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
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
Dave Lorenzo: Great. It used to be a novelty. Now it is essential. And this is the conversation that we have with our kids. This is the conversation I have with anybody who's willing to listen because it's the you're you're in the next 10 years, 65, 70% of, uh, of our country is going to. Uh, folks who speak in other language and the majority of those folks will probably be Spanish speaking.
So, you know, I think that you are providing a great service because it's gonna be a competitive advantage, cuz you can probably do it better and less expensive than we could do it here in the United States. And I think that your agents who are, who are taking calls from the United States will probably be taking an equal number of calls in English and Spanish in 15 years from customer.
I, I just, I see it happening very interesting.
Richard Blank: You, you bring that up because the certain key performance indicator that KPI is talk time and also conversion ratios. There's two metrics that are increased by at least 20%. When you're on a phone, speaking in Spanish with a client, the call goes longer. They make less calls that day, but their conversion ratio is higher.
Obviously it's their native tongue. Or as you were mentioning about certain de details and certain mannerisms that people use. They might be able to connect better with somebody on the phone, speaking Spanish. I, I almost see it as like Popeye with spinach. Once they switch over to Spanish, all of a sudden they're calling you Don Davi they're though.
And these are the sort of things where I can tell in regards to their tone and their rate and their pitch, they're pausing and they're pregnant pausing and their follow up tie down questions that they're extremely comfortable, not only with the conversation, but with. Client that they've only met just five minutes ago.
They've already figured out 12 different things in common. So their me too technique is off the roof.
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/czmeQIZ8asQ
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
Dave Lorenzo: Where I live in Miami is I, I live, uh, probably 15, not even maybe 10 miles. The Western border of Miami-Dade county, uh, you know, heading toward the Western part of Florida. And this particular area is, uh, was settled by, uh, a lot of Cubans. So when we go to the supermarket, where in my neighborhood, we, more than likely we speak Spanish.
Dave Lorenzo: Um, when we go to get our car washed, we speak Spanish. When we, uh, go to the doctor's office and the, and the, the receptionist greets us, she'll greet us in Spanish. She speaks English in Spanish, but it's just the, it's the dominant language here in, in my neighborhood. Now, when you get toward the toward Miami beach, It's a tourist area.
Dave Lorenzo: So people there will, you know, the default there will be English, but the, the specific reason that my family and I moved to this part of Florida is because we wanted a, a culturally diverse experience for our kids. My kids go to a bilingual school. They speak English half the day. They speak Spanish half the day.
Dave Lorenzo: They speak Spanish with, um, their grandmother on my wife's side, they speak English with my parents and they have tested out. My son is in seventh grade. He's tested out of high school Spanish. My daughter is two years behind him. She's tested out of high school, Spanish. So they're taking other languages now in school.
Dave Lorenzo: My, my point about that. We were kind of forward thinking and we, we understand the global nature of the workforce today. And I think 20 years ago, when I visited Costa Rica, it was like a novelty to offshore your call center. Now, I think nobody, nobody would even think twice. And in fact, you may have people in Texas who have a heavier, uh, you know, who have a heavier accent than people in Costa Rica.
Dave Lorenzo: So I don't think it makes any difference today. I don't think people would be put off in any way, as long as they can get the level of service that they're accustomed to Richard. But before we get into the details of all the types of services you provide and. Do that? Tell us your story. How did you come to you now?
Dave Lorenzo: You've been in Costa Rica for 20 plus years. How did you come to be in Costa Rica in the first place?
Richard Blank: Well, my story began in Northeast Philadelphia. When I graduated Abington high school, you were very fortunate. Uh, Dave, because in my family, my grandparents were speaking Romanian, Russian, Polish, and German.
Richard Blank: And so I'm the first person in my family that decided that Spanish should be my major. all of my friends were going to Ivy league and they were studying law in medicine and architecture engineering, or going into their family's business. I chose to double down on languages and go to the university of Arizona.
Richard Blank: I chose a communication major, which made it a lot of fun for those five years, but I also realized that I could pick up public speaking skills, rhetoric skills, and nonverbal communication, micro expression, reading. I was able to get an internship at Telemundo. Jake home was kind enough to give me in 1995 and 96, my senior and super senior year, I worked for promotions and public relations at Telemundo and Tucson there.
Richard Blank: I was able to meet, and this is dating myself gentleman by the name of Pedro SEK and Miguel Kitana. One was in charge of the news out of Los Angeles. And the other had the main talk show in Miami, across from Christina, from uni. . And so imagine a 22 year old boy that is doing public speaking events with these players, these professional men that have made it and have taken the time to mold my confidence and to give me the self-assurance to stand in front of 5,000 people at a Tucson Toro's baseball game and do a Halina Cantina Chile in contest.
Richard Blank: And so given these opportunities that a young man, it molded my confidence that I could do. and I knew that I could do it in two languages. And so postgrad, I landed a job that was for the importers of Corona beer. So I worked that in the Southwest of the United States and that was incredible. And when I was 27, I had the opportunity to move to Costa Rica for a couple months to do some training at a friend of mine, from college, his call center.
Richard Blank: And as you know, when you fly here and you're here, you fall in love with Costa Rica. So everything of mine got put in storage. If you can get past your parents, guilt, Dave, you can live anywhere in the world. And I decided to take a chance. I worked at my friend's call center for four years, and this was back in the day when we were making calls with Cisco phones and printouts of Excel sheets with highlighter pens.
Richard Blank: And it was a young environment. It was a fun environment, a bilingual environment of, of artists, of speech. And I got to see the highs and the lows and the gripes and the successes of it. But. Between me and you. I also saw areas of improvement and the areas of improvement that I saw the most was how people are treated.
Richard Blank: Not saying my friend didn't do a good job, an amazing job, but a lot of people felt like numbers, where they felt like robots. And my other friends and supervisors from other call centers tell me that sometimes agents are not properly onboarded or they're not prepared, or the S scripts are shody. With spelling in grammar mistakes, and maybe some over aggressive language that you would see in a Glen Gary boiler room Wolf of wall street movie, that might be completely out of character for somebody here because we're, we're in a very strict Catholic country, Dave and these young men and women have to go home and tell their parents what they do for a living.
Richard Blank: So we are extremely selective of the campaigns that come in. Not, not only can I fulfill your needs, but I gotta make sure I don't have an attrition. And I gotta make sure that the, that the agents that come in, that we invest in that are able to stay here and build upon that. So we just don't waste that.
Richard Blank: And so my thoughts about how I got here, you don't say you're gonna be a call center CEO for a major in college, or when you're seven years old, you tell that to your mother, but I definitely knew this. I was the only one out of my group of friends that could speak Spanish. And not only that, but every job I had, I was the one that could go out to the Southwest Phoenix when I was selling telecommunications and sell a T1 to somebody and translate it for my supervisor.
Richard Blank: And I knew I had something that was different and it was wonderful for me cuz I enjoyed it and that I was embraced. I might had a grammar mistake in my subjunctive tense, but people would invite me in correct me and feed me and then recommend me to 10 of their. So why do you think that every environment that I was in when I was able to make these calls in Spanish, that I ran the board, I could do it in English and I did, but I also did it in Spanish.
Richard Blank: I could double gun it. I did two boards, English and Spanish. My point being is that you can show this sort of the first impression, respect Dave, when not only are you bilingual, but so am I, and we're doing this without even knowing each other. It. And so it really assisted me in having these sort of engagements and finding a lot of these things in common and really reduced any sort of defense or anger or setting a tone of aggression that that was eliminated immediately when I knew exactly what to say.
Richard Blank: And, and these are gonna be some of the additional selling techniques we'll talk about later and stuff. But my friend, I just wanted to discuss with you the ethics.. Of how I am and how I was raised. I'm when someone calls me a salesman and I take that as a compliment, I might look and sound like one, but Dave, I'm an educator.
Richard Blank: I don't ever force a hand from an educated point of view. My clients, my agents, my friends, and anyone I relate to then makes a decision. And I feel that if given the chance to explain how I feel and to answer their questions, everybody can leave with something on the. I, I think it's a wonderful way to start relationships.
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/dbAl7gwXUEA
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
Dave Lorenzo: All right, Richard. So before we went to that break, I asked you to think of a case study for us. Have you come up with one?
Richard Blank: I have, in fact, I can make it easy for you. I could do it across all verticals. How does that sound? So it applies to every account that I have. I always have an answer for that. A couple things we can do.
Richard Blank: The first thing is there's certain words that you have because the vowels in Spanish in English could give away. So we write certain words out phonetically for them, even though they need to know how to spell it properly, that can eliminate any sort of confusion or any sort of guessing. The second thing is, let's say for an example, that we're representing a company that's out of Chicago in a certain suburbs.
Richard Blank: What we like to do with a lot of the times is just take a Google. Right around the block and just to see the local pizza parlors, the parks, the churches, and what's going on around there. So instead of just giving us specific direction, we can talk about Mike's pizza, which everybody knows more than anything.
Richard Blank: And finally, we, we have to ensure that if people do follow up or even subcategory questions that we need to have every single sort of vocabulary for that. Doesn't mean that we need to have it memorized, but we should have a glossary of terms. So just, if something comes up, we're skilled enough to say that's an excellent question, Dave, and we could look it up while we're answering that question for you.
Richard Blank: Many people are capable of doing that. So as long as we're on a level playing field and we're given all the resources to, as you say, make it. Like we're in the United States and we know what the shore is and cheese fries and things like that. Then, uh, maybe tell us a couple more local flavors that we have or things that we should be aware of.
Richard Blank: And those are the sort of calls that we make to the people where it sounds like we have more in common with them and we know where we're going. It's. A simple, an example, like what we're calling businesses, instead of just saying, how are you a lot of the times we'll ask, Hey, how's Costa Rica's call center doing today in the tens of thousands of calls, I've analyzed.
Richard Blank: We find that company name, spike technique by asking about a company or organization, a lot of people have responded with you've been here before, or you an alumni sounds like, you know where you're going. You can parlay that with an extension or a person's name. And so you're rotting on that sort of high of familiarity, and they'll be able to transfer you.
Richard Blank: I always believe that lying on the phone is not ethical. I'm not saying I'm lying and I'm not saying that we're being slick. There's nothing wrong with being clever. And as long as you say a person's name a certain way, or a company's name a certain way with your anonymity, they can kind of maybe reduce the fact that you're a telemarketer or you're selling something and you make a different sort of first impression approach.
Richard Blank: And so these are the sort of things that enable us to prolong our conversations to at least increase our odd. Of a conversion ratio. I could give you 50 tips and tricks today, but we don't have as much time to go over that. But I think the most important thing, my, my friend, Dave, and thank you so much for you and your audience's time is that I think the first 30 seconds of the phone call is ideal.
Richard Blank: You need to, once again, not be egocentric, you need to put that company first and by saying their names and being polite to those that answer the phone. And making sure that they get credit when you are transferred or have given you information. And you should especially do that when you do a follow up letter, because you're probably separating yourself, Dave, from a thousand other people, and I've had the secretary or gatekeeper say, you know, thank you very much for that positive escalation.
Richard Blank: I got a raise or I got acknowledged, or it just made me feel good after 30 years, you're the first person to say that. So of course they're waiting for my call to transfer it for the close. I believe in woo way. Why have resistance do at least resistance allow the wind and the current to take you so any sort of friction and forced motion is not natural.
Richard Blank: I think that if I can gain their confidence in the beginning and show very nice, uh, reserved side where I can still close a deal, but I'm not gonna do it. Like you see in the movies I can, but that's out of character for. And if I'm looking to have long term relationships with people, it's not a one and a done, I want to get referred.
Richard Blank: I want Dave you and my network together to grow as well. And as I say before, coming on your show today, I, I wanted to share with you certain things that enabled me to be in business for 14 years and running this call center. If I were not able to do these sort of baseline ethics, morals, sort of phone calls for my clients, this would've never worked.
Richard Blank: and, um, if anything of nothing taking that away today is that if you, if you reject more than you accept, if you stand tall to your beliefs and you do things to make your great grandparents proud, you're gonna preserve, you're gonna last, you'll have the endurance. You'll make it through the tough times.
Richard Blank: Cuz those are the times you look in the mirror and you ask yourself, is this still worth it? Well, it is worth it. I have a luxury trade. This should have never happened. The fact that I'm here in Costa Rica for 21 years. And I have a company with my wife after 14 years. It's a long shot from Northeast Philadelphia.
Richard Blank: So I smile every day. I've learned to do that and I've learned to give my agents dignity and to know every single one of their names and to break bread with them. And I have the largest collection of pinball here. When you visit me, you'll see. So it's free play that it can play pinball with me, go to the Pacman machine, make yourself comfortable.
Richard Blank: Because that's my goal in a call center environment, which is a grind is, is to be the opposite. This is not a boiler room. This could be a career for these young men and women. They could build it like me. And if I could be the last boss they ever have, maybe when they move on, they can know every agent's name and keep that sort of tradition that I have. Dave.
Dave Lorenzo: That's terrific. I love it.
Inside BS Show has accepted my invitation to join the 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/30D56dNySFU
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
Dave Lorenzo: You know, you, you're an inspirational person. You really care. I, you know, we can tell just from the short period of time, we've spoken that you really care about the folks that work with you. Does it make it harder for you to kind of pump them up? Because I know that myself working from home, like today, if today's a perfect example, My interaction with you today is probably the fourth or fifth time.
Dave Lorenzo: I've talked to another person because today here in my home office, it's just me and the dogs. My, my wife had something to do all day. My kids are in school. So, you know, I finish up with you. I'll talk to the dogs. They don't talk back. I may talk to one other person until everybody comes home. Yeah. And I'll tell you, Richard, it's not, it's not as fulfilling as talking to other people.
Dave Lorenzo: During the course of the day. So for you, is it, is it more difficult to keep their training at a high level? Because now I would imagine that it's asynchronous, right? You're listening to them in recordings, you're making notes and then maybe you do a zoom with them and you say, Hey, you know, Joe, I was listening to this recording on the phone.
Dave Lorenzo: Let's play it together. You play it. You know, here's what I would've said here. And it's not real time anymore. Is it more difficult for you? Because I, I would imagine many of them are still working from home. And then are you gonna bring 'em back in so that you can have that collegial environment again?
Richard Blank: Excellent question. I'll give you the quick pros and cons and legally what we had to do when COVID hit. We were allowed to have 50% of our people in the. I sent about 70% home to give myself a 20% buffer in the office for onboarding, PCI compliance, or if someone has a redundancy, electricity or, or hardware problem, they can jump onto a station.
Richard Blank: It's just me. I'm a coach. I'm not sensitive, but I love my people. And I love walking the rose and I felt like that was my special sauce. And that was taken away from me from COVID. But let's talk about the pros they're in a much better. They're closer to their family. They're saving tons of money. As long as their work environment is professional they're.
Richard Blank: As I say before, they're much more relaxed on the phone. Their metrics are, are incredible. It's just a comradery of having lunch with people. And just missing them, but no, we've increased our, our channels of communication, but this is the one thing I really got this, you have an excellent background, you see my, um, Cola and my candy machine, but you get to see how a lot of people are living and you get to see what's in their background.
Richard Blank: So the one thing I would've never gotten from here is some of their interests and what makes them proud. So I might lose it physically standing next to somebody, but I think I've gained three. The sort of knowledge about what makes somebody tick. So on a rainy Wednesday, I can motivate them or I can compliment their, their stuffed bunny rabbit in the corner and tease 'em for a minute.
Richard Blank: And, um, that might break the ice too, but no, check this out. The fact that I take the time with the suit to zoom, call them and to maybe discuss a five minute call with them. That's something that you almost get more points. By showing that extra effort, then you would just standing next to 'em and smiling while they're on the phone with Mrs. Jones. So I think I get a lot more mileage out of it. I think they're a lot more appreciative. I think the lack of communication that we have, cuz it's so sparse, when you do have a chance to speak with somebody's more enriching. And so maybe as a boss or maybe as a leader mentor or possibly in these tough moments, Dave, as a friend.
Richard Blank: we all were able to get through COVID together. I got a lot of friends where their business went out of business. Yeah.
Dave Lorenzo: Oh me too.
Richard Blank: And the fact that I'm still standing and you're still standing, you know, right on man. Yeah. Right on.
Dave Lorenzo: No, I appreciate that. Yeah. I, I appreciate it. I.
https://youtu.be/30D56dNySFU
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
Dave Lorenzo: Richard there's, there's two, uh, two questions that stand out for me before, before we finish up that I have to ask you about. And the first is, do you think because, um, because being, uh, being a, um, being an associated call center, being a rep at a call center in Costa Rica is a noble good, uh, well respected profession.
Dave Lorenzo: Is there less call reluctance? Is there, is there less hesitancy? uh, among folks in that culture, whether it's the culture of the country or the culture you've created in your call center, is there less hesitancy for the reps to get on the phone and to do business on the phone? Cause one of the things I find here is 2030 year executives.
Dave Lorenzo: When I tell them, Hey, listen, you got, you know, an inquiry just came in. You need to see what it's like to talk to people on the front lines. I want you to call these customers, call these five customers on the phone. The executives are like, you, you want me to do what you want me to do? Like there's, there's tremendous call reluctance among people, you know, even at the senior levels of a company, if they haven't had any interpersonal interaction or if there hasn't been interpersonal interaction over the years, In all your experience at call centers, have you been able to, to create a culture where it's just normal to pick up the phone and you know, can't, I can't wait to call people.
Dave Lorenzo: I don't know. And start relationships with them. Is that, have you, have you been able to overcome that with your folks?
Richard Blank: It really hasn't been that much of an issue here. The main issue I have is getting rid of their bad habits from. From the sports books, casinos stocks, pharmacies, and sweepstakes. Wow. Yeah, those are the one.
Dave Lorenzo: I didn't even think of that. So they were, so they were working in other places on the phone before they came to you and they have those bad habits. I see.
Richard Blank: Those are five accounts Dave, that I do not do here. And those are some of the accounts where I can get some of these star salesmen that come here.
Richard Blank: Not saying it's ethical or not. I choose just not to do it.
Dave Lorenzo: Yeah.
Richard Blank: Okay. And so some people might have come from an environment or thought about that sort of environment because the money is great, but that's okay. There's many different ways you can earn money. That's their decision. So when they come to me, there's no reluctance to be on the phone.
Richard Blank: These are public speakers. As you see in Spanish port Voz or UR, these are people that are wonderful speakers. My thing is to eliminate the. it's a morbid anticipation of something they haven't happened yet. Learning a second language is 10 times harder doing this, and if I can properly prepare them, then it reduces any sort of fear.
Richard Blank: If I can answer any of their questions. And prior to making a single phone call doing a two hour soft skills training class with me, once again, it takes 'em from a 10 to a two. The rest is just practice. And as long as I can listen to some of their recordings and discuss with them certain soft skills in regards to pausing.
Richard Blank: In regards to tie down and pin down questions, confirmations, military alphabet, which I highly recommend for anybody. Why? Because half the people have served or know someone that's served. So that's another beautiful me too technique to be able to land the plane. And so these are the, every time I add something to them, their fear reduces and they get more self-reliant and self Confident.
Richard Blank: And then all of a sudden they're knocking on my door saying, Hey, Richie, I got my third one today. And you know, I love that sort of stuff. I love walking the rows, Dave. I love knowing their names and stopping and listening to them pitch and giving them a thumbs up and telling them why they're artists of speech and why it's beautiful because everyone is texting these days, which could be misinterpreted.
Dave Lorenzo: Yeah.
Richard Blank: When, if you not only speak with somebody, but use choice vocabulary, and really you could really. express yourself better. And so I see it as being a lost art. That's why I'm so excited. And what drives me to do this is because I made a living off playing with speech.
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/mZj5mHRCNYM
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
Dave Lorenzo: All right, Richard, take a second and think of three things we should take away from our time together. Three things we want people to remember from our conversation today, while you're doing that, I wanna remind folks that we're brought to you by St. Draki corporate advisors. So if you wanna reduce your tax exposure, you gotta give Sindrowski a call.
You can reach out to them at 8667171607, 8667171607. Cendrowski Corporate Advisors. Is there a CPA firm with a different perspective? We're also brought to you by my revenue roadmap guide. Go to revenue, roadmap, guide.com. Enter your contact info. Download your free business development plan today.
It's my gift to you for listening to the show for watching the show. Our guest today is Richard blank. You can call him at Costa Rica's call center eight eight eight two seven one sixty seven fifty eight eight eight two seven one sixty seven fifty. Or you can email him his emails down in the show notes.
All right, Richard, what should, what are folks listening? Are folks watching? What are the three? They should take away from our time together today.
Richard Blank: First thing they should take away is that I'm very grateful for their time. And thank you for listening to the entire podcast. I know a lot of people like short segments, hopefully I kept your attention, but anybody that wants to reach out to me just to say hello, and just to touch base or have any sort of suggestions, be more than willing to take any call and just to say, uh, in to meet some people.
I'm hoping that people after watching us today will see that you can be self confident in what you do. And also you can assist others to become more self-reliant. Success is built on 1 million thank yous. And I believe that like the bricks and the wall behind me in my building, that I built that you're capable of growing.
If you're assisting others. And I've learned that. And I learned that the easy way, not the hard way, because that's how I was raised. And the third thing is if you take these long shots and you take these risks, it can also pay off. I have a beautiful life here. As I mentioned before I collect antiques, I bought a limousine in 1984, Mercedes 300 D for my clients.
And I restored that was able to build out a building for my call center. So all of my dreams have come true. And I think the most satisfying thing that I did was I was true to myself, going back to Philadelphia and being a Spanish major and using that to being where I am today. Obviously I had this vision as a young man that I, that I stuck behind.
Most people quit 80% in, or there's a lot of naysayers that will say don't do it. And these are the ones that love you the most and care about you the most. But you also have to stand. and you have to also have to look at yourself in the nearer every day and what sort of man or woman do you want to see?
And so I had to make sure that I could live with myself and I'm very happy that I made these choices and especially making a choice to be on this podcast today. So, uh, Dave, thank you again in your.
Dave Lorenzo: No, thanks to you deco. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure having you on. I loved having this conversation with you and we're gonna have to have you back again to understand how you built a building and collect antiques in Costa Rica.
Richard Blank: I mean, we didn't even go my micro expression reading
Dave Lorenzo: We'll have I promise we'll have you back. We'll make it a regular segment. Richard Blank was such a pleasure having you on folks. If you wanna reach out to Richard. Let me give you his number one more time. Call him at eight eight eight two seven one sixty seven fifty eight eight eight two seven one sixty seven fifty.
That'll do it for another episode of the inside BS show my thanks to Richard blank for joining us today. We'll be back here again tomorrow with another great interview until then here's hoping you make a great living and live a great life.
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/1XsmaT8Vnlc
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
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
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
Dal Teatro Regio di Torino 27 giugno 2012 Direttore - Renato Palumbo Regia - Lorenzo Mariani Maestro del Coro - Claudio Fenoglio Orchestra e Coro del Teatro Regio del Torino Personaggi e interpreti: Riccardo - Gregory Kunde Renato - Gabriele Viviani Amelia - Oksana Dyka Ulrica - Marianne Cornetti Oscar - Serena Gamberoni Silvano - Marco Camastra Samuenl - Antonio Barbagallo Tom - Gabriele Sagona Allestimento Teatro Regio in coproduzione con Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino e Teatro Massimo Bellini di Catania
Durch die Zusammenarbeit von W. A. Mozart mit dem Librettisten Lorenzo da Ponte entstanden drei Meisterwerke der Musikgeschichte: „Le nozze de Figaro", „Don Giovanni" und „Cosi fan tutte". Letzteres wurde 2013 unter der musikalischen Leitung von Christoph Eschenbach bei den Salzburger Festspielen aufgeführt. Dirigent: Christoph Eschenbach Regie: Sven-Eric Bechtolf Besetzung: Malin Hartelius (Fiordiligi) Marie-Claude Chappuis (Dorabella) Martina Janková (Despina) Martin Mitterrutzner (Ferrando) Luca Pisaroni (Guglielmo Gerald Finley (Don Alfonso) Orchester: Wiener Philharmoniker
Torneo 52orenonstop 2013 (22 edizione - calcetto e beach volley) a San Lorenzo di Albignasego (Padova). Video pre-finale proiettato prima della finale di domenica sera (21/07/2013) con alcune fasi di gioco, cucina e party time. STAFF 52orenonstop (video Toky & Lo production).
Live performance of "The Adventurer" soundtrack, originally composed by Mark Hamlyn. BILLI BRASS: Trumpets: Gabriele Paggi, Davide Bartoni Horn: Gabriele Ricci Trombone: Flavio Pannacci Tuba: Lorenzo D'avolio Piano: Mark Hamlyn Percussions: Laura Mancini, Lorenzo Brilli Direction: Massimo Bartoletti
Live performance of "Easy Street" soundtrack, originally composed by Mark Hamlyn. BILLI BRASS: Trumpets: Gabriele Paggi, Davide Bartoni Horn: Gabriele Ricci Trombone: Flavio Pannacci Tuba: Lorenzo D'avolio Piano: Mark Hamlyn Percussions: Laura Mancini, Lorenzo Brilli Direction: Massimo Bartoletti
Giordano Bruno es una película de 1973 dirigida por Giuliano Montaldo . La película narra los últimos años de la vida del filósofo Giordano Bruno de Nola , desde 1592 hasta la muerte en 1600. Giordano Bruno , frente a sus perseguidores . Comienza en una procesión en Venecia que conmemora la Batalla de Lepanto, y que Giordano Bruno condenará, pues rechaza el uso de la violencia por la religión. Vestido con el hábito dominico, Giordano Bruno se enfrenta al interrogatorio Inquisitorial Veneciano, y que a pesar de la oposición del Patriarca de Venecia, Lorenzo Priuli, será transfiere a Roma. A pesar de la postura de Clemente VIII y el cardenal Belarmino, con quien tiene una larga entrevista, Giordano Bruno fue torturado y quemado es 17 de febrero 1600 en el Campo de ' Fiori. La película es un retrato completo de una víctima del poder en una sociedad que todavía se considera herética y blasfema, la idea de una distinción entre la fe y la ciencia. Una obra pra recordar un intenso e inolvidable Gian Maria Volonté, y una reconstrucción escénica de una Venecia con clarooscuros al estilo de los grandes pintores del siglo XVI. Realzada por la cinematografía de Vittorio Storaro y la música de Ennio Morricone.
* Chiesa dei Santi Filippo e Giacomo di Castellina. Chiesa castellana fondata nel 1159 sul punto più alto della rocca, conserva all'esterno significative tracce dell'impianto romanico, mentre all'interno prevale l'aspetto seicentesco conferitole dai numerosi arredi.
Sulla parete del coro è esposto un dipinto su tela datato 1628 e firmato dal pistoiese Alessio Gemignani, con la Madonna e il Bambino fra i santi Lorenzo, Giacomo, Michele Arcangelo, Giovanni Battista, Filippo e Antonio.* Fonte Apt Serravalle P.se
www.StefanoFranceschetti.com - il mondo visto dagli occhi del lupo appenninico. Riprese, realizzazione e montaggio di Stefano Franceschetti in collaborazione con Andrea Dal Pian, Antonio Iannibelli, Alessandro Melchionda e Roberto Tirabasso. Filmato in alta definizione interamente girato con reflex fotografiche digitali e teleobiettivi su soggetti italiani allo stato libero. Un pò di "prede" e qualche minuto di sana attesa prima di vedere finalmente il vero lupo, niente in confronto alla pazienza e agli appostamenti che sono stati necessari ai cinque autori per ricavare le brevi clip qui montate in rapida sequenza! E' il risultato di oltre 4 anni di uscite sul campo...un incontro di amicizia e di passione: la nascita di un piccolo branco di fotografi lupari!
Questo video è stato proiettato in anteprima assoluta alla terza edizione della "Festa del lupo", tenutasi a Castelluccio di Porretta (BO) il 10 e 11 novembre 2012 organizzata dall'associazione "Prove di Emozioni" con il contributo di "Gente di Gaggio" e degli "Amici del Castello Manservisi". (Fra le altre musiche grazie a Lorenzo Tempesti -- http://www.suonimusicaidee.it)
Tiene importantes restos arqueològicos,bellas playas y hermosos paisajes.Muy cerca del distrito de La Punta en la Provincia Constitucional del Callao.Cementerio prehispànico,restos mochica-chimu,prisiòn,zona de cuarentena,ocupado por piratas.
Marco Fusi in concert on Limenmusic Web Tv at limenmusic.com Program: Salvatore Sciarrino -- 6 capricci (1976) Luciano Berio - Sequenza VIII (1976) Franco Donatoni - CIGLIO (1989) Alessandro Solbiati - Due Adagi (Tiresia e la Pizia) (2003) Federico Gardella - Estroso (2008) Lorenzo Pagliei - Morto perpetuo n. 1 (2010) FOR THE ENTIRE CONCERT SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE!!!
La video intervista realizzata nel dicembre 2007 all'ex Capo Reparto dei Vigili del Fuoco Renato Efrati. Dagli interventi a San Lorenzo sotto le bombe il 19 luglio del 1943, agli scontri di Porta San Paolo del 10 settembre, nel corso dei quali venne ucciso il Vice Brigadiere Alberto De Jacobis nella caserma Ostiense, all’arresto subito da Renato Efrati per opera delle SS Tedesche (lo zio Marco Efrati venne ucciso alle Fosse Ardeatine), i ricordi di decine di colleghi che eroicamente soccorsero la popolazione colpita dalle bombe e dalla guerra. Un documento che raccoglie inoltre le testimonianze degli anni che videro la nascita e lo sviluppo del Corpo Nazionale dei Vigili del Fuoco.
While driving the back roads of San Lorenzo, we came across a bunch of people riding their horses to the bar for the night. This brought up a lot of questions about who's allowed to go to a Horse Bar - which were quickly answered!
Now we're getting serious in our Puerto Rican adventure - a day trip to San Lorenzo! The roads are twisty and turvy and the food was delicious - and you'll never imagine what happened at the end of the day.
L'Avis Lombardia il 4 dicembre ha organizzato questo bel convegno sui media digitali. In questo intervento Lorenzo Guerra di Amigdalab introduce il tema.
Primo capitolo di un lungo metraggio in produzione
presso il CineTeatro di Roma (http://www.cineteatro.it/). Per la regia di
Francesco Aniello e Lorenzo Pietrosanti
Here's some footage of a writing session for one of the new songs on the upcoming album. Wait until the end of the video to see a ****** link and download a rough version of the outcome of this session. Distributed by Tubemogul.
Mike Agerbo visits the Renaissance Hotel Vancouver to chat with Lorenzo Hsu about the Jack Pack - the new state-of-the-art connectivity panel they're introducing in some of their rooms for business and entertainment purposes.
Causa Effetto è il secondo singolo di Lorenzo Marsili, tratto da Succede, suo primo album. Prodotto da Marco Berardo e Andrea Rapino per Rioni Sonori. www.lorenzomarsili.it www.myspace.com/lorenzomarsili Regia: Silvia&Cricchi Fotografia: Gianni Giannelli Cast: Lorenzo Marsili, Lorenzo Amurri, Max D'Epiro, Michele fiore, Yulia Khruscheva, Roberta Stellato, Martin Mariotti, con la partecipazione straordinaria di Piero Pizzi Cannella
la mia partecipazione al programma casting in onda su Coming Soon, canale 48 sul digitale terrestre. Per info e contatti scrivetemi su lorenzo.mercante@tiscali.it
Enjoy the amazing voice and performance of Dani Siciliano totally acoustic (voice + piano only). Filmed at Dimmidisì in San Lorenzo, Rome in December 2009.
Enjoy the amazing voice and performance of Dani Siciliano totally acoustic (voice + piano only). Filmed at Dimmidisì in San Lorenzo, Rome in December 2009.
LORENZO TOBACCO IS AVAILABLE. ANTONIO LORENZO WITH 50 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE SHOWING ALL HIS ABILITIES WITH THE TOBACCO'S LEAVE INTRODUCING LORENZO TOBACCO SUPPLIES . A GREAT VARIETY HUMIDORS AND MODERN PRODUCTS WHICH ARE AVAILABLE ON THE WEB. THE BEST PRICES GUARANTEE.
Lorenzo Romar, Men's Basketball coach of the UW, talks with http://maxflowertv.com/ about his motivation for success. His parents taught him important values, like the value of hard work, and Christianity is his most important influence. Distributed by Tubemogul.
Production LIve recently attended the Belladonna Fashion Show at the Baseball Tavern. Now among many guest there were also many talented Musicians who attended as well. In this interview Mark Wood interviews up and coming Musician Lorenzo and learn about his genre liking to R&B and who inspired him to get into Music!