Business Improvement Archives

Jan11

IdeasUnlimited Celebrates 10th Anniversary

By IdeasUnlimited | Business Improvement, The IU Way | No Comments

Houston— Dec 20th, IdeasUnlimited celebrated its 10th anniversary with many of its workers from all over the world. IdeasUnlimited Founder & CEO, Shahzad Yaqoob (Nick) marked the occasion by thanking workers from all over the world including the United States; highlighting the many achievements IdeasUnlimited has accomplished over the last decade. IdeasUnlimited year-end events are usually an opportunity to gather together in person but due to Covid-19, the company decided to hold a virtual event for the safety of its workers.

“This milestone is a blessing and congratulations to everyone who is part of IdeasUnlimited.” said Shahzad Yaqoob (Nick), Founder & CEO of IdeasUnlimited, LLC.

Positive Impact for Clients & Their Customers

IdeasUnlimited has surpassed over 4000 successful projects for over 400 clients in ten years. The company has established itself as an experienced global 24/7 support services provider in a variety of industries such as e-commerce, real estate, medical, construction, retail, technology, and more.

In 2014, IdeasUnlimited was ranked in the top 5 remote service providing firms on a major online freelancing platform (“Elance” which is now known as “Upwork”). In 2019, IdeasUnlimited was awarded the top Houston company for call center and business support services by Clutch.

IdeasUnlimited support services cover customer support, technical support, and multilingual support with both inbound and outbound call center options. This award-winning support includes 24-hour coverage, omnichannel capability, the ability to have US-based workers during the daytime, and overseas workers overnight. In addition, IdeasUnlimited also offers cost-effective packages with flexibility and fast ramp-up options for any size of the company. With the experienced and skilled human capital working in the call center locations as well as remotely, we are perfectly positioned to handle any size of project.

Please read the case studies below of the two companies that IdeasUnlimited has assisted in becoming established corporations in the eCommerce and digital technology industry:

Pat-Patting to Success

How TravelWifi Went Global

A Decade of Award-Winning Service

IdeasUnlimited has accomplished an incredible milestone of a decade of award-winning support services globally with an expanding workforce and best-in-class technology and software applications. They are eagerly looking forward to furthering opportunities for growth and expansion in the U.S. and around the world.

For more information on IdeasUnlimited history as well as the services they offer:

Website: www.ideasunlimitedonline.com

Press inquiries: marketing@ideasunlimitedonline.com

Jan06

How TravelWifi Went Global

By IdeasUnlimited | Administrative Support, B2B Sales, Backend Support Services, Business Improvement, Customer Service, Technical Support, Technical Support | No Comments

Within 10 years, TravelWifi grew from a London-based portable WiFi hotspot to one that provides fast and reliable internet in 100+ countries. Propelling this explosive growth are the twin engines of an exceptional product and 24/7 customer service through IdeasUnlimited.

Introduction

With coverage in over 100 countries, including many with notoriously bad connectivity like Bolivia and even Iraq, TravelWifi (formerly Tep Wireless) is one of the world’s most reliable portable WiFi providers. Partnering with IdeasUnlimited for support services since 2011 has allowed TravelWifi to focus on expanding its customer base and increasing coverage.

TravelWifi; Global Pocket WiFi

In 2011, the founders of TravelWifi envisioned leveraging the power of global internet to create the ultimate travel companion; one both for avid travelers and for those who merely wish to remain connected when traveling abroad. It was from this vision that the Teppy was born; a portable WiFi device that allowed people to remain digitally connected when traveling out of the country, without racking up huge roaming charges.

TravelWifi entered a market hungry for the sort of device that reliably gave you fast access to the internet on multiple devices, no matter where you went. It nullified the stress of figuring out how you’re going to remain connected while planning trips. The very nature of the device meant that from the get-go, customer excellence was entrenched in device performance and after-sales service. Therefore, soon after launch in 2011, TravelWifi reached out to IdeasUnlimited for taking over some of its support needs.

How IdeasUnlimited Handled Support

In order to meet rapidly increasing coverage requirements and the demands of an exploding customer base, TravelWifi decided to invest in 24/7 coverage for support. Customers could thus reach out and obtain help at all hours of the day. While TravelWifi’s internal team handled day hours, IdeasUnlimited took on night coverage 7 days a week for customer support, tier 1 technical support, and order processing.

A new startup, like TravelWifi in 2011, requires a partner that goes beyond the brief while it quickly adapts services and processes to market feedback. TravelWifi did just that; and found the partner it needed in IdeasUnlimited. As TravelWifi experimented with platforms, support services, and resources, IdeasUnlimited recruited agents for 24/7 coverage, backend support, logistics support, chat and email support.

Throughout the first couple of years of TravelWifi finding its footing and changing training platforms and materials, the challenge for IdeasUnlimited was finding the right agents, helping with training, and motivating them to stay with the burgeoning project for the long run. IdeasUnlimited’s dedicated recruitment team threw itself into the task of putting together the right team that could adapt to frequent schedule changes and new learning material. Its HR management provided incentives, boosted morale, and reduced stress as workers provided 24/7 coverage during the holiday season, and swiftly scaled up coverage for the project as support needs increased.

Enhancing Value through Customer Service

TravelWifi and IdeasUnlimited’s relationship throughout the years has grown and diversified to become a true partnership; one where IdeasUnlimited is part of TravelWifi’s expansion strategies. Today, the services IdeasUnlimited provides to TravelWifi encompass the following:

24/7 customer support
Multilingual support
Billing support
Technical support
Backend support
Logistics support
Ecommerce support
Admin support, and
Quality Assurance

By drawing on a global talent pool, IdeasUnlimited schedules 24/7 customer support for all of TravelWifi’s customer support platforms. 26 of IdeasUnlimited’s agents are assigned to TravelWifi’s projects. These agents expertly handle chat support, call support, and email customer support 24/7. Customer support is currently provided in 3 world languages: English, French, and Arabic. IdeasUnlimited’s recruitment team recruits bilingual and multilingual agents to reduce training costs and increase flexibility across platforms. These IdeasUnlimited agents take brilliant care of the customer at every stage of their interaction with TravelWifi.

A dedicated scheduling manager makes sure that the required number of agents are available at each shift, even with sudden increases or decreases in the working hours for TravelWifi. On shifts where extra workers are not available to cover increased hours, managers step in and work on the shift to ensure that all customers have assistance.

At IdeasUnlimited, Team Leads, Project Leads, Project Managers, and Operations Managers all keep an eye on the project performance at different levels. Alongside that, we have a dedicated Quality Assurance team, who in their objective capacity as outside assessors, closely monitor calls, emails, and chats. This combination of oversight ensures that each customer service agent has feedback at every step of the process, and any errors are rectified in real time.

Team Leads and Project Leads for the TravelWifi project have come up with a performance matrix, customized to TravelWifi’s brand. This is used to grade each agent’s performance, identify weak areas, and work to overcome them.

The Performance Matrix starts with identifying specific situations where errors occur, then eliminating those errors by preparing the customer service agents for those situations. It pushes the envelope and encourages the agents to strive for greater excellence by focusing on customer happiness within a call or chat. This, in turn, improves TravelWifi’s customer satisfaction.

IdeasUnlimited’s quality assurance team provides a fully customized quality assurance experience to TravelWifi’s projects. Real-time quality assurance analysis has helped TravelWifi as a brand increase its value to customers. It has made customer support and feedback an integral part of the brand, assuring that the brand message going through to customers is consistent across all agents and times.

Hence, TravelWifi and IdeasUnlimited have grown together. IdeasUnlimited has been providing omnichannel support to TravelWifi for years, growing the support operations as TravelWifi’s operations have expanded.

The TravelWifi support project has been scaled up to meet demand; call volume has soared from approximately 100 per month in February 2012 to over 4600 per month in September 2019. Chat volume has risen exponentially as well. Despite this swift scale-up, IdeasUnlimited’s TravelWifi agent support ratings have always been consistently high. That is because the combination of best-in-class recruitment policies, consistent training, and constant project management support and oversight that IdeasUnlimited provides, create a support work environment where excellence prevails.

Here are some of the reviews for the customer support IdeasUnlimited provided for TravelWifi.

Long-Term Project Management; Minimal Turnover

One of the major problems with operating in the customer support industry is the high turnover, which amplifies recruitment, onboarding, and training costs, while at the same time lowering productivity. IdeasUnlimited’s unique remote workforce optimization model focuses not only on hiring the best talent for the project, but also overseeing their work, and motivating them to consider the project they are working on as a long-term career, instead of a stepping-stone.

IdeasUnlimited’s recruitment policies ensure that hiring the right customer service representative for a project is a short process since HR department takes note of the client requirements for any open position and draws on a global database of skilled agents.

For the TravelWifi project, IdeasUnlimited has dedicated workers and management at one of its call centers in South Asia, as well as a remote workforce. The IdeasUnlimited management is responsible for the performance and productivity of talent recruited for the TravelWifi project, in several languages, and across several time zones. Once recruited, agents are shadowed by Subject Matter Experts to ensure that they are implementing the learning material and guiding the clients in a manner best representative of TravelWifi as a brand.

As the agents learn, their performance is periodically reviewed by the Subject Matter Experts, the Customer Support Manager, and the Quality Assurance Analyst. Their performance reviews are directly linked to bonuses, appreciation ceremonies, and other markers of professional achievement. Eventually, they can be promoted to Subject Matter Experts themselves. The TravelWifi project currently has 7 Subject Matter Experts, each of whom have been working on the TravelWifi project for several years. They know the ins and outs of the product, logistics, potential problems and resolutions, and personify TravelWifi the brand when dealing with clients.

IdeasUnlimited’s partnership with TravelWifi across all functions of support covers each aspect of project management. IdeasUnlimited’s long history as a global support services provider has enabled it to fulfill any gaps that TravelWifi needs filled as the business grows and more support functions have to be delineated.

The TravelWifi brand, with added value through IdeasUnlimited customer service, kept increasing its market share and value throughout the years, eventually becoming an attractive acquisition target. In October 2018, it was acquired by US-based DHI Telecom to expand DHI’s international market beyond Sapphire. TravelWifi Wireless now operates as a subsidiary brand under the DHI Telecom umbrella.

In 2019, DHI Telecom acquired South America-based Trinus, France-based Travel WiFi, and Singapore-based Yogofi Mobile Wi-Fi. Tep and Travel WiFi were then later combined to form TravelWifi. The customer support operations of all five brands are being handled by IdeasUnlimited. In addition to this, IdeasUnlimited now handles TravelWifi and Sapphire’s Tier 1 and Tier 2 tech support as well.

In the spirit of complete collaboration and a synergistic partnership, DHI Telecom visited IdeasUnlimited’s call center in South Asia for a training workshop in November 2019. They met the agents and managers working on their project, along with IdeasUnlimited’s CEO.

Freedom to Focus on the Core Business: Support Quality Assured

With IdeasUnlimited’s help, TravelWifi has grown into one of the foremost providers of global pocket WiFi. TravelWifi, by focusing on its core service, has exploded in growth and reached a standard of excellence few young companies can boast of this early in their lifecycle. TravelWifi specializes in what it does best, and IdeasUnlimited assures it of extraordinary support quality. In the future, the sky’s the limit.

IdeasUnlimited looks forward to crossing future milestones together with TravelWifi.

“We would love to continue to assist them in their growth,” says Shahzad Yaqoob (Nick), Founder and Managing Director of IdeasUnlimited. “TravelWifi is one of the projects that have been very close to me personally from the beginning. I have always worked on it as it was my own and also taught the agents to do the same.”

At IdeasUnlimited, we simplify running a successful business by fulfilling all its support needs. We deliver support systems that diversify our clients’ value propositions and increase their brand value. Take this chance to check out all the support services we provide, and, if there is any project that you think we can help with, feel free to contact us. We look forward to hearing from you!

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Nov03

How to use SEO to be on Top of Google

By Abdullah Jamal | B2B Sales, Backend Support Services, Business Improvement, Social Media | No Comments

Whether you’re new to SEO or just looking to refresh your fundemantals, you’re in the right place.

Google’s search engine algorithm is one of the world’s best kept secrets. Years of updates have ensured that it’s secrecy remains intact while also forcing marketers to constantly change their approach.

Through many years of trial and experimentation, people have slowly figured out how the algorithm works (though not a 100%). One thing that is for sure though is that the best practices for SEO are constantly changing.

Being tasked with ranking up your website can be daunting, especially if you don’t know where to begin. The plethora of updates to the algorithm certainly doesn’t make learning SEO any easier.

In this blog, I will attempt to present a clear, no-frills guide on how you can get started with optimizing your website, content or any other digital channels to become popular on Google. So here we go.

Keywords

This one’s a no-brainer and something everyone is tired of hearing. So let’s just get it out of the way first; keywords!

Here’s a quick summary on keywords. Try to guess what people are typing into Google the most. Add those phrases to your website. The better you guess, the higher your website ranks on Google’s search index. All digital content should be focused around keywords. This is SEO-101.

Of course, no one will ever be able to accurately predict what 4 billion internet users are typing into Google. Later we will touch on some of the ways you can improve your guessing game. For now, remember that keywords are just tools. Using them is one thing, using them correctly is another. Keep your keywords clean, simple, relevant and pleasant. Here’s a quick test:

WHAT’S A GREAT HOME PAGE TITLE FOR A “FLOWER SHOP”?

a. ‘Splendid Botany Emporium’

b. ‘Gift Beautiful Flowers’

c. ‘Affordable Flower Shop Selling the Best Flowers for Flower Lovers’

d. ‘The Flower Shop’

A common rookie mistake is overusing keywords or ‘keyword stuffing’. Some are tempted to go all-in by adding a ton of keywords on a single page and hope that one of them lands a click. If you’re one of these people, you’ve got a lot to learn.

Quality Over Quantity

As of 2011’s Panda algorithm update, Google has shifted its focus towards favoring high quality, low volume content. This essentially makes keyword stuffing obsolete.

Why am I mentioning an update from almost 10 years ago? Because it is shocking how many out there are still cramming keywords in their content!

So if you haven’t figured out by now, ‘c’ is absolutely the wrong answer in the above exercise. Why is that? Because Google’s search algorithm will think that it’s too aggressive and redundant. A better way to describe it would be ‘desperate for attention’. The 2011 update will make sure that such pages appear as low as possible in the search result.

Moral of the story; avoid keyword stuffing. It’s an archaic practice that needs to be forgotten as soon as possible.

Google Trends

While we’re on the subject of keywords, let’s talk about Google Trends. It is the bread and butter in the life of a digital marketer.

So far we’ve learned that keywords are good, but too many keywords are bad. So the question is how do you focus your keywords and pick the right one?

This is where online keyword research tools come in handy. Many of them require a premium but Google themselves have kindly provided Google Trends; a free keyword analysis website. Simply plug in the keyword and instantly see its popularity anywhere in the world.

I personally use Trends to polish my content to be as SEO friendly as possible. Here’s an example.

Let’s say you are writing content for an online shopping website. A common keyword you may want to focus on is ‘e-commerce’. However, many prefer typing ‘ecommerce’ (without the dash). So which one should you use? This is where Google Trends can help. A quick comparison reveals the following:

‘E-commerce’ performs much better than ‘ecommerce’, therefore this is the one to use. Small optimization tricks like this can make a big difference.

Backlinks

Stepping away from keywords, let’s talk about links. One way Google ranks a page higher or lower is by checking if other websites link to it. It makes sense if you think about it. If others are referring to a page, then surely it must be good.

Google sees backlinks as a seal of approval. Having others link to you is a powerful way to get into Google’s good graces.

Inversely, external links can also help (but not as much as backlinks). If you know a credible website that could help your visitors, add a link to it. Ideally, one external link should be enough on a single page but there are exceptions. Especially if you can create a link exchange.

If someone else is willing to link to your website, you can link to theirs. This kind of link building activity can strongly improve your standing so add it to your daily to-do list.

Unlike keyword optimization, link building is a completely different type of work with it’s own set of challenges. You will need to rely purely on reaching out and connecting with others.

Link Building

Fortunately, marketers all over the world are actively looking for referrals and usually welcome a proposal for link exchange. So go out there and see which websites are most similar to yours. Invite them to connect with you while helping them out as well. You can email or send them a direct message on one of their socials. But keep your messages brief.

Normally, most marketers are quite welcoming to such offers since it’s an opportunity to boost their SEO ranking for free. But many are also careful. Especially if they are from a reputable website. They know the power of their backlinks and won’t be so receptive to a referral.

If there was a 100% successful playbook for link-building, trust me, I would share it with you. Truth is, link building takes time, patience and good old salesmanship. My suggestion would be to just start with a short list and see who responds and who doesn’t.

Keep Updating!

Google despises websites with low activity. Pages that don’t regularly update with new and exciting content will end up at the bottom of the search result ocean. Write blogs, announce news, update images. Whatever you do, just keep digital channels busy.

According to our backend support research, it is best to add meaningful content at least 5 to 10 times a month with an extra emphasis on ‘meaningful’. Don’t just add content for the sake of it. Try to be engaging. Perhaps touch on a recent development in your industry. Or maybe guide folks that are new to your business. Show your audience that you care.

However, don’t get carried away with engagement. Remember, our goal is to beat the algorithm. Google is updating their search engine to recognize more meaningful content (as we discussed earlier with keyword stuffing). But it’s still not perfect.

When it comes to updates, it’s still a numbers game. Always keep the 5-10 quota rule in mind and just keep updating.

Watch for Bots!

While it would be nice to have only humans surfing the web, the reality is very different. Almost half the internet traffic is actually just bots (why else do you think all the websites keep asking you to prove that ‘I’m not a robot’?).

Bots are constantly crawling all over the internet, looking for any place they can plug in ads. If they are not dealt with swiftly, you will soon end up with a website cluttered with shady links. Bad external links are a serious red flag for Google.

Therefore, always stay vigilant for bots. They are more prevalent than you think and can substantially hurt your SEO ranking.

Plugins

If you are using a CMS to build your website, then be sure to take advantage of SEO plugins. There’s Yoast for WordPress and SEO Wiz for Wix. If you’re on a different platform, then be sure to see which plugins are compatible.

SEO plugins are incredibly handy but sorely underutilized. I’ve seen so many people blindly submitting content on WordPress pages without even paying attention to Yoast’s recommendations. Taking some time to improve your content based on SEO plugins certainly makes a difference.

In Conclusion

Hopefully there’s enough here to help you get started. But this shouldn’t be the end to your journey to understand SEO. As I said in the opening, Google constantly updates their search engine. So keep on learning!

We would also love to learn from you. Let us know in the comments below how you feel about SEO in today’s digital landscape. Also, be sure to check out our other blogs.

Oct06

How to Make Sales During a Pandemic

By Abdullah Jamal | Administrative Support, Backend Support Services, Business Improvement, Call Center for Small Business, Call Center Support, Customer Service, Ecommerce Support, Ecommerce Support Services, IdeasUnlimited US Remote Workers, Inbound Call Center Solution, Outbound Call Center Services, Receptionist Service, Remote Support Services, Technical Support | No Comments

As the world collectively prays for a speedy recovery from COVID, business must go on. Maintaining quarterly performance and hitting quotas is more difficult than ever, but there is also a great opportunity for all of us to solve new challenges.

We won’t bother you with stats and figures showing how the pandemic is wreaking havoc across our economic landscape (there’s enough of that on the internet already). Instead, here we’re focusing on how you can soldier on and maintain, or even grow, your sales in this strange new situation we find ourselves in. And it all begins with a basic three step plan: ‘Go online’, ‘put people first’ and ‘be flexible’.

Go Online

Brick and mortar establishments will always have a place in our markets, but all organizations must develop an online channel to fall back to. While the pandemic continues to stifle traditional business, ecommerce, on the other hand, is experiencing a massive boom. Walmart and Amazon have both reported a staggering 40% to 97% increase in their onlines sales just this first quarter.

If you don’t have a digital market in place, now is the time to give it a serious thought. If you feel you have no experience or knowledge to make the switch to the internet, don’t worry. For small businesses, creating an ecommerce platform has never been easier with numerous third party services specializing in creating one for them. What you need to worry about is how soon you are willing to pull the trigger.

Put People First

Our quarantine lifestyle has made face-to-face interactions problematic, but you still need to find ways to show your customers that you care. A good rule of thumb is to always have more online calls than what’s required. Meetings should rarely be ‘presentations’. Avoid PowerPoints slides in favor of good old fashioned conversations where you try to understand the client; who they are, where they come from, etc. When a client senses empathy, they are more likely to do business with you.

Sales is a pursuit to satisfy customers. Simply delivering isn’t enough. You need to go above and beyond to nurture a strong connection with your clients. While marketing can fulfil this need, your sales, project management, business development and other teams must all collectively touch bases with your clients during the bidding process.

Be Flexible

The pandemic is a que for everyone to start thinking out of the box. Put aside tried and tested business models and ask yourself; how can I tailor my business to all types of needs? Car companies are altering their assembly lines to build ventilators and airlines are using their fleet for cargo delivery. Maintaining revenue is all about providing a service in any way, shape or form.

You don’t need to simply come up with new products and services. Instead, accommodate your clients as best you can. Change your pricing model, provide installment options or agree to something outside your SOP’s. The goal is to get the ball rolling with a potential client. One example is that here at IdeasUnlimited, we offer turn-key solutions based on a holistic approach. Now, we have changed our packages to be smaller and scalable in the long run. This allows clients, who are now more risk-averse than ever, to be more comfortable in working with us since we give them the option to initiate without a huge investment.

While there are plenty of reasons to lament a global health crisis, we ultimately see great hope. IdeasUnlimited believes in the power of human ingenuity and we have always bet on people’s ability to find creative solutions for even the most complex problems. We are proud of our remote workforce who have skillfully navigated us through the pandemic and each one of them are ready to extend their assistance to you. If you’d like to know more, then be sure to read about how we helped a California based eshop reach global success. Whether it’s creating your own online store, assisting with customer service or providing operational support, we are always here to help! Contact us at sales@ideasunlimitedonline.com and give your business the boost it deserves.

Aug09

Why You Should Hire a Healthcare Call Center During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Why You Should Hire a Medical Call Center During the COVID-19 Pandemic

By Shakira Mansoor | Administrative Support, Business Sustainability, Call Center Support, Customer Service, Healthcare Call Center Support, IdeasUnlimited US Remote Workers, Inbound Call Center Solution, Medical Virtual Assistant, Outbound Call Center Services, Remote Support Services, The IU Way, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Support | One Comment

Being a healthcare professional is one of the most stressful jobs to have during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even if your healthcare center does not cater to COVID-19 testing or treatment, you likely have several patients whose health you need to monitor closely in radically different conditions than any of us were used to previously.

Most healthcare providers cannot in good conscience neglect their patients, urgent or otherwise, for extended periods of time. Physician groups, hospitals, and clinics around the country are shifting to telehealth or minimum-contact patient care. However, they are not fully equipped to deal with these drastic changes. With most patients preferring to call in or video-link to doctors, but not willing to wait for care, it is important to ensure that these processes run like a well-oiled machine.

You need experienced medical call center agents to handle this sudden influx of calls. The calls might range from appointment scheduling, to prescription refilling, to questions about invoices, and reliable after care. Relying on your employees to do both this work and their usual roster of tasks will almost certainly result in poor customer satisfaction.

Why You Should Have a Medical Call Center

Give Your Patients COVID-19 Information

Healthcare practices are the first point of contact for people when they have questions about the pandemic. This is especially true for especially those specializing in general medicine or internal medicine. Since new information about COVID-19 is coming forth constantly, patients reach out repeatedly, trying to quell their anxieties about potential symptoms. Many also keep calling to ask how to stay safe in these conditions. Doctor offices around the world, from India to the UK and the US, are reporting a deluge of calls with a dearth of patient visits. Mobilizing to cater to these calls with a minimum of disruption to all other essential work is necessary. Your one solution to this problem; which will likely stretch to the next year and possibly beyond, is hiring a healthcare call center.

Improve Customer Satisfaction and Keep Revenue Streams Ongoing

These days, patient footfall has fallen drastically on site; so quality measures should focus largely on call responses instead of on-site dealings for the time being. Training a staff that is used to face-to-face interactions to transition to communicating only over call is an uphill battle.

However, keeping customer satisfaction levels high is as imperative as ever. Bear in mind that any patient receiving comprehensive and compassionate guidance from you during this time is likely going to show customer loyalty towards you for a long time. You will reap dividends many times over in the long run by focusing on patient satisfaction through healthcare call center support.

Patients are asked to provide information about their healthcare experience via the annual Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey. Unacceptable survey results can lead to hospitals losing some reimbursements from Medicare; an overall loss of over $1.7 billion in 2017. A healthcare call center influences and improves the patient experience, ensuring that a minimum of these reimbursements is lost. This is why two-thirds of US hospitals use healthcare call center support.

Healthcare Call Centers Can Save Money for Physician Groups

A healthcare call center brings with it a wealth of experience and guaranteed HIPAA compliance.

By sharing a healthcare call center across a physician group or a clinic shared by several providers, the cost of handling patients goes down considerably. Instead of hiring several people, one competent and trained healthcare call center representative can handle all calls made to the group. This brings down the immediate cost of labor for all physicians who are part of the group. The cost of training is reduced as well, while the cost of lost patient revenue due to irate clients becomes negligible.

If only one provider wants to hire a healthcare call center, that provider can hire a call center representative who works part-time but manages or returns all the calls made. Through IdeasUnlimited’s healthcare call center facilities, you can hire a call center representative to work for you for a pre-agreed number of hours per week. The healthcare call center’s focus leads to efficiency, with immediate results being apparent.

Lower Risk and Better Compliance

Having a HIPAA-certified agent handle your calls lowers compliance risk considerably. While initial HIPAA-training can take from 2 to 3 hours, the ongoing training and compliance is a struggle for each provider. HIPAA procedures need to be so ingrained in the staff that patient privacy and best processes take center stage. The best way to do this is by hiring a healthcare call center that has certified agents.

Identifying Where You Are Losing Money

Some healthcare call centers, such as those operated by IdeasUnlimited, offer a holistic package which includes cost audits. IdeasUnlimited’s healthcare call center service includes an audit of the business, which will identify where the healthcare provider is losing money. This service is imperative during the coronavirus crisis. Especially since healthcare providers and physician practices are being encouraged to operate at full capacity, yet income is slow with coming in. Reducing unnecessary costs and administrative bloating can improve the bottom-line manifold. Most healthcare providers who grow beyond an office of ten people don’t realize that their administrative costs are too high and can be reduced through consolidation. Having a third party objectively analyze your costs will identify where your business can improve cash flow in these trying times.

Access to Service Data and Quality Control

When you hire front desk representatives to take patient calls, you don’t have access to the kind of data you need for quality control. In such a situation, your options for keeping tabs on and improving customer service are very limited. On the other hand, healthcare call centers operate with strict quality measures in place, and content dashboards with access to service data. Having access to data regarding each patient contact grants you immediate feedback regarding services. Moreover, it helps you steer the direct and indirect messages going out to your patients.

IdeasUnlimited’s quality assurance team can take this task off your hands as well. The quality assurance team monitors calls and ensures that the standard operating procedures, as defined by the client, are observed. Quality assurance ensures excellence at each stage of contact with the patient.

By documenting each client contact in an easily searchable way, you ensure that your client contacts are up to par. You also have a detailed client contact history that enables you to have as complete a picture as possible when dealing with a client. Having detailed records also minimizes provider liability.

Why IdeasUnlimited is Your Best Choice for A Healthcare Call Center

If you are not yet employing a healthcare call center, now is the time to take the leap and reap the dividends. Not shifting to a healthcare call center may actively be harming your business without your knowledge. IdeasUnlimited is the ideal partner to help you transition to a new way of handling your patients. Contact us at sales@ideasunlimitedonline.com to get a custom quote for your business today.

Jul16

Why is Your Sales Support Staff Crucial for Keeping Your Business Afloat?

By Saeeda | Administrative Support, Backend Support Services, Business Improvement, Business Sustainability, Customer Service, Marketing Virtual Assistant, Remote Support Services, Technical Support, Technical Support, The IU Way, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Support | No Comments

Why Do You Need Sales Support Staff?

Why is your sales team not achieving their desired quotas and is instead consistently underperforming? Is this a consistent problem that is harming your closing rate? Read on to see the biggest reason why in order to address it straight away.

One of the most effective strategies of making headway in this department is to hire sales support. Sales support staff exist for the sales representatives to be able to close sales faster, smarter, and more efficiently.

Typically, less than 40% of a sales team’s time is spent generating financial returns. Why is that the case? Because 60% of an agent’s time is spent on time-intensive and painstaking secondary tasks. A lot of them are not directly related to acquiring new clients, but they are absolutely essential for keeping your clients happy. This then translates into keeping your business afloat. You need sales support staff to handle the bulk of these secondary tasks so your sales agents can focus on closing new leads.

However, there is a fine balance your company has to walk to hire just the correct number of sales support employees to enhance your sales team’s productivity but also justify the additional expense. Having 50-60% sales support workers in your sales team hits the sweet spot.

Ancillary tasks need to be assigned elsewhere to free up the frontline and pre-sales team’s time and energy. Administrative support tasks like handling accounts, scheduling meetings with customers, following up with them about their order(s), and other sundry tasks are some of the duties that should be performed by sales support staff.

Customer Relation management by Sales Support

Maintaining a Customer Relationship Management System is part of their job description as well. They update client accounts, new developments, and current statuses here for easy access by any relevant company employees. This is a farsighted approach which streamlines processes that weigh down those workers whose work directly translates into more revenue being generated. Spending hours and hours on monotonous routine tasks is tedious for someone who knows their time would be more productively spent elsewhere. A CRM system is also a convenient reference for the processes that your business incorporates. It allows for you to easily scale up when required and is also helpful for training new hires.

CRM systems also acts as a task management platform with reminders of meetings, things to do, and deadlines. They are connected to communication channels like email, telephone calls, and social media etc. for real time engagement with clients. They also record the history of each order and client interaction, which in turn allows for a better understanding of why some deals fall through while others are successful.

What Are the Responsibilities of Sales Support Staff?

The job of a sales support individual is to streamline processes and provide bilateral support and tertiary services to ensure the sales staff can perform at their maximum capability and efficiency. Your sales support staff will mainly be handling peripheral tasks related to client orders and inventory management. They will take care of administrative tasks like scheduling meetings, data processing, providing leads to the sales team and handling customer inquiries. These personnel need to be able to organize their tasks proficiently because they are crucial for the efficient running of the company.

Their responsibilities will include the following:

Administrative support

Sales support staff make sure processes run smoothly by providing administrative support. Their tasks include:

Processing orders and updating backlogs in the digital CRM system.
Scheduling meetings with clients and assigning them to sales representatives.
Forwarding all client complaints and inquiries to the respective departments for maximum productivity and client satisfaction.

Acquiring and retaining clients

This staff will also act as your frontline appointment setters, cold calling and warm calling agents, and backend data entry operators to ensure that your sales team works as well as it can. They will take care of:

Handling client inquiries to their satisfaction.
Forwarding prospective client leads to the sales agents so they can follow up with them on their end.
Recording sales orders with their relevant details in the CRM system and handling rush orders.
Overseeing the status of pending orders by keeping in touch with the clients to reassure them and keep them up to date.

Monitoring the sales team

The sales support staff also monitors the sales team’s internal processes on a day-to-day basis. This creates a tiered organizational structure so that the responsibility and supervision does not rest solely in the hands of one manager. On the other hand, the tasks are subdivided to be better achievable. This aspect covers:

Keeping a check on the sales team’s developments and progress.
Analyzing data from the CRM system to investigate the ratio of leads converted into sales, the factors behind a low or high conversion rate in different areas.

Sales support can study buying habits in different demographics according to their sales data for more targeted marketing. Any insights on sales trends across the industry would be helpful for the team to know which directions to pursue.

Organizing reports to chart the sales team’s performance as well as research and implement strategies to improve said performance for the optimum running of the team.

We often see companies laying off sales support staff in a purported effort to reduce costs while still keeping the essential workers to keep the business operational. But by reducing the percentage of sales support, the company sees a dramatic decrease in productivity and efficiency. Scaling up or scaling down, for each frontline sales agent, there needs to be a sales support agent. This will ensure that processes run smoothly and without easily avoidable glitches.

May20

10 Ways to Optimize Your Delivery Services for COVID-19

By Saeeda | Business Improvement, Business Sustainability, Customer Service, Employee Management, Remote Support Services, Remote Work, The IU Way, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Support | No Comments

COVID-19 has shaken up the whole world and placed a strain on quite a few industries, especially delivery companies. You must be wondering how you can quickly adapt and capitalize on this opportunity.

Logistics and operations can be very well managed remotely. You just need good collaboration tools, an up-to-date database, and a skeletal staff on site who can take care of the actual packaging and dispatch. Let’s discuss this in more detail. What would you need?

We have listed 10 different ways you can keep supplying all your customers and maintain as much normalcy as possible.

Display Social Responsibility
Minimum Contact Delivery
Adjust the Packaging
Easier Online Payment Methods
Good Collaboration Tools
Redirect Your Workforce
Change Hiring Practices
Effective Logistics Team
Faster Customer Support Response
Better Tracking Mechanism

Ensure that your in-house operations have preventative systems in place and all your employees have protective equipment. Your business runs because of your employees, so taking care of them will only help your own bottom line. An added bonus—your customers will have greater confidence that they will be receiving non-contaminated products. That will give you an immediate edge over your competition during the COVID-19 pandemic.

2. Minimum Contact Delivery

This must be one of the first things that you should take care of in light of this global pandemic. Your customers should not feel like they are putting themselves at risk while receiving packages. Introduce curbside delivery with a notification so the customer can pick it up before someone else does. Minimum contact delivery is the way to go, both for your customers and to keep your employees safe.

3. Adjust the Packaging

Something as simple as multi-layered packaging can boost customer trust in your business’ hygiene standards. Add an outer layer of packaging that can be easily discarded by your customers before taking the items inside their houses. Make your customers’ lives easier and reap the benefits in the form of greater sales despite COVID-19.

Optimizing Delivery Services During COVID-19

4. Easier Online Payment Methods

Expand your online, no-contact payment mechanism to include more methods, especially allowing for local preferences. If you only stick to bank transfers and credit card payments, you may lose out on a considerable chunk of your target market.

5. Good Collaboration Tools

Get better worker collaboration and communication tools so you can get in touch with your workers from anywhere, at any time during business hours. Audio and video conferencing tools like Zoom and UberConference, chat software like Slack and Skype, mobile collaboration tools like Telegram, and project management tools like Trello are all free for you to try out with your team and judge their utility yourself. You don’t even need to issue company headsets for business lines. Invest in a good-quality VoIP like RingCentral and get softphones that your employees can use from anywhere, just as long as they have a stable and good Internet connection.

6. Redirect Your Workforce

Move your in-store team towards managing online sales, taking orders through social media, and promoting your business to their personal networks. The faster and more efficiently you can handle online sales, the better it is for your bottom line.

7. Change Hiring Practices

Hire workers who are experienced at remotely handling tasks. That way they can handle your delivery operations from anywhere in the world. The most important point in favor of this approach is that these remote workers have experience in productively doing their jobs in a remote setting. Trying to permanently move an in-house employee towards remote work may not be as effective or accomplished as quickly.

8. Effective Logistics Team

Your business must have an effective logistics team that ensures your inventory records are up to date and your customer support and sales team get quick responses from the warehouses. You don’t need to keep this team on-site. Rather, pare down your on-site team to the bare minimum needed to package and deliver the products and move everyone else to remote work.

9. Faster Customer Support Response

The speed of your customer service team’s response is crucially important for retaining customers. Social distancing is allowing your customers more time to pick and choose which businesses they want to patronize. You are also competing with all other online businesses for your customers. Hence, you want to respond as fast as possible with order confirmation, tracking information, answers to customer questions, and troubleshooting advice.

Look into partnering with a 24 hour call center or after-hours call center to achieve this goal without going through the hassle of recruiting, managing, and monitoring the agents yourself.

10. Better Tracking Mechanism

With the majority of your customers stuck at home and most delivery services bogged down by extra orders and insufficient staff during the COVID-19 pandemic, customers are even more interested in real-time tracking of their orders. If you don’t have an efficient system in place already, remedy that oversight immediately. Track your delivery trucks and plan routes more efficiently, to be able to handle and deliver as many orders as quickly as possible.

Even if the delivery cannot be faster or is unavoidably delayed due to quarantine or lockdown rules, keeping customers informed keeps them satisfied.

Conclusion

These strategies will lower your overhead costs and make your business more competitive despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Switching some of your office jobs to remote roles will directly decrease business expenses, improving your bottom line. Your business will be able to survive and even flourish in tough economic times. Do not waste your time. Look into how these tips apply to your business and make the changes necessary before you are mired down by new problems created by deficiencies in your systems.

May19

Why do you need honest customer service?

Why Should You Have Honest Customer Service?

By Saeeda | Administrative Support, Backend Support Services, Business Improvement, Business Sustainability, Call Center Support, Customer Service, Employee Management, Entrepreneurship, IdeasUnlimited US Remote Workers, Receptionist Service, Remote Work, The IU Way, Virtual Assistant | No Comments

Why do most companies keep customers in the dark until the issue can be resolved?

They don’t want to have to tell the customer that there is anything wrong and to acknowledge their mistake. Often, the problem might not even be any mistake but an accident caused by uncontrollable events, but customer service representatives are hesitant to disclose the real issue behind the scenes for fear of being held liable for it later on.

Backed by our 9+ years of experience in operating a customer care center, we are here to tell you that honest customer service is the only way to go for operating a sustainable business.

Why Customers Dislike Being Left Out of the Loop

Customer dislike being kept in the dark for these two major reasons:

1. It makes the customers feel frustrated that they do not have the full picture of what is going on and it makes them feel that you as a company do not care about your clients.
2. Customers cannot manage their expectations because they literally have no idea what to expect.

Why You Should Tell Customers the Truth, Even When It’s Bad

It is a natural impulse to hide bad news for as long as possible but we’re here to tell you that being honest with your customers would be a better business decision. Here is why:

1. Being honest will generate trust between your company and your customer. Doing otherwise will not create long term value for your business. If you are straightforward and clear in your dealings as a company, it is only natural that honest and trustworthy people will in turn be attracted to your business. Like follows like.
2. Customers are intelligent. They understand that problems do arise. They can handle bad news and do not even mind if it is handled correctly. They’re more interested in what you’re doing to fix the issue. They just want some reassurance that something is being done to rectify the situation in an expected timeframe.
3. If clients are happy with the customer service they are receiving, they’ll return more and more. A successful business depends more on return customers than new ones.

Why Valuing Honest Customer Service is a Good Business Idea

Having a strong customer service center which becomes known for its honesty and integrity can be a huge asset that can catapult your popularity. Customers are more willing to try out a new company if they hear that they are willing to go above and beyond for their customers. They are likelier to reward a company who they hear are honest. It makes the customer realize there are actual human beings behind the screen who care about you as another human being and want to solve your issue.

Another advantage of this is the goodwill this develops between the customers and your employees. Your employees will be content in a place they know upholds good moral values and will be proud to be working there.

How Can You Become a Company with Honest Customer Service?

How can you uphold these values without altruistically running your business into the ground?

What you need to do when defining your expertise/ services is to be as detailed as possible in favor of exactly defining what it is you are offering. This shows that you value time and clarity of thought. It will also make it easier for customers to be able to find you from amongst the hundreds of other companies.

If the customer has been inconvenienced, you should be transparent and ask them how to make it up to them. You can give options like giving refunds, gift cards or coupons and let them decide.

One major deterrent to opting for a dishonest approach to handling customers is that anything you do will always remain online for everyone to see. Be they reviews or internal communications with your employees, you should know anything done on the internet remains on the internet. An ethical company would have nothing to fear from a disgruntled employee or irritated customer.

Things to Avoid:

Using vague language which is extremely generic will give the impression that you are brushing off your customers by using popular jargon without putting much thought into what you are saying.

People will have pre-established notions of your company if they have already been exposed to negative reviews pertaining to your reputation as untrustworthy or fraudulent. They could have heard it from other people or read it online, it doesn’t matter. It shows a history of behavior and customers are less likely to give such a company a chance.

Lying has another negative drawback. It can always circle back, and the actual truth can be revealed. Even if you think you got away with it in the initial situation, if a customer later realizes they have been lied to, there is a chance that they get angry enough to take their business elsewhere.

At the end of the day, there will be no business if there are no customers, so it is simply good business sense to make their satisfaction your priority. So, what are you waiting for? Get expert customer service center support today in order to avoid these pitfalls and build a sustainable brand.

May04

How to answer typical interview questions

How to Ace Every Interview

By Saeeda | Business Improvement, Entrepreneurship, Life Hacks | No Comments

Stumped by most questions that you are asked in an interview? We’ve created a short interview preparation list for you of the most common questions and the best answers to impress interviewers.

Apr28

Is COVID-19 Harming Your Business? We Can Help

By Saeeda | Administrative Support, Backend Support Services, Business Improvement, Business Sustainability, Call Center for Small Business, Call Center Support, Customer Service, Ecommerce Support, Ecommerce Support Services, Healthcare Call Center Support, IdeasUnlimited US Remote Workers, Inbound Call Center Solution, Marketing Virtual Assistant, Medical Virtual Assistant, Multilingual Customer Service, Outbound Call Center Services, Remote Support Services, Technical Support, Virtual Assistant Support | No Comments

The coronavirus pandemic has rained trouble down on small businesses from every angle. The business landscape is uncertain, and every sector has had to adapt. Whether business is reduced, or it is temporarily booming, we can help you get through this time. Our secret is leveraging and managing a remote workforce.

Chat, Email, and Call Center Support

Just like most businesses today, your business may be spread thin; perhaps employees are staying at home, availing PTO. Or perhaps you could not afford their services, but cannot handle all the work they were taking care of. If so, it might be time to look into hiring and managing a remote workforce.

Hiring a remote workforce during this time to take care of customer emails, calls and chat requests is the best way to ensure that your customers or clients feel well taken care of. While clients will understand that you are working with a reduced staff, they will appreciate your company much more and will not put services on hold if you are proactive in getting their work done.

A remote workforce is often much less expensive than local services. Not only will that drive costs down when margins are thin, managing a remote workforce through IdeasUnlimited will ensure that you know exactly what it’s doing any time it is on the clock. As industries have shifted almost entirely to telework, employers have been worried about paying their employees for work that doesn’t get done due to all the distractions at home. IdeasUnlimited remote oversight services guarantee that your employees are working on their job duties wherever they are in the world.

Chat support, email support, and call support can be customized to any business. If your emails are piling up, or clients are concerned about never being able to reach you, you can hire IdeasUnlimited services on an hourly basis today.

Boom in Business?

If you’re experiencing a boom in business during the COVID-19 pandemic, you need to capitalize on this and handle it correctly with your customers. Responding to clients promptly and making sure that they do not experience any hassle in getting their order or service requests through, is paramount. This will pay dividends in happy, returning customers. Hiring a customer care center that is experienced in support services will ensure that you hit the ground running and do not need to waste time interviewing contractors. With top remote teams providing 24/7/365 support, fast scalability and flexibility, omnichannel support, and cost-effective packages, IdeasUnlimited will be the ideal partner to help you during this crisis. IdeasUnlimited will take most of the work of managing a remote workforce off your hands.

Healthcare Call Center Support

Hiring a remote workforce for a call center during the coronavirus crisis will provide the ideal infrastructure for handling all your client calls and queries. A healthcare service inundated with calls and questions during COVID 19 will have to scale up quickly, without any degradation in customer service. With most doctors switching to telehealth appointments amidst the crisis, having a remote workforce ready to handle potential healthcare clients has become even more important. Through IdeasUnlimited’s healthcare call center staff, you can hire remote call center workers to take care of both frontend and backend services. Frontend agents can set up appointments, handle prescription refills, check eligibility and benefits etc. The backend agents, who are also certified in all major EMR platforms, can enter patient demographics, claim scrubbing and submission, billing, etc.

Operations Support

Business relief plans offered through governments the world over do not cover contractor pay. Thus, you should look into hiring overseas contractors who will ease the financial burden on your business, since you will get the same work done for much cheaper. IU services such as marketing support, virtual assistant support, and call center support can help you keep your business going, but at a lower cost than usual.

Outsourcing invoice generation and collection, bookkeeping, and payroll will not only cut your employee costs down, it will allow you to focus on core business responsibilities. During the COVID-19 pandemic, your primary focus should be on adapting your core business model to the changing conditions and appealing to existing customers. Support services can be outsourced at a cheaper rate than in-house employees or contractors.

Marketing and Ecommerce Support

With most brick and mortar stores being forced to close their doors, or having to adhere to strict restrictions regarding footprints, online shopping and deliveries have boomed. Your business needs to set up or enhance its ecommerce platform as soon as possible, because that’s where the bulk of your customers will be contacting you. IdeasUnlimited can help you with website development and have your website up and running as soon as possible. However; you need to market the website once it is published. Providing a good customer experience on the website is also imperative. IdeasUnlimited offers a full ecommerce support package, including technical support, logistics support, marketing support, backend support, product research, and brand management. We can also help you with managing a remote workforce for website development and maintenance.

Billing Support

During the COVID-19 pandemic, your business should give clients a larger window of time to fulfill invoices; however, you should not be giving work away for free. It is necessary for cash flow that you track client work and bill them on time and accurately. You should try to stay on top of this; however, if you can’t, hiring a remote worker to take care of this for you may be the best option. IdeasUnlimited can provide you billing support at flexible hours per week, to make sure that your business does not lose money it should not be missing out on during this pandemic.

Business Improvement