Debunking myths about call center work. How much the employees earn. How the leads are persuaded. Whether the rate affects approval

If you are engaged in traffic arbitrage, then call centers occupy an honorable place in your life along with family, friends, or bans from Facebook. You go to bed thinking about how the call center is doing, wake up and check the stats, cursing the call center or praising it as superheroes who help you rake in cash. The relationship between a webmaster and a call center can be characterized by the phrase "from love to hate is just one step". It has always been this way and always will be.

 

Communication with call centers is a separate topic altogether. Today, we’ll delve into it. For this article, we’ve gathered frequently asked questions from webmasters, and the answers to these questions will come from the manager of M1 call center himself. Let's get started!

 

Question 1: "Out of 5 leads only 1 approval, and the rest are rejections and trash, and I think that they are all actually approvals, but you are deceiving me and taking the money for yourselves."

 

Answer: “Let's debunk Myth №1. Not all clients who come from the landing pages are 100% targeted or make purchases at the first contact with the operator. There is also a portion of leads that the call center tries to reach, but the clients don’t answer the phone. And it's not just 1-2 calls. Typically, the calling scheme consists of 10-15 calls over several days.

 

Furthermore, call center operators have plans for average order value (AOV), where the objective is to sell not just one item to the customer, but several. This is done to ensure that the economics of the offer align, allowing the webmaster to receive their rate while ensuring the advertiser doesn't incur losses.

 

Thus, while the webmaster may not achieve a 100% conversion, they benefit from a hefty rate, which helps them operate profitably. Focus on improving traffic quality, leverage bonuses from affiliate programs, scale, and such concerns will become irrelevant to you.”

 

Question 2: "What are the chances of you catching it if an employee deviates from the script?"

 

Answer: “The likelihood is extremely low; after all, we live in the 21st century. We opt for torture. Next question, please.

 

Of course, these are all jokes. In the call center, there is a system of both motivation and demotivation in place for employees who deviate from regulations or scripts.

Debunking Myth №2 that the call center operators are robots who just need to read the script. Our task is to train operators to work in such a way that they achieve the target approval rates that satisfy the webmasters. The script is one of the tools to achieve these goals. If an operator simply reads the script but fails to get the approval, I don't think such a scenario would satisfy the webmaster. 

To summarize, deviating from the script won't result in punishment, but if their actions lead to a loss of leads, then of course, the employee will undergo explanatory work, and sanctions may be imposed based on the company's internal regulations.”

 

 

Question 3: "Yesterday my approval rate dropped. Did you assign my leads to the newbies to call?" or another question: "My friend has a lower rate on the same offer, but a higher approval rate. And I have the opposite situation. Are you intentionally not approving my leads to avoid paying more?"

 

Answer: “Debunking Myth №3, that there is favoritism or selective processing of leads in the call center. All leads from all webmasters are evenly distributed among the operators working in the shift. There is no manual distribution of leads in the call center, no division into favorite webmasters and those whose leads are given to interns.

 

Everything works simply and transparently. The lead enters the queue of applications, then it is distributed to available operators who are on duty. Shifts are scheduled in such a way that the proportion of new operators does not affect the expected approval of the webmaster.”

 

Question 4: "Call center employees have a small salary and aren’t interested in approving my leads?"

 

Answer: “First and foremost, the salary of call center operators can range from $1000 to $1500. It all depends on the employee's skills, experience, and willingness to learn and develop. Of course, the amount may be less or more than the specified range, but large call centers provide their operators with a decent salary.

 

Secondly, financial motivation is structured in a way that makes it interesting for the operator to achieve a higher approval rate, and call center managers are responsible for training and development of their operators.

 

I think it's time to debunk the myth that call center operators earn little. Of course, if someone wants to earn even more money, they go into arbitrage. :)”

 

Question 5: "A client contacted me and said that they ordered not 1, but 4 packages. Why did I only receive payment for one?" or "The client wanted to buy 1 package of the product, but you offered them 5. Why do you do this?"

 

Answer: “I’d like to ask a counter question: If the client only left an inquiry to clarify the characteristics and price of the product and had no intention of buying, but the operator persuaded the client and made a sale, is the webmaster willing to give part of their rate for the approval to the call center? :)

 

Let's get back to the question. We partially addressed the topic in the first point, but let's answer in more detail. Any webmaster's rate in an affiliate network is based on economics, which consists of several parts. One of them is the average order value for the offer. The AOV is determined based on the sale of a certain number of product packages. In order to meet the set standard for the AOV and comply with the offer's economics, operators sell customers not just 1 package, but several.

 

Thus, in order to offer webmasters better rates, the call center must sell the planned quantity of product packages that are part of the offer's economics.

 

I believe that Myth №5, about the call center deliberately pushing more product packages to lose the lead, is debunked.”

 

Question 6. "Do you even train your employees, or do you just hire them off the street and immediately put them on the line? I bet I could even sell better than them."

 

Answer: “We always welcome new people to our team :) You can request the vacancy from HR. The only mandatory condition will be to remove the information ‘traffic arbitrage. I'll teach you how to make profit' from the header of your Instagram profile. 

 

Now let's address the question. Every employee who joins the call center undergoes several stages of training. However, since candidates may lack work experience, the adaptation period can be prolonged. To expedite this process, additional consultations, training sessions, and individual coaching are conducted. Additionally, there are nuances regarding traffic quality and offer specifics, which ultimately shape the final outcome.

 

To prevent losses for webmasters, processes have been introduced for guaranteed approval or rate bumps (increases). Myth №6 is debunked. No one throws operators straight from the street into the sales line, and the call center values leads as much as webmasters do.”

 

 

Question 7. "In another affiliate network (call center), the approval is higher for the same traffic. So what if my rate there is lower, I want both approval and a high rate."

 

Answer: “We’d also very much like that. To provide higher approvals and maintain the highest rate on the market (although ours are already the highest, this is a 100% fact). But to objectively compare approvals between multiple affiliate networks, it’s necessary to collect and consider the following metrics:

 

- What are the average order values generated by the call center;

- What is the traffic conversion rate;

- What are the traffic volumes;

- What is the hourly lead distribution throughout the day;

- Does traffic overflow occur during the scaling stage;

- Whether the caps are being exceeded.

 

If you're offered a higher rate somewhere, it's not necessarily because the affiliate network likes you so much. Most likely, the call center associated with that affiliate network generates higher order values and pushes for conversions.

 

Of course, this can affect the approval rate. You need to calculate your personal economics and look at the final numbers. Wherever you'll end up receiving more, that's where you should drive traffic. Myth №7, that high rates don't affect approval, is debunked.”

 

What questions did we forget to address in the article, or on which topics would you be interested in getting answers from the call center? Write your questions in the comments, and if there's enough information gathered for another article, we'll release it soon.