Top paying career opportunities in Costa Rica

Costa Rica has a very solid infrastructure , stable democratic government, very competitive labor costs and a call center job pool that is especially familar to the North American culture. Many of the offshore call center agents used today are bilingual in their native Middle Eastern or Asian language which is very difficult to the North American ear. Whereas Spanish is more beneficial and clearly a practical solution as a second language for potentially large untapped markets throughout the North, Central and South American populations as well as those countries where Spanish is either a primary or secondary language. This aspect alone has made Costa Rica a very attractive “near-shore” outsourcing solution Call center jobs are some of the top paying career opportunities in Costa Rica. This differs greatly from other countries that consider it as a starting position in a dead end company. Turnover at these other locations are five to ten times more than in Costa Rica.

Costa Rica tiene una infraestructura muy sólida, un gobierno democrático estable, costos laborales muy competitivos y una plataforma bilingüe de trabajo para el centro de atención telefónico que se adapta especialmente a la cultura norteamericana. Muchos de los agentes extranjeros de centros de atención telefónicos son bilingües en su lengua nativa del medio oriente o asiática lo cual es difícil al oído norteamericano. En vista de ello, el español es más útil y práctico como segunda lengua para los mercados potenciales de América del Norte, América Central y América del Sur, así como esos países donde el español es la lengua primaria o secundaria. Solamente este aspecto ha hecho que Costa Rica sea uno de los lugares de la contratación externa más atractivos Los trabajos contratados de los centros de atención telefónicos son algunas de las oportunidades de carrera mejor pagadas en Costa Rica. Esto lo diferencia enormemente de otros países que lo consideran como trabajo transitorio en una compañía sin posibilidad de avance. Los índices de reemplazo de empleados en estas otras localizaciones son de cinco a diez veces más que en Costa Rica.

Unlike other large and traditional call centers

In addition, unlike other large and traditional call centers situated far away in India and the Philippines, Costa Rica’s Call Center stays focused on only handling up to one hundred call centers agents in one call center at a time. As soon as capacity is reached, an additional identical call center will be formed with the same structure and business plan in order to keep our call center results and expectations consistently higher than that of the competition. Our company’s strategy is to take the time to handle one project at a time, in order to successfully manage quality control and analyzing each call center agent’s phone technique and presentation. Your outsourced campaign deserves a strong commitment to continue an optimistic employee self-confidence so each call center agent continues to make a difference and have create value to your company.

Además, a diferencia de otros centros de atención telefónicos grandes y tradicionales situados lejos en India y Filipinas, Costa Rica’s Call Center se centra en solamente el manejo de hasta cien agentes a la vez. Tan pronto como se logra la capacidad, un centro de atención

adicional será formado con la misma estructura y plan empresarial para mantener nuestros resultados y expectativas constantemente más altos que el de la competencia. La estrategia de nuestra compañía es dedicarle tiempo para el manejo de un proyecto a la vez y con éxito controlar la calidad y analizar la técnica y la presentación telefonica de cada agente. Su campaña de contratación externa merece un firme compromiso para continuar y una confianza optimista del empleado en sí para que cada agente continúe marcando la diferencia y crear valor para su compañía.

Respectable resumes of qualified telemarketers

The high demand for call center services has provided our company with an abundance of respectable resumes of qualified telemarketers that want to work with and for you. By outsourcing agents overseen by highly trained BPO managers and call center supervisors can give your business a proven method of expanding or staying in close contact with your existing customer base. Outsourcing to Costa Rica eliminates the additional pressure and invested time needed by you in order to interview, qualify, hire and train telemarketers by yourself.

La gran demanda por los servicios del centro de atención telefónico nos ha provisto de de una gran abundancia de curriculums vitae de tele-operadores

que quieren trabajar para ustedes. Al contratar de forma externa a agentes supervisados por los encargados de BPO y supervisores altamente entrenados del centro de atención telefónico puede brindarle a su negocio un método probado de expansión o permaner en contacto cercano con su base de clientes existente. La contratación externa a Costa Rica elimina la presión adicional y tiempo invertido por ustedes para entrevistar, calificar, emplear y entrenar a tele-operadores por ustedes mismos.

Individuals that outsource

Our niche is that Costa Rica’s Call Center presents any company that has chosen to outsource a practical benefit by providing more than twice the number of extremely well trained and educated bilingual call center agents for the same money as they would be forced to spend within their local area. In addition, individuals that outsource can rightfully benefit from the international tax laws granted to international companies that invest in Costa Rica and its growing economy. The clear amount of the savings and financial benefits will make outsourcing to Costa Rica a very wise and strategic business decision on your part and for your organization.

Nuestro trabajo es que Costa Rica’s Call Center le otorgue a cualquier compañía que haya elegido contratar de forma externa una ventaja práctica proporcionando más del doble del número de agentes bilingües extremadamente bien entrenados y educados por el mismo dinero que pagarían en su área local. Además, los individuos que contratan de forma externa pueden beneficiarse de la legislación fiscal internacional concedida a las compañías internacionales que invierten en Costa Rica y su economía creciente. La claridad en los ahorros y las ventajas financieras hará de la contratación externa en Costa Rica una decisión económica y estratégica muy sabia en su parte y para su organización.

closer proximity to the United States

The Costa Rican call center outsourcing industry keeps growing that has produced a highly competitive outsourcing market with many choices depending on price and service. Our advantage, as a bilingual call center located in Costa Rica, can be clearly seen as a closer proximity to the United States, Central Time Zone and Spanish language capability as an added value are now considered almost basic requirements when making an important choice on which BPO call center to use for your important project. Most importantly, if the call center software can support the needs of a client when their outsourced campaign grows? Leaving this to chance is not even an option anymore when choosing where to outsource. Call center software is as important to an outsourced campaign as telemarketing training. Both areas must be reliable, secure and capable of outperforming the other call centers that you are currently considering to outsource your BPO campaign. La industria de contratación externa del centro de atención telefónico de Costa Rica continúa creciendo, lo cual ha producido un mercado altamente competitivo con muchas opciones dependiendo del precio y del servicio. Nuestra ventaja, como centro de atención telefónico bilingüe situado en Costa Rica, se puede ver claramente por la proximidad a los Estados Unidos, la zona de horario central y el valor agregado de la capacidad de la lengua española ahora se consideran como requisitos básicos al tomar la decisión importante de cuál centro de atención telefónico BPO utilizar para su importante projecto. Aun más importante, ¿el software del centro de atención telefónico puede apoyar las necesidades de un cliente cuando su campaña externa crece? Dejar esto al azar ya no es una opción al elegir donde contratar de forma externa. El software del centro de atención telefónico es tan importante para una campaña externa como el entrenamiento de telemercadeo. Ambas áreas deben ser confiables, seguras y capaces de sobrepasar los otros centros de atención telefónicos que usted está considerando actualmente para contrtatar de forma externa su campaña BPO.

BPO outsourcing campaign

Welcome to outsourcing to Costa Rica Bienvenido a la contratación externa en Costa Rica Costa Rica's Call Center (CCC) is a state of the art telemarketing outsourcing call center located in the capital city of San Jose, Costa Rica in Central America. Our bilingual call center’s primary objective is to personally fulfill your need of key BPO call center telemarketing services. The main focus of every BPO outsourcing campaign will always be to personally educated and enhance the skills and every call center agent so that we may give superior quality of outbound and inbound telemarketing solutions to small and medium sized international companies, entrepreneurs as well as fortune 500 companies. El centro de atención telefónico de Costa Rica (CCC) es un centro avanzado de contratación externa para el telemercadeo situado en el capital de San Jose, Costa Rica en America Central. El objetivo primario de nuestro centro de atención telefónico bilingüe es satisfacer personalmente ssu necesidades de servicios de telemercadeo BPO. El enfoque principal de cada campaña de contratación externa BPO siempre será el educar y realzar personalmente las habilidades de cada agente para poder dar una calidad superior en las llamadas entrantes y salientes de telemercadeo a las pequeñas y medianas compañías internacionales, empresarios, así como las compañías de Fortune 500.

COSTA RICA STAR ARTICLE MENTIONS COSTA RICA'S CALL CENTER

CCC wants to personally thank our friend and amazing journalist, Mr. Bill Anderson, for including our call center in his informative article.

There will be much more to come from our relationship with Mr. Anderson and The Costa Rica Star.

http://news.co.cr/call-centers-in-costa-rica/6696/

Call Centers in Costa Rica Employ 16,000 People While Developing A Middle Class

Posted by Bill Anderson on May 18, 2012 in Technology

Call Centers in Costa RicaCall centers are often linked to telemarketing, but this is just one of the many business functions performed by call centers. Call centers may focus on one of the following business functions, or operate campaigns that cover many different functions:

Inbound sales, where customers are responding to an advertisement.

Outbound sales using client provided call lists.

Lead generation through qualifying customers calling about a sales promotion.

Market research by conducting surveys.

Processing of product orders from customers.

Customer support through providing help desk functions.

Technical support for particular products.

Appointment setting.

Credit and billing problems, including collections.

Cellphone activation.

Fundraising for charities.

Cause related marketing.

Direct response to TV / Radio marketing.

Sports booking.

Call centers essentially perform any business function that involves person-to-person contact over a voice connection. Costa Rica is the home of a number of corporate call centers, including Bank of America, HP, IBM, Proctor & Gamble, and Western Union. Independent call centers range in size for super call centers, such as Sykes Costa Rica with 3200 employees, to operations run from a home with one or two employees. There are no statistics regarding the number of call centers in Costa Rica. Richard Blank (CEO of Costa Rica’s Call Center) estimates that there may be as many as 300 call centers operating in Costa Rica. With just over a 100 seats (employees actually making the calls), Costa Rica’s Call Center represents a mid-sized call center.

If the number of call centers is hard to estimate, the number of workers employed by call centers is even more difficult to determine. According to the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency (CINDE), the offshore service sector employs 1.4% of the Costa Rican labor force, with contact centers employing about 50% of this offshore service sector. With a total work force of 2.3 million in Costa Rica, this results in about 16,000 workers being employed by call centers. The CINDE report “Costa Rica Human Capital Cost – Services Sector” (PDF download) estimates the average wages for call center workers, as follows:

Job Position Monthly

Average Monthly Average +

Mandatory Benefits

Call Center Clerk $533

Contact Center Manager $4323

Contact Center Quality Inspector $1320

Contact Center Team Leader $1623

Intermediate Bilingual Agent $981

Junior Bilingual Agent $952

Spanish Agent $767

Senior Bilingual Agent $1019

Workforce Coordinator $2317

The above table reflects the average salaries for September 2011, when the exchange rate was 510 colones equaled one US Dollar.

The Mandatory Benefits includes the Christmas Bonus, which is equal to one month of pay.

The A.T. Kearney Global Services Location Index for 2011 ranks Costa Rica as #19 in the world for outsourcing, and #4 in Latin America. The GSLI report points out that cost competitiveness is becoming a major challenge for Costa Rica. Nearshore Americas, in their article “Latin America’s Ranking Reflects, ‘Intensifying’ of IT, BPO Skill,” points out that El Salvador and Honduras are leveraging their lower labor costs to attract nearshore business. While price competition presents a serious challenge, Costa Rica still holds an edge according to CR Technology Insight, which points out that Costa Rica is #1 for innovation in Latin America, #3 for network readiness, #3 for property rights index, and #4 for high technology exporter.

The recent article on smartphone growth statistics illustrates the growing importance of smartphones on purchase decisions by consumers. The smartphone shortens the time between seeing a product of interest and acting on the decision to purchase the product. Once the consumer fills out a request, or contacts an 800 number, the call center comes into play. The call center acts either as an order processing center, or qualifies the lead. The qualified lead is then passed to either the client, or another part of the call center operation. Marketing to a potential customer, who has expressed an interest in a product, generates far more sales than attempts at marketing using “cold call” lists.

Internet forums and discussions on social media services, such as Facebook, created a self-help culture. This phenomenon reflects the frustration of many consumers, whose contact at a help desk does not speak good English. Consumers want an answer, and want one that they can understand. In many cases, the self-help groups may solve the problems. Without the presence of an official company representative, these forums may also give misinformation. In these cases, the work for the help desk representative is more complicated, as they must correct the misinformation, and then provide the correct solution. Help desks will remain as a vital operation for call centers, as they are the official company representative, who can also take corrective actions, such as authorizations for return, or corrections to billings. In both quality of English language speakers and understanding of technology, Costa Rica has an advantage over call centers located in the Philippines and India.

In terms of outsourcing, call centers are part of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). BPO includes many other business process, such as accounting, back office operations, and payroll. BPO, itself, is part of services outsourcing. Other services outsourcing areas are Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO), and the new area of Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO). There are Costa Rica businesses involved in all areas of service outsourcing.

I wish to thank Richard Blank of Costa Rica’s Call Centers for sharing his knowledge of call centers in Costa Rica, and for acting as a soundboard for my ideas on this article.