Appointment Setting: Online Job for Outbound Callers

Call centers are currently uprising in the market. This is due to the increasing demand of outsourcing from foreign countries. Most of the customer service agents are given with a specific account in order for them to provide services to their affiliated companies.

There are two types of call center agents, the inbound caller who receives incoming calls and the outbound caller who makes outgoing calls.

Outbound callers have better career opportunity than the inbound callers. However, the stress and workload are very significant. One of the most common online jobs for outbound callers is appointment setting. In this field, the agent must call a person or company to set an appointment. The contact numbers of these potential clients are given by the lead researcher. The task of the appointment setter is to talk and set an appointment between the client and the employed company.

However, appointment setting is not exclusive for call center agents. There are several companies that offer this job to other people as a home-based job. Several websites such as odesk.com, craiglist.org, and other job sites are affiliated with these companies who are looking for agents. The common requirements for this job are as follows:

1. Internet savvy. Since you work alone, you will do several tasks which are not a common job description of call center agents. You work as a lead generator and caller at the same time. In here, you should be resourceful enough to identify the potential clients of your employed company;

2. Fast Internet Connection. This is an on-voice job therefore you need to have a stable internet connection. It prevents you from frequent disconnection. Take note that once you are in the middle of the conversation and your internet connection fails, you will have a great chance of losing the opportunity. This will affect your job credibility.
3. Proper Communication. The most important requirement for this job is to know how to speak and understand simple and complicated conversations. You must know how to speak foreign languages because there are clients who might suspect your as bogus in case you don’t know how to speak fluently.
4. Deal Appropriately. Convincing skills is very important as well. It’s just like selling your own stuffs. Appointment setting requires you to deal appropriately with the clients. This is where convincing and approval of the appointment goes in. If you fail to do so, you might lose the job.
5. Establish Good Rapport. The name of the company depends on you. As the front liner of the company, you need to establish harmonious and healthy business relationship with the clients. Start earning the trust of your clients in order for you to achieve your goal. Appointment setting is a very difficult job but if you know how to win the client’s trust everything will be smooth.

Appointment setting is not an easy job. The most common rate for this online job can range between $300 and $500 per month. There are companies that provide benefits to their agents for every successful call. There are technical terms such as increment which is related to the exceeding successful calls beyond the quota. This means that when your quota for the day is 3 successful calls and when you managed to have 4 then there will be extra incentives beside your regular salary. If you have what it takes to become an appointment setter then this can give you enough money for a living.