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| BUILD & BALANCE Show with Richard Blank (Call Center Training Expert in Costa Rica's Call Center) |
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| Group: Administrator Level:  Posts: 180 Joined: 3/6/2019 IP-Address: saved  | BUILD & BALANCE Show with Richard Blank (Call Center Training Expert in Costa Rica's Call Center) Michael Neuendorff: I'd like to welcome Richard blank to the show today, I've been really looking forward to this conversation. I know you're going to enjoy it too. So before we get into the questions I'd like to introduce Richard formally Richard's journey as an expat is filled with many twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train over 5,000 employees for one of the larger call centers in San. With a mix of motivational public speaking style, backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric. Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10,000 telemarketers. In the past 20 years, he has the largest collection of restored American pinball machines in antique Rockola juke boxes in central America. Making gamification of strong part of CCC culture. Richard has been the chief executive officer for Costa Rica call center since 2000. Richard holds a bachelor's degree in communications and Spanish from the university of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the university of Spain of note. Richard was the keynote speaker for Abington high school, 68th national honor society induction ceremony giving back to Abington high school is very important to. And as such, he endows a scholarship each year for students that plan on majoring in a world language at the university level. Richard, it's really great to have you here with us today. Richard Blank: Thank you. Thank you so much, Mike. It's great to be here. Um, as I mentioned to you before I watched so many of your videos and they were entertaining enough where I was able to get through, 'em motivated me enough to write. And here we are today. And so I'm just very happy to be spending time with you and your audience. Michael Neuendorff: Well, likewise, Richard, I, I am, uh, keenly interested in, uh, in your background and your experience, and I just know that our viewers are gonna get a whole lot out of it. So I'd like to just jump right in and ask you the first question. Sure. Why did you decide to open a call center in Richard Blank: Costa Rica? That's one of my favorite questions, Michael, and I appreciate you asking it. I have to go back a couple years and tell you where it all began. When I was growing up in Northeast Philadelphia, a lot of opinions were provided for you and sometimes your destiny and careers were predecided for you. So a lot of my friends were going to Ivy league to study medicine and law engineering and architecture. And I, myself, I wasn't really sure what to do, but I knew my favorite class was Spanish. So as a dreamer that felt a little bit alone because no one else could relate to it. I decided to double down and go to the university of Arizona and be a BI major. I, I majored in Spanish and communication and like yourself, Michael, as a teacher and a really effective public speaker, I decided to study that. In addition to that, I concentrated on a rhetoric. So your message and delivery was more effective and everyone needs a special sauce. So my special sauce was phonetic, micro expression reading. I used to like to study body language, and then here at the call center, I was able to do it where we're more voice micro expression reading, which we'll get to later in the show. And we'll add the opportunity post grad to move here at 27, a friend of mine owned a call. I said, Richie, why don't you come down for a couple months and teach some English and naturally a 27 year old kid. You fall in love with central America, tropical beauty. And when I was at the call center, I kind of shed some skin. I realized that I had a calling. This was an environment where people were using the art of speech. They were converting phone calls and giving positive customer experiences. And actually since English was their second language, they were fulfilling their studies. I took to that. I embraced it. I decided to stay and work there for four years. So obviously I learned the business, but the one thing I did learn Michael, was I learned how to enrich the experience being politically correct. I saw certain things, the gripes and the tough times of working the phones or working in a certain structured environment. And I realize that if people are given their dignity, if they're not treated as robots or as numbers. Besides the productivity, you'll get a much more fulfilled person working with you that will work longer with you. And in my opinion, in my goal will grow with you and be some of your future supervisors. Michael Neuendorff: Oh, it's a great story and a great philosophy, all, all wrapped into that Richard Blank: answer. So, and it happened in 2008. I mean, I worked at the center for a while and my thing came later in life. Everyone has a coming of age moment. I had certain stages that gave me an experience or a vision quest to complete certain goals. But at 35, I started my company. The fact that I've lasted 14 years, a Philly boy here in another country. It says something. So I let my record speak for itself, but I'm very proud of the people that work with me. And my favorite thing is walking the rose. Michael, I love to stop on the occasion and listen to somebody, speaking with a client and smile and give a thumbs up. And that's the essence of what I do. And that's why I'm capable of doing this for so long. Excellent. Michael Neuendorff: Okay. All right. So now, now we have an understanding of how it all came to be. So, uh, now we want to kind of get into, uh, some of the, uh, sales related questions, right. And tap into that, that great wisdom that you've accumulated over the 14 years. There's so much emphasis on cold email these days in selling. Why should the use of the phone still command? Richard Blank: I think a cold email is fine. If you're just doing email blasts. If it's just a templated, I think a phone is essential these days for multiple reasons. The first is it'll give you a chance to understand the company's culture where you're calling. Secondly, you might meet people prior to the decision maker. Where you can build a relationship, learn more information. And in my opinion, do a positive escalation. So when you have this relationship with either the gatekeeper or somebody else that's assisted you before transferring, you can give the gift of mentioning how amazing this individual was, that works at your company. So your first impression, if it is a cold call and you're meeting somebody for the first time. You're showing very good faith. You're just not coming in, asking for an appointment. In my opinion, you're gaining a couple points and I think you're also eliminating the chance of any sort of upsell compared to just a cold email. You're eliminating any sort of chance of getting a referral or any additional business from that, unless they decide to write back. There's no way to get any sort of feedback, the positive or the negative aspects of the product in which you're representing. And then finally, as I say before, there's, there's that relationship and rapport building that you're meeting with somebody. So where you would be able to get the pass to pitch, you will be able to get that follow up appointment, or you would be considered a little bit more than somebody that just sends out templated emails, but. I will say this, my friend, if somebody is just using these cold emails as their marketing strategy, why don't you take an extra 30 seconds? Okay. Just to look at their website or a LinkedIn profile, because you would possibly be able to uncover something that would give you a sort of connection, or you can congratulate them on a promotion. On an anniversary, a third location, you could say they're slogan. I don't know, but if you're just calling me, sir, and giving me some email, it's extremely informal. But if you mention my pinball machines, I'm gonna read your entire email. So at least you're gonna have a shot with me. So my suggestion is just to, instead of being a, a, a, a print. Be a painting, actually add a little bit to these templates, if that's your only strategy, but Michael, to answer your question, you are eliminating so many different ways to build momentum, energy, and relationship building by eliminating any sort of phone calls. Michael Neuendorff: Wonderful. Yeah. I, I, I totally agree with you. So thank you for that. Um, I recall a past client telling me that they'd only reach live people about three or 4% of the. When calling all day long, what do you think is a realistic percentage of reach for cold calling? Richard Blank: If all they're doing is speaking to these people like four times out of a hundred phone calls, it's really an Oasis in a desert. My opinion is why don't you hang out for a while instead of doing an average five minute phone call, why don't you stretch it to 15 minutes? Cuz you're probably a little cold and you need to warm up and somebody's there. These are two ships passing in the night. I, we take advantage of that. If you need to throw your list in a predictive dollars, you can speak to at least three more people, but. That's not the point. The point is if you're doing these phone calls, I think you should slow down a little bit more and just take advantage of that. More people are doing omnichannel non-voice support. As you were mentioning, filling out forms, doing chat. One of my clients has the same challenge. They're getting the 4%. So instead of doing 150 phone calls a day, they reduced it to about one 15. So as I mentioned before, they can find out a recent promotion or some sort of company culture. So when they're leaving their voicemail or they're sending that email template, it's really custom made and I've seen that yes. Phone call, area contact conversion ratio dropped a little bit. But then here's your advantage? Let's say you make another phone call back to these people. You're m
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| 9/19/2022 6:11:11 PM |     | |
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