WFH hybrid business model Costa Rica Inside BS Show guest Richard Blank

WFH hybrid business model Costa Rica Inside BS Show guest Richard Blank Dave Lorenzo:Is that, is that gonna be a permanent part of your, um, of your say employment offering now? There'll be certain people. You know, even when the government opens up completely you'll, you'll allow them to work from home because maybe they're in a place that's an hour and a half car ride or bus ride away. And they're excellent. So they can work from home because their particular job is fine at home. Or do you plan on bringing PE everybody back at some point. Richard Blank: I'm open for everything, but there's one thing I have to ask for a new hire. You gotta spend a little time with me. I'll send you. Yeah, but my goodness gracious. Can you please come in the office for a day? Yeah. For at least a week. Yeah. So we can sit together. We can, I can send you home with my computer if it's not, if you were, but it's not even that. Can I at least have some pizza with you one day? Can I train you a little bit? Can I stand next to you when you make a phone call? So I can be proud of you? Can you meet my supervisors? Can you meet my entire company? So at least you're not an independent, at least, even though you're virtual, you're still part of my culture. That is my only prerequisite. You can go home as fast as you want, but you're gonna have to know me a little bit. And I'd like to know you too. So maybe as I said before, and I will stress this certain bad habits, or there may be certain areas where I could enhance their skills, make a suggestion or work on, or maybe be, maybe be that one coach, that parent, or that best friend that they didn't have. That one guy at 50 years old that wears a suit and takes the time to get to know this agent. Maybe he will stay because of that. Maybe they might do dedicated practice after work because of that. So they come back to me the next day saying they practice recordings on their own. Nobody does that, but a few do that. And those usually are my future supervisors. Those are the ones that I promote from within Dave. Those are the ones who, whom I delegate and whom I grow. so those are the sort of secrets or the inside BS, as you would say. of, of my success. It's really about building foundation. My man, it's about having people that are willing to come work with me for another day. And it's very humbling. As I say before, I'm a guest in this country. I might have learned their language and I know their customs, but once again, I'm, I'm 3000 miles away from my mother and my father, but I was embraced. . And when I saw something that was positive, I realized I shed a skin that day and I realized that back in 2008 and February 6th, when I closed my first account, it was only one seed for 50 hours. But my life changed that day. And I guess I was on a mission and that's why we're here because you can do this as long as you have good intentions and you have good faith. And remember the way that you were raised, people will accept. It might take a little bit longer, cause you might need to learn other customs and cultures or the way, but once you crack those codes, Dave, it kind of seems to be easy after that. Dave Lorenzo: No, that's terrific. Inside BS Show has accepted my invitation to join your audience for a solid discussion regarding taking a chance by moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Dave Lorenzo discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading. Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008. Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. Giving back to Abington Senior High School is very important to Mr. Blank. As such, he endows a scholarship each year for students that plan on majoring in a world language at the university level. Costa Rica’s Call Center (CCC) is a state of the art BPO telemarketing outsource company located in the capital city of San Jose, Costa Rica. Our main focus has been, and will always be to personally train each and every Central America call center agent so that we may offer the highest quality of outbound and inbound telemarketing solutions and bilingual customer service to small and medium sized international companies, entrepreneurs as well as fortune 500 companies. We encourage you to visit one of our call centers on your next personal vacation or business trip to Central America’s paradise, Costa Rica. While you are here, we would recommend taking an extra day of your trip to visit breathtaking virgin beaches, play golf next to the ocean, try your luck at deep sea fishing, explore tropical jungles, climb volcanos or just relax in natural hot springs. Come and see for yourself why call center outsourcing in Costa Rica is a perfect solution for your growing company and a powerhouse in the BPO industry. https://youtu.be/2y2TqpZowyw https://getinsidebs.com/how-to-build-a-world-class-call-center-richard-blank-show-95/ https://player.fm/series/inside-bs-with-dave-lorenzo/how-to-build-a-world-class-call-center-richard-blank-show-95 https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/inside-bs-with/how-to-build-a-world-class-y0jPVSM64FX/ https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/how-to-build-a-world-class-call-center-richard-blank-show-95/id1506769228?i=1000567719961 https://www.audible.com/pd/How-to-Build-a-World-Class-Call-Center-Richard-Blank-Show-95-Podcast/B0B54HPXGK?ref=a_pd_Inside_c1_lAsin_1_7 https://open.spotify.com/episode/0lGBT4kd7026zRzP3C8mlu https://tunein.com/podcasts/Business--Economics-Podcasts/Inside-BS-with-Dave-Lorenzo-p1258770/?topicId=173106229 https://www.ivoox.com/en/how-to-build-a-world-class-call-center-audios-mp3_rf_88970286_1.html

Inside BS show introduces B2B expert Richard Blank

Inside BS show introduces B2B expert Richard Blank from Costa Rica's Call Center Dave Lorenzo: Now welcome to another edition of the inside BS show. Today we go down to Costa Rica, a beautiful nation, just south of the United States, where the weather is always good. The people are always friendly and the work is really efficient. In fact, today, we're gonna talk about. Setting up a call center in Costa Rica and why you don't need to do that, cuz there's already one waiting there for you. Dave Lorenzo: My guest today is Richard blank. He's the CEO of Costa Rica's call center. And he's gonna share with us. How easy it is for you to offshore the tedious stuff that you can't hire people to do here in the United States. This is gonna be a great show. I can't wait to bring you Richard blank. So without further ado, please welcome Richard too. Dave Lorenzo: There we go. Inside BS show Richard. Welcome. It's so great to have you. Richard Blank: It's good morning to you. Good morning to your audience. And as we say in Costa Rica, P Avita, I'm very happy to be here today. Dave Lorenzo: Oh, it's so great to have you. So, Richard first, we let's start by having you explain to people, uh, some of the, um, some of the unique qualities of Costa Rica. Richard Blank: But I, I visited Costa Rica. I shared with you probably 21 or 22 years ago. And before I visited, I didn't know very much about Costa Rica explained to folks some of the really unique characteristics of that country. Richard Blank: Well, not only we a powerhouse in the, uh, call center industry, but we have an incredible labor force. Richard Blank: We have a 95% literacy rate. So there's no standing army. All that money was put back into education. We have the best infrastructure in central America. We are below Nicaragua, north of Panama. A lot of people think we're an island, but no we're right there smack out right in central America. We're very close to the United States or our Proximic on a direct flight is just a couple hours. Richard Blank: We're very attuned to the north American market. So a lot of people have lived in the United. Have family in the United States, or there's a lot of expatriates that live here, including myself, who is an expatriate for the last 21 years. And their skill set here is incredible. Besides them being bilingual. Richard Blank: They also have very high skills in regards to it customer support, lead generation appointment setting, and even non-voice omnichannel support. So companies such as HP, Intel, Oracle, and. Have a very, very large presence here in Costa Rica for, for many reasons. But you know, personally from being here and me being here for 21 years, it's, it's a beautiful life. Richard Blank: And the people here are very cultured and educated and kind, and it reflects over our phone calls. So I believe that's why a lot of our agents show very high levels of success. Dave Lorenzo: Yeah. Inside BS Show has accepted my invitation to join your audience for a solid discussion regarding taking a chance by moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Dave Lorenzo discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading. Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008. Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. Giving back to Abington Senior High School is very important to Mr. Blank. As such, he endows a scholarship each year for students that plan on majoring in a world language at the university level. Costa Rica’s Call Center (CCC) is a state of the art BPO telemarketing outsource company located in the capital city of San Jose, Costa Rica. Our main focus has been, and will always be to personally train each and every Central America call center agent so that we may offer the highest quality of outbound and inbound telemarketing solutions and bilingual customer service to small and medium sized international companies, entrepreneurs as well as fortune 500 companies. We encourage you to visit one of our call centers on your next personal vacation or business trip to Central America’s paradise, Costa Rica. While you are here, we would recommend taking an extra day of your trip to visit breathtaking virgin beaches, play golf next to the ocean, try your luck at deep sea fishing, explore tropical jungles, climb volcanos or just relax in natural hot springs. Come and see for yourself why call center outsourcing in Costa Rica is a perfect solution for your growing company and a powerhouse in the BPO industry. https://youtu.be/nybGZd8p2wI https://getinsidebs.com/how-to-build-a-world-class-call-center-richard-blank-show-95/ https://player.fm/series/inside-bs-with-dave-lorenzo/how-to-build-a-world-class-call-center-richard-blank-show-95 https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/inside-bs-with/how-to-build-a-world-class-y0jPVSM64FX/ https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/how-to-build-a-world-class-call-center-richard-blank-show-95/id1506769228?i=1000567719961 https://www.audible.com/pd/How-to-Build-a-World-Class-Call-Center-Richard-Blank-Show-95-Podcast/B0B54HPXGK?ref=a_pd_Inside_c1_lAsin_1_7 https://open.spotify.com/episode/0lGBT4kd7026zRzP3C8mlu https://tunein.com/podcasts/Business--Economics-Podcasts/Inside-BS-with-Dave-Lorenzo-p1258770/?topicId=173106229 https://www.ivoox.com/en/how-to-build-a-world-class-call-center-audios-mp3_rf_88970286_1.html

English accent levels Costa Rica on Inside BS Show with guest Richard Blank

English accent levels Costa Rica on Inside BS Show with guest Richard Blank Dave Lorenzo: Biggest takeaway from my time in Costa Rica related to the people was that. And my, my friends here in Miami are gonna kill me for saying this, but it is the God's honest truth. People in Costa Rica speak better English than the people in Miami . It's just the facts. I'm not, I'm not saying anything. That's, that's not true. The people in Costa Rica are extremely well educated. I, the healthcare system is excellent, correct for people who retire there, the healthcare is fantastic. Richard Blank: Absolutely. There's a lot of medical tourism, and I believe you are mentioning to having more of a neutral tone. in regards to some other Latino countries. So yes, we've been known to have a certain sort of accent that could be more relatable compared to let's say offshoring in India, where the Philippines, where it's more noticeable. But as I say before, Spanish, it will be the most spoken language in the United States, if not today, very soon. So the fact that these agents here, as you say are. Structured and disciplined and they show the cognitive skills to become bilingual, which takes a lot of work. I get these individuals that are walking through the door already showing me something. And so what I try to do, and I think you'll agree with this, cuz you've been here. I will focus on not just their grammar, but more their vocabulary. We look in thesaurus so we can choose certain words that would be more appropriate for a phone call or for customer support. So we can do a first call re. Because just by saying the word help, Dave, you know, this, that could open up so many rabbit holes, it's better to say assist, lend a hand or guide somebody. And so under my direction, that's where I take this delicate second language of theirs and use our experience being an Anglosaxon and growing up in the United States and giving them the ability to be able to communicate more properly with the sort of clients that we have in the United States. Inside BS Show has accepted my invitation to join your audience for a solid discussion regarding taking a chance by moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Dave Lorenzo discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading. Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008. Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. Giving back to Abington Senior High School is very important to Mr. Blank. As such, he endows a scholarship each year for students that plan on majoring in a world language at the university level. Costa Rica’s Call Center (CCC) is a state of the art BPO telemarketing outsource company located in the capital city of San Jose, Costa Rica. Our main focus has been, and will always be to personally train each and every Central America call center agent so that we may offer the highest quality of outbound and inbound telemarketing solutions and bilingual customer service to small and medium sized international companies, entrepreneurs as well as fortune 500 companies. We encourage you to visit one of our call centers on your next personal vacation or business trip to Central America’s paradise, Costa Rica. While you are here, we would recommend taking an extra day of your trip to visit breathtaking virgin beaches, play golf next to the ocean, try your luck at deep sea fishing, explore tropical jungles, climb volcanos or just relax in natural hot springs. Come and see for yourself why call center outsourcing in Costa Rica is a perfect solution for your growing company and a powerhouse in the BPO industry. https://youtu.be/nYuKleFQ1H8 https://getinsidebs.com/how-to-build-a-world-class-call-center-richard-blank-show-95/ https://player.fm/series/inside-bs-with-dave-lorenzo/how-to-build-a-world-class-call-center-richard-blank-show-95 https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/inside-bs-with/how-to-build-a-world-class-y0jPVSM64FX/ https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/how-to-build-a-world-class-call-center-richard-blank-show-95/id1506769228?i=1000567719961 https://www.audible.com/pd/How-to-Build-a-World-Class-Call-Center-Richard-Blank-Show-95-Podcast/B0B54HPXGK?ref=a_pd_Inside_c1_lAsin_1_7 https://open.spotify.com/episode/0lGBT4kd7026zRzP3C8mlu https://tunein.com/podcasts/Business--Economics-Podcasts/Inside-BS-with-Dave-Lorenzo-p1258770/?topicId=173106229 https://www.ivoox.com/en/how-to-build-a-world-class-call-center-audios-mp3_rf_88970286_1.html

Inside BS Show, Dave Lorenzo interviews Richard Blank about active listening

Dave Lorenzo: All right. So, uh, talk to us about. The, uh, the type of work you do. Uh, I think a lot of people who are listening, a lot of people who are watching, they think of when they think of a call center, they think of, you know, calling like the help desk to solve problems. But you do a lot more than that. So explain the spectrum of work that you do at Costa Rica's call center, Richard Blank: Many different profiles that we have here. Richard Blank: And that's an excellent question, Dave. We, we're very flexible. If there's non-voice support, you can have people that are just answering emails or just doing chat support. Then you have people that are inbound customer support, which is what you're usually used to calling any sort of company. We also have certain agents that are capable of doing outbound lead generation and appointment setting for people. Richard Blank: My favorite is a hot lead transfer. One. You get it while the lead is hot, and then you have the, the ACEs, you got the closers, they're very competitive down here and they're in high demand. So, uh, once again, I kind of see them as mercenaries. They'll just jump to. Best deal and you might not keep them along. Richard Blank: So I usually like to feel most comfortable around a level one customer. Lead generation and appointment setting, and then avoid, uh, eventually we can mold them into being salespeople on the phone. Uh, these individuals, it's very important that the client respects the labor laws here in Costa Rica, because a lot of the times they will be asking for certain overtime or certain adjustments that they need to understand. Richard Blank: Um, you are dealing with another country and they have different types of rules. So the best thing for us to do prior to working with the clients, to let them know of our holidays that we have and the other things that might disrupt any sort of workflow. We also would like for them to know the sort of culture that we have here, not necessarily in Costa Rica, but at my call center. Richard Blank: I don't like when supervisors write in bold or they write in red, I don't like cursing or screaming because you can bend them, Dave. But the worst thing we can do is break. Yeah. And it's not fair, not for our reputation for your project or even for the vibe of the project. The clients have to ensure that we have all the resources well before making phone calls. Richard Blank: I gotta make sure that the station is set up. Do we log into you through a VPN? Are we using your CRM or our CRM? Our dialer, your dialer list, scrubbed rebuttal script. Do you have recordings for me? Who's doing the onboarding. Who's doing the training. What sort of quality assurance and QA scores do you have there? Richard Blank: So, and it's okay. Dave, if I've worked with people before that don't know the, the terminology or the QA forms or onboarding, that's my pleasure because my resources are your resources. And anytime I can, uh, educate a client and guide them through a quality assurance form on what we should be looking for from the agent, then you and I see consist. Richard Blank: So your sales cycle gets a little bit shorter. You build your pipeline more, you're closing more on first calls. And when we're listening to these calls, you and I will be able to deduct where our strengths, where there areas of focus, where we were dropping the ball on the rebuttal, on the pauses with the tele signs. Richard Blank: So my class here is not just a bilingual person taking a script and making calls. I am very, very, uh, strict. In regards to representing our clients in the best light. I'm very selective of the tone that we have on the call. It's always empathetic and confident. And then I always teach my agents how to do these sort of micro expression reading on the phone. Richard Blank: So when they allow the client to talk or then it's our turn to interject to be able to do a follow up. And I've seen that our conversion ratios just by not, uh, having a hedge for an. Where somebody says, um, okay. Or just wonderful. Great. When someone's answering a question, Dave, you know, it's much more to your advantage for someone not to repeat, let us repeat it. Richard Blank: Let us do it for our clarification. If it's ABC or 1, 2, 3, and the same thing goes, my friend, when there's a bad cell phone connection, a dog barking music, cuz people are working from home now that's to our advantage twice. We can get things in the background to have things in common and inadvertently and passive aggressively. Richard Blank: I can tell you how much I love your dog, which is pretty much a hint to, you know, have him quiet down. But it also gives me a chance to be able to work with these clients in that certain way, to be able to move that conversation forward and to understand how they speak. I always believe in active listen, because a lot of the times the people are just moving things forward. Um, in case there might be some sort of family situation or a business promotion, a lot of people just skip through that. They should pause for a moment they should celebrate with them or should they pay condolences. And the one thing that I'm really missing on these calls is when people give positive escalations, you'll have a business associate M. Richard Blank: That does a wonderful job written me multiple times with the emails, just to make sure that we were locked in today, a plus. So there's a lot of people, a lot of team behind Dave Lorenzo and Richard blank. And so I want your business strategy and marketing strategy to take very much into consideration all those, that answer calls, filter calls, and that may be able to give you company culture or might be able to tell you about a promot. Richard Blank: or it might just get real with you for a minute. And then when you're at that stage of the call, Dave, then it's not selling anymore, then it's really just, uh, strangers are friends you haven't met yet. So now you're just really hanging out with somebody and just finding ways to meet in the middle. Inside BS Show has accepted my invitation to join your audience for a solid discussion regarding taking a chance by moving abroad and starting a company from scratch in Costa Rica. Dave Lorenzo discusses with Richard advanced telemarketing strategy, conflict management, interpersonal soft skills, customer support, rhetoric, gamification, employee motivation and phonetic micro expression reading. Richard’s journey in the call center space is filled with twists and turns. When he was 27 years old, he relocated to Costa Rica to train employees for one of the larger call centers in San Jose. With a mix of motivational public speaking style backed by tactful and appropriate rhetoric, Richard shared his knowledge and trained over 10 000 bilingual telemarketers. Richard Blank has the largest collection of restored American Pinball machines and antique Rockola Jukeboxes in Central America making gamification a strong part of CCC culture.Richard Blank is the Chief Executive Officer for Costa Rica’s Call Center since 2008. Mr. Richard Blank holds a bachelors degree in Communication and Spanish from the University of Arizona and a certificate of language proficiency from the University of Sevilla, Spain. A Keynote speaker for Philadelphia's Abington High School 68th National Honors Society induction ceremony. Giving back to Abington Senior High School is very important to Mr. Blank. As such, he endows a scholarship each year for students that plan on majoring in a world language at the university level. Costa Rica’s Call Center (CCC) is a state of the art BPO telemarketing outsource company located in the capital city of San Jose, Costa Rica. Our main focus has been, and will always be to personally train each and every Central America call center agent so that we may offer the highest quality of outbound and inbound telemarketing solutions and bilingual customer service to small and medium sized international companies, entrepreneurs as well as fortune 500 companies. We encourage you to visit one of our call centers on your next personal vacation or business trip to Central America’s paradise, Costa Rica. While you are here, we would recommend taking an extra day of your trip to visit breathtaking virgin beaches, play golf next to the ocean, try your luck at deep sea fishing, explore tropical jungles, climb volcanos or just relax in natural hot springs. Come and see for yourself why call center outsourcing in Costa Rica is a perfect solution for your growing company and a powerhouse in the BPO industry. https://youtu.be/IVFQWhymunU https://getinsidebs.com/how-to-build-a-world-class-call-center-richard-blank-show-95/ https://player.fm/series/inside-bs-with-dave-lorenzo/how-to-build-a-world-class-call-center-richard-blank-show-95 https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/inside-bs-with/how-to-build-a-world-class-y0jPVSM64FX/ https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/how-to-build-a-world-class-call-center-richard-blank-show-95/id1506769228?i=1000567719961 https://www.audible.com/pd/How-to-Build-a-World-Class-Call-Center-Richard-Blank-Show-95-Podcast/B0B54HPXGK?ref=a_pd_Inside_c1_lAsin_1_7 https://open.spotify.com/episode/0lGBT4kd7026zRzP3C8mlu https://tunein.com/podcasts/Business--Economics-Podcasts/Inside-BS-with-Dave-Lorenzo-p1258770/?topicId=173106229 https://www.ivoox.com/en/how-to-build-a-world-class-call-center-audios-mp3_rf_88970286_1.html