Pay Trouble
One thing that really exasperate me at times is the demands the clients make. One client wanted complete silence when the agent answers the phone. But he has to understand that even if you called up customer support of various companies, you can hear background voices of people talking. this is unavoidable, unless the virtual person you hire is working alone. But like I have four people working simultaneously, background voice and typing sounds is unavoidable. So for several days I was busy out looking for cubicles, getting quotes for having one made just so I can serve his demands. Finally, I found a company who can built a three person cubicle for me like what they’re using in the call center at a reasonable price. But guess what? after a week, the client inform me that he doesn’t need more call center agents, because his business is slow so he is canceling our contract! If I have known he would cancel the account, I wouldn’t bother having to commission a company to build the cubicle! My other clients aren’t complaining.
This incident reminded me of a customer of a client of mine who called. Before, I was the only one doing the call center work, so when I answered the phone everything was very quite. You think the customer would appreciate the fact the it is a very quite office? No she is not!. She told me ” are you in an office? you don’t sound like an office”. Well hey, sorry about that. It is just so hard to please all people!
Last night, a two week old client informed the agent that is working with him that he will not pay for days that he doesn’t have work for her. WHAT???…I assigned one agent to work with him and the agent has to be present everyday and I have to pay her daily and now this client is not going to pay me for days that he doesn’t have work for her? So who is going to shoulder the cost then? If he doesn’t have work for her for two weeks, what then? Is she just going to sit around tweedling her thumbs?
Ok, so I have part time clients who only pays when there is work and that is fine, cause I handle more than three clients’ tasks daily. But the thing is, this call center agent works with him exclusively. If he has told me from the beginning that he doesn’t want anyone full time, then I would have gotten another part time job for the agent. He told me there will always be work, and now this bombshell!
But this is the most exasperating tale, one prospect I talked to several weeks wanted to have a full time agent calling his clients and prospects. The thing is, he wants to try out the agent for a month! my goodness! This is not a varsity try out! So during the one month try out, he will not be paying anything cause he is just trying out! No wonder he couldn’t get anyone to work for him
Oh well, everyday’s experiences has its’ purpose I guess. I just sure hope it won’t be an expensive experience.
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outsourcing
online jobs
offshore
Getting paid is really the most challenging part of being an independent contractor. It’s challenging finding these clients around, marketing your services… but once you’ve found them, bigger headache comes when you still need to find them when it’s pay out time.
The true value of outsourcing is cutting the cost and getting quality service. Problem is, clients nowadays almost want to cut the cost to 0. Well, those clients deserve 0 service too!
Exactly! Some of the compensation offered by clients nowadays are even lower than the actual compensation in our own country, which is funny because it beats the purpose of working online.
Virtual Clients and virtual workers should meet halfway. Virtual workers expect payment to be higher than given in their own country but of course not the same as US rates.
Virtual clients should also expect rate to be lower than US rates but a little higher than the compensation rate in the country of origin of the virtual worker. That is one essence of outsourcing and working online.