How to work from home as Virtual Call Center Agent

Imagine a commute that is just down the hallway, a few minutes from your coffeepot and the Monday morning news. You plug in your headset to the phone, boot your computer, and begin taking calls for your client. After 30 minutes of call time, you move on to a scheduled break to tend to a few errands around the house. You get another cup of coffee, finish a few small household tasks, and return to your desk to begin taking calls again.
As a virtual call center agent, your schedule is flexible, and you can have all the breaks you need from the comfort of your own home. You're paid anywhere from $7.00 to $30.00 an hour, and you work not just the hours, but the minutes, that you choose.
Sound like another work from home scam? Or simply too good to be true? Think again. The rise of homeshoring employers has paved the way to legitimate work from home careers that allow flexibility for a whole new workforce; including work at home moms and dads, caretakers, military spouses, and people with unique medical needs or disabilities


Who Hires Homebased Workers for their Call Centers?

A look at virtual call center employers.

Homeshoring companies range from outsourcing partners to large corporations looking to save operating costs for their call center components. Companies such as JetBlue send their workers home and have an added benefit when weather problems force call overflows - they can call on their home-based workers to pick up the slack. Other companies outsource their calls to Business Process Outsourcing (BPO's) firms such as Alpine Access or LiveOps.

Homeshoring also provides a flexible and adjustable workforce for companies that often are sent into chaos with call overflow. The flexibility works for employees, too. Often, a homeshoring agent can schedule work shifts in time periods as short as 15 minutes.

There are currently 112,000 home-based agents in the U.S., according to IDC. By 2010, there 330,000 home-based workers are expected to be working in the US alone. According to the Gartner group, 10% of all call centers in the US plan on employing home-based agents in the near future.
That's a lot of people working in their bunny slippers!


Essential Technology and Skills

What you should have before you apply for a virtual call center job.

1. High speed internet access.
You'll need internet access to preform your call center duties and most companies will require a high speed or broadband connection.

2. A landline phone.
Most employers require you have at least one, if not two, landlines.

3. A quiet home office in the house.
No barking dogs or crying babies should be heard in this room. :-)

4. An understanding of software and hardware installation.
This means you should know how to put the CD in your computer and follow directions... as well as follow directions for troubleshooting.

5. Experience working with people.
This does not necessarily mean experience in a call center. Many homeshoring employers look for people with experience in retail, hospitality, and other fields of expertise.


The Application Process

How to get that dream work-at-home job.
Most virtual call center jobs have a three-tiered application process. First, there is an online application and skill assessment. Secondly, there is a "voice test". And the third step is an over the phone interview.These three essential components often include other not as obvious skill assessments, such as the use on online learning tools, chat communication, and email follow-ups.

1.The Online Application
How to stand out when you fill it out!

Since much of the online application screening automated, you will want to be as thorough and descriptive as possible when you apply. Many BPO firms call on new customer service agents when they need a worker with experience in a specific industry. If you have retail experience in more than one area, then it's important to mention which areas you have experience in. For example, if you have worked for both Wal-Mart and the Macy's perfume desk, you'll want to mention both of those areas on your application. There's a big difference between mentioning retail experience and mentioning big-box retail experience and upscale boutique experience.The online application will also have a checklist for the equipment and technology you will need to use and acquire. Make sure that your computer and phone systems meet their needs or that you have the money and/or resources to acquire these.


2.The Voice Audition
Things to keep in mind when you audition.

Most virtual call centers require applicants to audition for the job by calling in to leave a message. Usually they will give you a few scripts to practice and then randomly select one for your voice test.What are they looking for? It's a mixture of personality, voice tone, and friendliness. If you're nervous about a voice audition, it's helpful to actually call a friend or two and actually practice the script with them on the phone. When you call for your audition, make sure that there is absolutely no background noise or interference with your call. Also, remember to disable your call waiting when you call. Speak slowly and clearly, and make sure you have an actual smile on your face - that's something your callers will always hear on the phone.


3.The Telephone Interview
When you've made it this far, it's smooth sailing. Here's how to prepare.

When doing your interview, it's best to be alone in a very quiet part of your house - preferably the home office you plan to work out of. Background noise is one of the main reasons why many potential home workers do not get hired.Most virtual call centers use telephone interviews that are either live or recorded and last between 10 and 20 minutes. It's natural to be nervous during this part of the process. This is where your personality should shine - and the best thing to remember your research, speak calmly and slowly, and be prepared for creative interview questions.If a company is recruiting for an online drug store, they may ask you how you feel about weight loss products. If a client is a retail catalog, they may ask you specific questions about styles or brands. Make sure you've looked at their client list if available. Brush up on any industry experience that you may have highlighted in your resume, just in case they are screening for a similar client.


Where to Find Virtual Call Center Jobs

Apply online with these reputable companies.
Let's face it - the hardest part of the work from home job hunt is simply finding legitimate jobs. Here's a quick list to get you started. They have been listed in alphabetical order.

1-800-FLOWERS
1-800-FLOWERS hires in specific regions. Their work-from-home agents are W-2 employees.

Accolade Support
Accolade Support also hires home-based agents to work on a variety of client projects.

Alpine Access
Alpine Access hires virtual call center agents as W-2 employees. Competition for jobs is stiff, however, they are one of the most respected in the industry.

American Airlines
American Airlines hires home-based reservation agents across the U.S. who have a call center close to home.

Extended Presence
Extended Presence hires outbound callers to work on their B2B campaigns.

Freedom Telework
Freedom Telework has a reverse bidding structure - you should have a business license and your own equipment. You tell their clients how much you'll charge by the minute or hour.

LiveOps
Liveops is another BPO firm - you'll be an independent contractor.

Superior Telemarketing
Superior Telemarketing pays an hourly wage for their W-2 employees to work from home.

UCN.net
UCN.net builds and manages contact center infrastructure. You gain the freedom to innovate.

VIPdesk
VIPdesk offers home-based contracting opportunities to U.S. based individuals This company provides inbound and outbound customer service for their clients through home based call agents. They are in process of recruiting and will be hiring about 500 people within the next few months.

West at Home
West at Home hires home-based independent contractors, and they tend to hire on a regular basis. Again, because of their popularity, there's some real competition to get a job with them.

Working Solutions
Working Solutions hires agents throughout the US and Canada. Call center projects can include order processing, reservations, enrollments, customer service, sales, market research, technical support, etc.

Best Of Luck...
EarnABit.

How To Make Money Using Domains Parking

NameDrive.Com

Domain Parking is a fully automated service enabling you to turn visits to your unused domain names into cash. System automatically places advertising on your domains targeted to their specific industry sector and in every major world language. Each time a visitor to your domain clicks on one of these ad links, you receive money. It's as simple as that.

Many domains receive type-in traffic. Type-in traffic refers to people looking for information or products online and, instead of doing a search engine query, type in that required information to their browser. This is also known as Direct Navigation.For example, someone looking for online jobs online might simply type in www.onlinejobs.com instead of searching for ‘online jobs’ in a search engine such as Google.

Domain parking companies places mini-sites on your unused domains with targeted adverts relevant to the visitors typing those specific names into their browser. In the case of www.onlinejobs.com, adverts relating to online jobs. Every time a visitor clicks on the ads, you earn money.

Most of these Domain Parking companies charge fees for their service to you,So I decided to find some good company with reputation and whose services are free of cost as of to make most out my unused domains and guess what I found one, "NameDrive" about reputation of the company
i'll just say it have partnered with google,rest you know...

Make Most Out Of It,.
Best of Luck...

How to Make Money Online with Craigslist and other Alternative Classifieds

There’s been a lot of talk about Craigslist marketing for small businesses and affiliate marketers and I’ve tried using Craigslist and its alternatives for a short period of time.Personally, I think they are an excellent avenue for freelancers who plan to make money online through their specific skill sets. These online classified boards can also provide small businesses with a channel to sell their services through the internet.

It’s basically free targeted advertising because of the ability to categorize services and products according to specific categories.As an affiliate marketer, these classifieds can also provide a source of revenue but the likelihood of listing links to your sell page or website is very minimal as they are often deleted very quickly, at least for Craigslist. There are however,several other ways to use these classified services to earn some side income.

Using the following ways to Make Money Online with Craigslist and other Classified Boards:
1)Offer freelance services:Do you write, design or photograph? Are you good at data entry or languages? The job sections of these boards usually allow you to pitch your services.

2)Get paid to blog:I’ve tried offering ghost blogging and content creation services for specific niches and topics and actually did receive responses from business owners and webmasters who needed part-time bloggers or article writing.

3)Promote your Online Business:Movers, computer repair and delivery services traditionally do well on classified boards. But that’s not to say that online businesses won’t do as well either. You can use the boards to promote your web design, copy writing, translation or online marketing business.

4)Acquire interested leads:This concerns affiliate marketers. Links and obvious entries created to sell a product are deleted rapidly so an alternative is to write a general but targeted entry (without links) which collects responses from clients you can convert later.

Time-consuming but this is a pretty powerful tactic that has worked for me. Just remember to be ethical and respect the privacy of those who sent you an email.

List of Online Classified Boards:

There are probably a lot more than what I’ve listed below but these were the ones that I’ve tried. All of them work similarly to Craigslist so if you are familiar with CL, these boards should be relatively easy to use.
Note that most of them are strongly geared towards North America and the U.S in particular and none of them comes close to Craigslist in terms of ad and response volume. If you’re pressed for time, I suggest focusing on Craigslist, GoogleBase, Kijiji and Backpage.





Craigslist

Google Base

Kijiji

Yahoo Classifieds

Backpage

Adoos

CollegeClassifieds

Gumtree

ListSomething

How to Increase your website or blog traffic with "YouTube Video's"

Getting an increased number of targeted website traffic will make most internet marketers very happy. On the other hand, accumulating this type of traffic with YouTube and other video sharing sites makes the job a little bit easier.

Google pays close attention to videos and tends to rank them above all other content generated online. I want to embark on 5 exciting YouTube video secret tricks to help you increase targeted website traffic and leads to your blogs and websites online.

1. Show your Face Often-- This will probably be the easiest most hardest tip ever. Most people are too shy or afraid to show their face on video let alone on the internet. However, I encourage you to get past this fear, which stems from the EGO.

What does this tip have to do with getting more traffic? Showing your face on camera is part of branding yourself as an expert marketer. The more you show up on video sharing sites, the more people will begin to take attention to what you are offering.

2. Leave Bait-- Leaving the bait means leaving your website link available for your prospect to check out more information. In the description area on YouTube, you want to make sure you leave your bait before writing out the summary of your video. This will not only create more traffic for your websites, but more quality backlinks pointing back to your content, which helps move you up in the SERPS.

3. Rich Keywords-- Having the proper keywords located in your title, description, and tags will give the Google spiders something to munch on. As these spiders crawl your video content, you should very well see a push up in the SERPS. Make sure you carefully pick the right keywords that are more targeted. Long tail keywords will make it easier for your video to rank on page one of Google.

4. Post Video to Blog-- Once you have optimized your video for the search engines, now it's time to give your blog some content love. Posting your video to your blog will bring even more traffic to your sites. You may want to change the tile and keywords a little to add fresh food for the Google spiders to crawl.

5. Bookmark Your Content-- After you post your video to your blog, make sure you bookmark your content to Digg, Propeller, Facebook, Twitter, etc. This will create an immediate surge of visitors to your money page or capture page. If you are using a WordPress blog, you should have a bookmark plugin install for this convenience.

Learn How to Build Traffic Without Search Engines!

According to the Graphic, Visualization, & Usability Center's (GVU) 8th WWW User Survey, "Most users find new web pages through other web pages (88%) and through search engines (82%). For the past year (Sixth & Seventh surveys) search engines have outranked other web pages as the source of new pages, that trend has reversed again."

GVU's WWW User's Surveys

The only thing is, hardly anyone gives much real thought to the basic ingredient of selling by mail - the writing of profitable classified ads. If your mail order business is to succeed, then you must acquire the expertise of writing classified ads that sell your product or services!

As getting a good (top 20) listing in the major search engines and directories becomes increasingly difficult, having a good base of incoming links from other web sites will become proportionately important. Some search engines will even rank you higher based on the number of incoming links that your site has, providing a dual benefit. If these two reasons aren't enough to convince you to start a strategic linking program today, then consider these:

Quality links provide a valuable resource that visitors appreciate and give them a reason to return often.

Quality links tell visitors that you are well known and respected by others in your area of expertise.

Quality links carry on the traditions that the Internet was built on, the free exchange of knowledge, resources, and information.

Quality links carry on the traditions that the Internet was built on, the free exchange of knowledge, resources, and information.

Do these reasons outweigh the reasons not to link to others?
Excuse number one:
why not to link to other sites, "Links just open the door for visitors to leave my site and that is a sale lost". If that visitor wasn't convinced enough to buy and was just researching the market, they would leave anyway. The only way you can receive a benefit from a visitor leaving is through a reciprocal link of one form or another. The reason we call them visitors is because they all leave at one point or another, with or without our product. If they leave without our product, isn't it better that they leave via a route that provides us a benefit?
Excuse number two:
 "I don't want to be bothered with having to check to see if my link is up at the other site." If your links are well chosen and well executed in the beginning then this isn't a problem. Sure you may lose a link once in awhile, but it shouldn't be that big of a deal, because you are still adding value to your visitors and that is important too.

There is a variety of forms for exchanging links. From the least effective free-for-all, to the most effective content provider. Links can be banners or text. They may lead to a site, an email address, or an auto responder. In exchange, you could receive any of these in return. You could choose to use one or all of these methods depending on your needs and the needs of the other site. You can just list them randomly, first in, alphabetically, placed in a searchable directory, or spread throughout your site. Choose the method that works best for your product and your presentation.


Who are you going to target for link partners? Think first in terms of what would be of value to your visitors. Where do you go for information and resources? Who are your suppliers? Who offers a product that compliments yours? Who are your competitors?

Yes, I said competitors. Here is why:

If you are offering a quality product, competitively priced, you will help close the deal with your customer by providing them the information they need to make a decision.

If they are researching options, they will probably find your competition anyway (may as well get a link in return).

It makes good business sense to have good relationships with your competition. If you can't help a customer because you are too busy, or their requirements don't fit yours for whatever reason, it never hurts to have a place that you can refer them to. It is also beneficial to be able to just have someone in the same field that you can share ideas, problems, or vent a little steam when things are frustrating.
I suggest you approach looking for link partners the same way you approach looking for customers. Be very specific in what you are looking for, and what you have to offer. Constantly watch for and be open to opportunities to link with sites.

I was doing some research for a potential client and came across Senior Search: http://www.seniorssearch.com. They have a directory of web sites particularly for the over 50 age group. I never thought of that as a primary target for my services, but it has turned out to be one of my leading link traffic generators and all that it has cost me is a button on my site and about 10 minutes of my time. I am constantly looking for potential link partners, just like I am constantly looking for customers and opportunities. What specialized directories or associations can you partner with to your mutual benefit? Another good example of this is SOHO Web.

Two good resources to get started.
Link-O-Matic is a directory of web sites that are looking for reciprocal linking arrangements. You can post the information about your site and what you are looking for in potential link partners.
(http://www.linkomatic.com/reciprocate.cgi?1601).

LinkUp is a discussion list type service that you can send messages to seeking link partners, and receive messages from others looking as well. TO SUBSCRIBE:
mailto:Subscribe-LinkUp@CommerceStreet.com

Many times as I am surfing through sites for the first time if I think they would be of value to my site visitors I will use the feedback form or email to ask the web master about the possibility of exchanging links in some way. This is probably the most effective and efficient method. You are at the site, you know whether or not they exchange links and with what type of sites. It only takes a minute of your time and could be the beginning of a very lucrative and long-term relationship.

Best Of Luck...

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