Call Center Gal

How’s blogging nowadays?

I’m okay. Still alive and blogging

What is your blogging purpose? For me, one of the things I want to do in this call center blog is to share available call center job opportunities. That’s why when I got this recruitment flyer today, I know this information is worth sharing.

For those call center applicants living in Marikina, Pasig and Rizal areas, you might want to take advantage of ICT’s 5th Call Center Caravan on August 16, 2008 from 9am- 3pm.

Other details to note are the following:

This is one of the most talked about news in the Philippine BPO industry to date. For those who missed the news, here it is.

One of the Philippines’ top back outsourcing group Peoplesupport will be Aegis Peoplesupport in the coming days. I read several news articles about this, but I only selected the one I read in Inquirer.net. To quote:

Upon completion of the deal, PeopleSupport would be delisted and the new company would be called Aegis PeopleSupport, Aparup Sengupta, global chief executive and managing director of Aegis BPO, said.

Aegis PeopleSupport will become a wholly owned unit of Aegis BPO and the deal is expected to complete in the third or fourth quarter of 2009.

I searched for Essar Group online and I found out that Essar Global Limited (EGL) is a family owned, diversified business group with an enterprise value of over USD 50 billion. The Essar Group is a key player in India’s Steel, Energy, Power, Communication, Shipping & Logistics, and Construction sectors.

Yesterday, I posted the first 100 Acknowledgment Statements that you can use to compliment someone’s work. That’s very important, for example in a call center training, where adult learners need confirmation if they’re on the right track. Excited to see the rest on the list? Here it is.

101. Prime work.
102. Capital!
103. Grand.
104. Swell!
105. Neat!
106. Cool!
107. Out of sight!
108. That’s something else.
109. Nifty!
110. What a keen eye you have.

When was the last time you received a compliment from someone? Did you like it? Did you feel the sincerity that comes with the statement?

I remembered before how we were praised in the classroom. It’s common to hear a teacher who would say “very good”, “good” or “excellent” to praise a student.

Now that we’re part of the workforce, our superiors would most likely say, “good job”,“great job” or “excellent job” to express their satisfaction for a job well done.

Do you share the same observation? Now let’s go back to my personal call center training experience.

One of the things I learned in doing call center training is that I have to explore a lot of ways to acknowledge what learners do best. Another is to use effective acknowledgment expressions to celebrate the learners’ improvement/ achievement. That’s why I am very thankful when my Senior Trainer shared a copy of these acknowledgment expressions that I can use in my training sessions.

On the other hand, you can use this list not only when praising a student. You can also use this whenever you have the chance. Just check the list and let me know what you think ok?

1. Fantastic!
2. That’s really nice.
3. That’s clever
4. You’re right on target.
5. Thank you!
6. Wow!
7. That’s great!
8. Very creative.
9. Very interesting.
10. I like the way you’re working

When was the last time that you’ve updated your resume?

Well, I just did mine today. Since I’ve been working in the call center industry for years now, it took me almost two hours to ‘overhaul’ the contents, believe me. I am not saying that you have to spend that much time as well when it’s your turn to do so. But before you find that document for revision, let me share with you three reasons that you should update this document now.

1. To easily check on the skills that you need to work on.

You might be doing a good job right now, that’s fine. But would you like to be offered with a higher pay? If that’s the case you need to check on the level of skills that you have.

Let’s say you want to work in a call center. But every time you wanted to talk to people you’re afraid of not sending the right message across. If that’s the case then you need to improve on your communication skills first then apply what you’ve learned whenever you talk to your colleagues.

How about taking so much time to finish a report just because you only know the basics of MS Excel? If that’s one of the skills that you need to work on then go ahead and check your options. You can always go online; look for tutorial and other resources that you can use to improve that skill. It will be better If your company provides tutorial classes for free, right?

How’s blogging?

Have you known someone who had their not-so-good first impressions about Manila?

I just want to share with you (with his permission) the thoughts of my former trainee who just relocated here in Manila. It was his first time to be here as he was based in Davao in the past years. He went to Carriedo to process his application for NBI Clearance as a requirement in his call center job. We were exchanging ‘text’ messages when suddenly he expressed his first impressions about Manila. To quote:

Photo by: Dirty Feet

How’s your day?

Well, I’m very happy because it’s pay day again. Just like everyone else in the company, I patiently lined up and waited for my turn. It was more than 15 minutes before I got my hard earned money, but it’s all worth the wait.

Here’s good news to all Filipino call center workers!

I stumbled upon this news from The New Zealand Herald today. According to the article, Telecom is planning to outsource their call center here in the Philippines. It all started in 2006 when they conducted trial operations here in Manila with fewer staff. If we are that lucky, we will have our share of this new development in the call center industry with 1500 new call center jobs for us. Isn’t it great?

How’s blogging nowadays?

It’s been a month now since I signed up for an Entrecard account to further promote my callcentergal blog. I never realized that I enjoyed it so much that I earned almost 1128 Entrecard Credits to date. Since I had such credits now, I started to advertise in some blogs with somewhat related content. I also wanted to express my gratitude to fellow bloggers who advertise in callcentergal even if this call center blog only costs 32 ec credits a day.

Here’s the list of the blogs that you will see on my page in the coming days.

How are you?

I just attended a Pag-IBIG or HDMF seminar here in our call center. A lot of employees attended as well. It’s a benefit that most of us took advantage of because we don’t need to be on leave just to attend one.

I’ve learned a lot from the seminar. I was informed of the requirements and documents that I need to prepare. I am planning to apply for a housing loan soon. I just need to make sure that I can save for the equity in case I will need to pay for it.

It just goes to show that call center employees (well, my colleagues at least) are also concerned in getting a house. This is contrary to the fact that we sometimes tend to splurge at times and tend to be impulse buyers.

How about you? Are you also planning to get a housing loan soon?

Till next post,