Competitive Advantages of Offshore Staff Leasing

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There are many recipes to success; what works for one business may or may not work for another, sometimes a little tweaking of someone else’s business strategy works for others too, just like with offshore staff leasing. By leasing employees offshore you get the general benefits that come with it, but by using different approaches and strategies you can gain a lot more than what you’ve expected.

Why Go Offshore Outsourcing?

Today’s global market place is becoming more and more integrated. Customers increase and so are their demands for better products and services. Big companies competes best for customers and market shares, but with offshore staff leasing, small companies are also able to compete with the big guys and gain a piece of market share which makes their business grow more and eventually become one of the big companies.

What Are Some of the Competitive Advantages of Offshore Staff Leasing?

Dramatically Reduced Costs
Oftentimes the main reason why many businesses today are opting for offshore staff leasing is the dramatically reduced operational and labor costs, especially for long term engagements. Business owners significantly save on infrastructure, employee salaries, training, software, utilities and more.

Global Knowledge and Talent Pool
Resource is also one of the biggest reasons for offshore staff leasing. Because some intellectual properties, staff experience and knowledge is not available or too costly to develop in-house, offshore staff leasing provide businesses all around the world with a wider pool of talents with various skill sets and business leverage.

Expanded Services, Increased Product Range and Access to New Markets
Entrepreneurs are able to expand and accelerate provision of a service and/or product through the additional capability of their offshore partner. In addition, new markets can be explored and test waters without having to spend a fortune or take higher risks.

Time Saving and Arbitrage
For entrepreneurs looking to gain competitive advantages, they partner with an offshore staff leasing company in a different time zone which helps them gain time benefits and arbitrage.

Business Model Innovation
A few tweaks and changes into the original plan is common to any type of business, but with offshore staff leasing it allows business model innovation to keep up with drastic consumer demands and develop better products and services with less costs.

If you are planning to outsource parts of your business, there are substantial benefits you can gain from offshore staff leasing. You can also discover additional benefits through various strategies that will be unique only to you. Look for an offshore partner will flexible solutions or willing to be flexible to your needs.

On the other hand, if you have already partnered with an offshore staff leasing firm but do not seem to gain the benefits you expected, do not rush things and fire your service provider. Talk to them, maybe you haven’t put more details into what you really want to have from them. But if the agreement you signed limits you into getting the full benefits of offshore staff leasing, maybe it’s time to look for another service provider.

Business 101: How to Widen Customer Network Using Social Media

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Many businesses today, both old and new, rely on the internet and the power of social media to further expand their customer network, increase brand awareness and build partnerships.

Having a steady stream of customers is what makes a business successful, that is why entrepreneurs explore all avenues of marketing to gather as many customers as they can. And that is where the internet and social media plays such big roles.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when you want to widen your customer network using the internet and social media, so you can build a better online presence and create intelligent brand awareness campaigns.

Social Media Optimization (SMO)

You don’t necessarily need to hire a Virtual Assistant to manage your social media accounts, and hiring an expert SMO company is not very practical for start-up businesses. Expanding your customer network doesn’t need to be expensive.

You can start your own SMO simply by creating an account and adding a description of your business. Try it with top social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. Learn basic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) so you’d know how to use keywords. Anyone can be a SMO or SEO specialist if only they would take the time to learn it.

Pay More Attention to Details

Twitter has a list of trending topics. Try to look for topics related to your business and industry. This can help you understand your costumers better and make improvements on your products and services

Blogs and forums are also best for stalking gossips and praises about your business as well as your competitors’ online reputation. You can also go through the comments section on Facebook to learn more about what your customers really wants. You will be able to plan for better campaigns to increase your customer network.

Microblogging

Articles doesn’t always need to be long and full of pictures, that is why we have microblogging such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Plurk and many more.

Microblogging sites are good for making short updates about your business and to start a discussion with an interesting topic. The main goal here is to let customers and potential clientele know about the latest happenings in your business, it’s a great way to market and sell products using social media sites!

Vodcasting

Vodcast is a video file that works as the same as podcasting. It’s a simple way to let people know about your products and services. It can also build ongoing relationships with your clients and employees, and expand your customer network.

Remember that YouTube video you watched about a product that made you feel you want to try it right away? How about the short clip you saw on Vine, Netflix or MetaCafe that made you feel special? These are social media sites for video sharing, a great platform for businesses to build brand awareness.

What makes it very effective? It’s portable, convenient and the content is easy to digest. You can share it almost anywhere on the internet, and people can download it and watch it anytime they want. You can hire a part-time video editor or media manger to help you create amazing vodcasts!

Go Mobile

Is your business mobile ready? Because your customers are always up to date with the latest gadgets and technologies available in the market. Always think and plan ahead.

More and more people today are now using their mobile phones to connect to the internet, interact on social media sites, check their emails, look up a website, purchase things they want, find a local business and many more. So it’s important that your business is also up to date.

Imagine if there is no internet today, your manufacturing or service business is new and you have a very limited budget. How will you market your products and services offline? What if you can’t afford even the cheapest packages that local advertising companies offer? Will flyers help expand your customer network?

An entrepreneur who stays inside his comfort zone will never experience true success. Take risks. Gamble on what you think can benefit your business. If you feel that hiring a Virtual Assistant can help expand your client network using social media, do it. If you think that hiring the services of a video editor or a media manager can help boost brand awareness, do it! Do not get yourself left behind in this fast changing world, it’s either you adapt or drop out.

4 Importances of Support Staff For Your Business

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Support staffs are very important little cogs that help run your business smoothly, it maybe just a small part for some companies but the level of importance is the same for all. Support staff varies by industry and company, it is routine and can be very tedious.

Let us elaborate the importance of support staffs in your business.

Virtual Assistant (VA)

The masters of multitasking and flexibility, virtual assistants or VA staffs are very good in learning new things in order to make their work easier and faster. They are cunning when it comes to clerical tasks and are highly organized. But did you know that VAs can do a lot more than what you think they can? Teach them a bit about Photoshop and they’ll watermark, crop, and enhance your photos for you, have them read the basics of SEO and you’ll have a VA that can do basic link building. It’s all up to you on what you want to assign to your VA!

So what makes a virtual assistant support staff a very important part of your business? There are five (5) major roles you can assign to your VA staff; a general VA for secretarial tasks, SEO/internet marketer VA for various online tasks, writer/blogger VA, a video Editor VA and a sales rep VA. Virtual assistants are versatile so you can have them do multiple tasks from various departments.

Quality Assurance (QA) Staff

The guy that always checks for quality, always monitoring and looks out for signs of issues and improvements, is the quality assurance or QA staff. A QA staff can be assigned to any department and can do several functions for consistent and quality deliverables.

So what makes a quality assurance support staff a very important part of your business? QA staffs does not only make sure that the process in your business are running smoothly, they can also identify potential problems before it occurs, formulate a solution for the betterment of your products and services, and even provide useful information for your marketing team. This support staff is the overall eyes and ears of the management!

Data Entry/Encoding

It is the manual typing of data from various digital, voice and written sources. Data entry specialists or encoders can type faster and more accurate, look for items in the database quicker than everyone else, and process data more effectively than you. They can be assigned as a typist, a word processor or a transcriptionist.

These days, many businesses prefer to outsource data entry services not only to cut down on manpower costs but to gain strategic business advantages.

So what makes a data entry specialist a very important part of your business? Companies today use more data compared to decades ago, and that is because of the evolution of technologies we use now. The manual typing of data into a computer can be very tiring and boring which leads to inaccurate inputs of information. If you want your data to be accurate all the time, you need an expert, a data entry support staff.

Back Office Help Desk

The primary objective of a help desk or service desk staff is to assist and help clients with technical issues regarding the product they purchased or services they bought from the company. Help desk varies widely within companies and can be outsourced too.

Customers will be calling in with their concerns whether you like it or not, and they will call whenever they want. Your help desk should always be ready to answer calls and effectively assist customers with their concerns. If your business can do transactions 24/7, so should your service desk.

So what makes a help desk support staff a very important part of your business? Aside from handling customers, your service desk has all the information that your marketing and sales department can use to create effective advertising to widen your customer network. The information they relay can also help you improve and make better products and services for your customers’ satisfaction. What business doesn’t want a repeat buyer?

3 Ways to Improve Staff Leasing for Your Business

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Staff leasing and offshore outsourcing has become a trend these days not only because it reduces manpower costs, but because many businesses today are finding these methods to be very helpful in increasing their bottom line, improve online presence and widen customer network.

If your business is suffering from some operational issues from your service provider, or if you are a first timer who is seriously considering staff leasing or offshore outsourcing, here are three (3) great ways on how you can improve your relationship with the service provider and get all the juicy benefits that comes along with it.

Specify the Level of Supervision and Build a Rapport with the Supervisor

Field supervisors or managers from staff leasing firms are properly trained to oversee your leased employees, not only to micromanage their performance and punctuality but as well as personal issues that may arise during working hours. You can set the level of supervision you want for your leased staff and even specific requests like having your staff come to work at least ten minutes early so you chat with them or to conduct a short Skype meeting.

If you want a more efficient field supervisor, build a rapport with him. A good relationship brings great rewards, especially to businesses. You might even be surprised that some operational issues, including highly technical ones, have already been resolved before it even reaches your attention.

Specify Insurance Coverage and Other Employee Benefits

Not all service providers handle employee insurance and benefits, so never assume and always ask for the coverage.

To stay competitive, staff leasing firms including both local and offshore outsourcing companies, have packaged basic employee benefits such as overtime pay, medical reimbursements, paid vacation and sick leaves. Some even allow the usage of vacation leaves for religious Holidays and emergencies. With flexible a solution like this, you can specify what type of leaves can be used to what type of situations.

Here are some benefits that the staff leasing firm can provide for your leased employee but not required for you to pay:

  • Full medical plan
  •  Retirement (pension) plan
  • Life insurance
  •  Recruitment (joining) bonus
  • Referral bonus – when you request for additional heads

If you have Doubts, Seek Legal Counsel!

Every company changes their policies from time to time. As the business owner, it is your responsibility to read and learn whatever is written in your service provider’s policy. You also have the right to ask questions and for examples, and you can even request for a written explanation or a short meeting with the CEO if you feel that can help you understand their policies better. After all, you are the customer.

Legal advice is always crucial when it comes to jotting the agreement with the staff leasing firm you chose. You will need to know how much control you have and the level of protection that the agreement can give you when it comes to liability. The more things works in your favor, the better!

How to Improve Help Desk Performance?

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The help desk is a very important part of any business, it maybe tedious and routine but it does have its great uses like improving customer experience, relaying useful information about the customers to the marketing team, helps improve products and services, adds positive reputation to the company and many more.

Because help desk can be a really boring job or highly stressful in some cases, your employees’ performance can be at risk. You may experience employees resigning due to lack of challenge, workload mismatch, or better opportunities offered to them by other companies.

So how can you improve your help desk’s performance? Here are some tips to help you out.

Establish Metrics with a Rewards System

Whenever a goal is set to be achieved, it is not too much to add a reward along the way. A reward system can be a powerful influence not just to employee performance but as well as motivation and behavior.

You can set different levels of metrics and provide a reward whenever a help desk agent reaches it. It can be based on quantity of work output or quality of work delivered, or both. If you are having difficulties determining what type of rewards to give based on the level of metrics you are going to set, ask your department managers to assist you.

Encourage Company Trainings and Seminars

Your help desk agents might not pursue a promotion today, but they will eventually. But how can you promote an employee with little knowledge and lack of experience for the promotion they are asking for? Help them grow professionally by encouraging them to attend company trainings and seminars.

If you make your employees feel that you care for their career growth, it will add up to their loyalty and morale thus improving their performance.

Team Building Is Not Just For Having Fun

If you think that team building is just another excuse for a short-term out of town vacation for your employees, you are dead wrong. Psychologically, it is a discipline that helps improve your help desk agents’ personality such as leadership and problem-solving skills. It also helps foster creativity, build trust amongst co-workers and develop better communication.

Using various fun and motivational activities that are carefully planned to help your employees’ mental health, your help desk agents can growth both personally and professionally.

Improving Employee Retention is Also Important

Some help desk agents can handle pressure but not the stress that accompanies it. So before they can call it quits, you better prepare a plan to retain them. Don’t let your talented employees leave your company and head straight to your competitor’s doorstep.

Here are a few tips:
• If the rewards system you have establish is not working or not enough, revise it.
• Motivate your help desk agents by improving their employee benefits.
• Offer them career growth through company trainings and seminars.

If a help desk agent is happy with his job, he is likely to be more productive which is beneficial for the company. But there are times when a talented employee can’t be persuaded not to leave his position due to personal reasons or an issue with his co-worker. It will help you a lot to perform an exit interview with them so you can pin point the real cause and prepare a solution the next time it happens.

Should You Outsource Your Customer Service?

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Many businesses today, both big and small, are outsourcing their customer service and other parts of their company to third party service providers. Outsourcing customer service doesn’t only cut down manpower costs, it can also help improve products and services, end-user experience, and provide you with time advantage over your competitors.

The thought is very tempting but should you really be outsourcing your customer service? If you are unsure if it is the best solution for your company, here are some things to consider to help you decide.

Labor Cost in the Long Run

Always weigh in the possible costs of outsourcing your customer services versus hiring in-house call center agents. It would be wiser if you draw a plan and make some rough computations before deciding whether to outsource or not.

If your company has a large volume of customers calling in 24/7 and your customer service is not available all the time, maybe it’s time to go outsourcing. Some companies hire third party call center services because they are the experts when it comes to handling all types of calls and customer behaviors. There will no longer be a need to add office space, equipment, software and other office supplies to house a team of customer service agents, plus language and call training will never be a problem because it will be the responsibility of the third party service provider.

Outsourcing your customer service may not be a great idea if you only have a few calls coming in.

Consider Your Customers’ Needs

Once a customer has bought a product or service from you, caring for them should not stop there. Having a good customer service will add more smiles to your customers keeping them coming back for more.

If you want customers to keep talking about your great new product or the amazing service you offer, you should always be ready to answer all their questions all the time, but is your customer service ready for that? Are your call agents equipped with the latest technologies in call servicing? Because your customers are always equipped with the latest gadgets, you should be able to take clear calls all the time. Customers do not want choppy calls, buzzing sounds, low volume speakers or microphones, and they definitely do not want to wait while you Google the answer to their questions.

Outsourcing your customer service may provide you all the things needed to run a smooth call center and keeping your customers happy. So if you are having the aforementioned problems and can’t seem to find a solution, maybe outsourcing it is the right move.

Communication is Key

Some people and business owners will warn you about language barriers when planning to outsource your customer service, because many businesses today are opting for outsourcing call center services in Asia to save more on costs and to intensify manpower and call servicing. But did you know that even your own in-house customer service agents can mess up customer calls? Language accents and different nationalities have nothing to do with delivering a good or bad information over the phone, what’s important is the quality of communication.

It wouldn’t hurt to sample your own in-house customer service and then try a local call center and an offshore call center to see the differences. If you feel that outsourcing your customer service will provide better communication between you and your customers, you might just be right!

What is Offshore Staff Leasing?

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Staff leasing works just like your local outsourcing process; hiring an individual or a team of professionals from a third party service provider to work on specific parts of your business like data encoding, help-desk, QA, online marketing, graphics designing and many more.

For offshore staff leasing, also referred to as offshore outsourcing or offshoring, business owners seek out the services offered by Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs) to assist them in various activities of their business, mostly in administrative.

Any worker you hire from PEO will be considered employees by the service provider; you will only be hiring their services. Thus the legal responsibilities to the workers fall to the care of the service providers, such as taking care of their taxes, safety and healthcare benefits, and more.

What Makes Staff Leasing and General Outsourcing So Attractive?

For starters, it is cost-efficient in terms of hiring local employees with full compensation packages and benefits. It allows many business owners, especially start-up businesses, to get access to a pool of highly skilled and talented professionals for a drastically lowered cost.

For businesses planning to expand their workforce, the recruitment process and human resource management will already be handled by the offshore staff leasing firm. There will no longer be a need for you to worry about employee taxes and payroll management because they are already taken care of.

With offshore staff leasing, you generally get:

  • Lowered overhead cost
  • Access to a pool of highly skilled and talented professionals
  • Eliminate the need to hire additional accountants and human resource managers
  • Opportunity to expand your business without adding more office space and equipments

In addition, offshore staff leasing firms also offers flexible outsourcing solutions for businesses with complex requirements, so you can always get the services you want within your allotted budget. Who doesn’t get attracted to that?

Staff Leasing: What to Look For When Hiring a Data Entry Specialist

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Data entry services are offered almost anywhere in the world and can be cheaper when afforded offshore. If you are planning to hire a professional or a team of data entry specialists, you should be as keen and inquisitive as shopping for your own pants.

If you want to reap the great benefits of outsourcing data entry, you have to set your own metrics when searching for the right service provider. Never let a service provider limit you with what they want and what is only written in their proposals.

Always Look For Flexibility
Asking for a price list is always important, but flexibility has to be too. There will be times that your business will undergo financial difficulties or change direction, so your service provider should be flexible in order to accommodate your needs.

There Won’t Be Any Loophole If You Don’t Allow It
If the data entry services being offered to you via an emailed proposal or over the phone have even a very small discrepancy with the contract the service provider wants you to sign, point it out. If they don’t want to change it, simply refuse the offer and move on to the next.

What a Data Entry Specialist Should Really Possess
Typing skill and years of experience plays a big role in deciding who to hire from a list of qualified candidates, but that’s not all that’s important. The speed of inputting data and the accuracy is a must, but those are skills that can be learned. Some clients look for candidates with good personalities and work ethic, the types of qualities that are very hard to learn and impossible to learn for others. Would you rather choose a data entry specialist with high speed and accuracy and an absenteeism habit, or the one with average speed and accuracy but never left a day at work?

Data Entry Services With the Latest Technologies
Always look for service providers who are using the latest technologies available for data encoding and management, so whenever you need to upgrade big or change drastically, you will never have to worry about software and hardware upgrades. Your team of data entry specialists will always be using the best equipment and your business will never be left out.

So the next time you look out for professionals for lease, remember these simple tips so you can avoid unnecessary costs and stressful partnership with the wrong service provider. Outsourcing data entry services are very helpful when done right.

Outsourcing Is Not Just for Big Businesses

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Many entrepreneurs think that outsourcing and offshoring is a business strategy only for the big guys and small companies are not cut out for it. But as technology evolves, so are consumer demands for better products and services, outsourcing has developed new ways for small companies and start-up businesses to benefit from it.

Cost-Cutting and More

Both outsourcing and offshoring began as a cost-cutting measure to help businesses control their cash flow. But as they evolve, they have provided better options and solutions for small businesses to help them grow and improve their bottom lines. Using various strategies, small businesses that outsource were able to strengthen their brand, widen their consumer network, provide their products in market faster and more effective, target more customers without having to spend more on marketing services, and tap into the global pool of talents.

Today, almost everything can be outsourced. From a simple proofreading task, data entry, email and back office help-desk support, computer parts, cable wires, nuts, bolts and screws to a team of engineers or developers, or an entire HR and payroll department.

What to Outsource?

First time business owners may think that they can do everything all the time because they want to keep everything in check. But later on they realize that they cannot do the entire job that runs their business. If you want to start out small, consider outsourcing repetitive and tedious tasks that take too much of your time so you can focus more on the core functions of your business.

Hiring your first outsourced employee can be very beneficial to your small business if you are able to start it right. So be meticulous when choosing for a service provider.

Business Model Innovation

Since outsourcing and offshoring has become a very useful tool, many businesses are starting to change their business model not because they are cutting down costs but due to the increase in demand of their consumers and for the betterment of their products and services in the market.

Introducing new ideas and making tweaks and changes are the things that can help a company thrive, especially to those who run their business in a very popular niche. What you have learned and accepted to change today might not be the best strategy tomorrow, but tomorrow offers a brand new idea where you can either adapt and grow or ignore and remain stagnant.

When to Outsource Your Help Desk?

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In any way you look at it, outsourcing your help desk is not an easy task, considering to outsource it is even harder. So every time you ask yourself when is the time to outsource, make sure you are going to do it for the right reasons.

Some companies have complex business models wherein their help desk agents can grow big only during peak seasons. While some companies only need a handful of help desk agents but do not want to build their own call center, they want to focus more on the quality of their products and services, therefore outsource them to the experts.

When the Cost Is Way Too High For Your Business to Support

New office space, equipments, chairs, tables or cubicles and even software are needed when expanding, and it can cause a lot of strain in your budget. It even cost more when customer service needs to be around the clock 24/7. Outsourcing your help desk agents erases all of that.

Outsourcing firms also thrives to be the best in their field; therefore they are always equipped with the latest technologies available in the market. Hardware and software upgrades will never be an issue.

When You Lose Sight of Your Main Goal

Customer care is important for your business but sometimes it can make you lose your focus and steer you away from the right path. It can also take so much of your time which you could have spent improving your products. Newbie entrepreneurs tend to lose valuable time because they try to manage everything, thinking they can. Outsourcing your help desk to the right third party provider can help you overcome this issue.

When Customer Service Isn’t Helping At All

You want to make a better product for consumers and a better service for your clients, but managing a help desk department is not your expertise. Hiring a third party provider, an outsourcing firm that specializes in call support, can be a wise decision if done right. They can provide you with highly skilled help desk agents who had real experience in helping customers through the phone.

When you have finally decided to outsource, do consider partnering with the right outsourcing firm that can help you improve customer satisfaction. Don’t just hire someone outside to take calls for you, establish metrics so you can determine if the partnership is successful or not.