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Tech Your Business Podcast by Peter Banigo. An Outsourcing Operations Overseas with Richard Blank.

Tech Your Business
A weekly podcast simplifying & amplifying tech trends and innovations for Business owners overwhelmed by Technology.

In this episode of the Tech Your Business podcast, Peter Banigo chats with Richard Blank, CEO of the Costa Rica Call Center, about outsourcing operations like sales, customer service and back office support. Show #27. Outsourcing Operations Overseas.

Get tips on outsourcing operations overseas from call center expert Richard Blank of the Costa Rica Call Center!

In this episode, Richard shares 16+ years of lessons learned on managing remote teams effectively, competing with industry giants like Amazon, and the pros and cons of outsourcing vs handling operations in-house.

Gain insights into building company culture, empathy and flexibility when leveraging global talent to drive efficiency and results for your business!

Richard shares lessons learned from 16+ years running a call center abroad, including the importance of company culture, empathy, flexibility and frugality.


They discuss strategies for competing with industry giants, tips for effective remote team management, and the pros and cons of outsourcing vs handling operations in-house.


An insightful conversation on leveraging talent globally to improve efficiency and boost results!



https://youtu.be/KyMPTWv_arc
Transcript
00:00So for your clients you work with, where majorly are they? What part of the world mostly are they?
00:10That's an excellent question. I usually qualify the clients because they may ask me for certain things that I'm not capable of doing.
00:18We usually work with clients in the United States, Canada, a little bit of Europe and Central America.
00:24So I have to make sure that the agents have that language capacity because English is their second language.
00:29So we expect an 85% proficiency. It doesn't have to be accent. I would prefer better grammar and vocabulary because an accent, and I told you this earlier, it's a beauty mark on people.
00:42I think it's wonderful when people have that little special step.
00:46But I also like personality because if you're just reading a script, you're a print.
00:51But if you're in the moment, you can pick up things from a client so you can anchor and you can slow down a little bit and you can enjoy the dance of speech.
00:59And so when the agents are in the now, taking excellent notes, speaking, translating and concentrating, this is intense sort of mind work in short periods of time.
01:11They find their balance. And I see the art of this speech. And that's why I gravitated towards it.
01:16But even though call centers have a bad rap and you see what happens with Hollywood and people scamming and things like that, there's also another side, Peter, where you've called your bank and they resolve the issue for you.
01:27So there are people on the other end that can help.
01:30But people earn a great living from it. And if you don't compromise your ethics, values or morals, you can do very well with these sort of skills on and off the phone.
01:40And so what I tried to do, besides giving them a stable career and good pay and the call center life, I wanted to make them more marketable, maybe self-confident, so they could potentially handle the challenges they have outside of the office, Peter, which may affect them when they come into the office.
01:59And so I'm just trying to assist people and pay it forward in the best way that I knew how.
02:07Hmm. Interesting.
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