just “start and stop” a call center business anytime? The solution is KUNNECT, a hosted call center solution that doesn’t tie you up with ridiculous long-term contracts and can provide you the best VOIP service for your client’s (or your own company’s) sales, marketing, service and support needs for any target market in the world. Instead of buying heaps of computer hardware, expensive software, too much I.T. geeks on full-time employment, weeks of systems and user trainings, plus the headache of dealing with two or three separate service providers for your software, hardware and telecommunications – OMG! You have a MBA degree from A.I.M., not a PhD. in computer science!

Going back to the table, notice not a single I.T. person was hired. Why? Two things: (1) your “Seat Lease” provider tackled PC troubleshooting and internet bandwidth management for you, and (2) KUNNECT managed the call center system plus routing your calls (or your customer’s calls) between your Agents and the end-customers while troubleshooting and managing the entire call center and telecommunications solution for you. When trouble arose, either the Team Leader (“TL”) or the Quality Assurance Specialist (“QA”) called either service provider to fix the problem – simple, short, quick and hassle-free.

If you’re setting up your own business or call center, don’t worry. Again, you just need a PC Troubleshooter (none of the expert but expensive Network Administrators) to manage your entire setup. Your internet bandwidth is managed by Globe, Smart, BayanTel or any of the Telcos in the country. So, it’s just adding one full-time employee at about, oh, say 15,000 Pesos per month.

KUNNECT just needs a computer with Windows XP, a USB headset and good internet bandwidth (no expensive IPL or point-to-point leased lines required), three hours of training, one hour to setup everything for a 15-seat center and you’re ready to go live!

KUNNECT allows you to start with one seat and ramp up to hundreds or thousands should you wish; or, for that matter, ramp down from hundreds to tens and back to one seat for all you care – anytime! That’s what a “no commitment contract” comes in very, very handy – you don’t get tied down with a contract that forces you to maintain “X” number of seats where some aren’t even operating. Run an accordion operations month-to-month and we’re both happy as a clam!

KUNNECT provides you with top-of-the-line, state-of-the-art technologies, features and functions that are all found in very expensive solutions (let’s not name them but one of the foremost brands starts with the letter “A” and is followed by the letter “V” and so on.) There’s no skimming of features – you get everything regardless of the type of package or plan you subscribe to. Predictive dialing, ACD, nested IVR functions, 100% recordings, HTML scripting – the works! They’re all yours to use.

KUNNECT will not charge you for the number of supervisor and administrator accounts you set up – only Agent accounts (or “seats”.) So, besides having, say 15 Agents, which you pay for, you can setup tens of more free accounts (or user profiles) for your TL, QA, business partners, client-guest accounts, consultants, part-time managers, home-based QA, heck! Even your wife and kids can have accounts and monitor what’s happening with your business or call center from Boracay!

I know – you’re wondering when am I going to disclose the prices. Okay. Here it is.

In the table above, that’s the on-going promotional price of $100/month per seat (it’s now $110/month). However, let me first bring you to the normal pricing plans KUNNECT has.

• Metered Plan – $50/month per seat plus toll charges (IDD costs anywhere in the world).
• Unlimited Plan – $150/month per seat with unlimited calls to/from the US and Canada.
• No commitment contract.
• Start and stop anytime.
• $150 per seat deposit – refundable once you call it quits!
• A one-time setup fee regardless of seats or ramp-up in the future.

Here are the KUNNECT promotional plans on-going until today:

• Promo A – $110/month per seat with unlimited calls to/from the US and Canada, 1-year commitment contract.
• Promo B – $130/month per seat with unlimited calls to/from the US and Canada, 6-moths commitment contract.
• Same deposit per seat.
• Same one-time setup fee regardless of seats and ramp-up.

Interesting, right?

By Raffy Pekson II, Country Rep of Kunnect
raffy@kunnect.com
www.kunnect.com

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