e-Learning

Also called online learning or distance learning, e-Learning describes a range of technology-enabled learning scenarios. In most cases, e-Learning refers to personal development, industrial, or academic education delivered online.

One way to think about eLearning is an interactive course material remotely consumed. Interactivity includes real-time interaction with an instructor or fellow learners, online quizzes and tests, and/or online exercises. Another characteristic of eLearning is its anytime/anywhere dimension wherein courses are consumed anywhere a student accesses the Internet. 

In recent years, e-Learning has become universally available through platforms like Udemy and LinkedIn Learning as well as numerous open-sourced academic resources (a list of free courses is available here) 

e-Learning opens exciting possibilities for global learning where Internet access is available as is disrupts learning relationships and redefines the geography for the pursuit of knowledge.

High-context Culture

High-context Culture discusses one facet of communication within various societies. High-context Cultures rely heavily on implicit communication defined by social relationships and through context. Verbal communication is secondary to nonverbal cues like gestural nuance, and facial expressions take precedence.

Cultures with high-context messaging like the Philippines employ subtle, indirect communication where face-to-face interaction is far more critical than low-context cultures that use direct, blunt verbal messaging.

13th month

13th month refers to compensation equivalent to either one-twelfth or one month’s base salary. The practice originated in the Philippines in 1975 by President Ferdinand Marcos with Presidential Decree No. 851. The annual bonus is typically paid in December before the Christmas holidays, although organizations may elect to pay in installments.

Many countries have informal or legal mandates for the 13th-month payment, including most nations in Central and South American, as well as many countries throughout Asia.

Outsourcing

Outsourcing, specifically offshore outsourcing, is the practice of hiring an outside organization to perform a service like customer service or online marketing. Other business processes are outsourced as well and may encompass anything that may be handled remotely like web design, medical coding, document process, or technical support.

There are three reasons that most companies outsource work: to save money through labor arbitrage, to access a skill or competency that does not reside in their organization, or to achieve scale more rapidly than they might accomplish through local hiring.

Sales Verification

Sales verification, also called Third Party Verification (TPV), is a call center process that refers to checking sales to ensure that the customer has agreed to the deal, the transaction terms, and is appropriately responsible for the payment mechanism.

Often the process is automated, although live agents may conduct sales verification. Third-party verification refers to sales verification activities conducted by an outside or third-party distinct from the team or organization that made the original sale.

Philippine Economic Zone Authority / PEZA

The Philippine Economic Zone Authority usually referred to as PEZA, provides a range of incentives for foreign businesses establishing operations in the Philippines. 

PEZA is most famously associated with the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industry’s rise in the Philippines. More recently, PEZA incentives have contributed to the growth of Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators or POGOs. POGOs generally cater to Chinese gamers who patronize Philippine online gambling operations because these businesses cannot operate in China legally. Philippine Economic Zone Authority also extends the same range of benefits together with tax holidays and exemptions to manufacturing, information technology, industrial agriculture, and tourism, including medical tourism.

The Philippines Economic Zone Authority administers the incentives through accredited locations (typically buildings) classified as Special Economic Zones. These are “ready-to-occupy, environment-friendly, secured, and competitively priced.” PEZA provides a map of these zones here. 

Fiscal Incentives (from Manila Times article):

• Income Tax Holiday for a certain number of years, which translates to 100% exemption from corporate income tax
• Tax and duty-free importation of raw materials, capital equipment, machinery, and spare parts
• Exemption from wharfage dues and export tax, impost or fees
• VAT zero-rating of local purchases subject to compliance with BIR and PEZA requirements
• Exemption from payment of any and all local government imposts, fees, licenses or taxes
• Exemption from expanded withholding tax

Non-Fiscal Incentives:

• Simplified Import-Export Procedures (Electronic Import Permit System and Automated Export Documentation System)
• Non-resident Foreign Nationals may be employed by PEZA-registered Economic Zone Enterprises in supervisory, technical or advisory positions
• Special Non-Immigrant Visa with Multiple Entry Privileges for the following non-residents: foreign nationals in a PEZA-registered Economic Zone Enterprise: Investor/s, officers, and employees in supervisory, technical or advisory position, and their spouses and unmarried children under 21 years of age
• Extended Visa Facilitation Assistance to foreign nationals their spouses and dependents

Content Marketing

Content marketing loosely refers to the marketing business process where an organization, individual, or outsourcer researches, plans, and creates relevant, engaging content.

The process extends to regularly posting the content online according to an editorial calendar and then promoting the content through social media, email updates, and other media.

Brands that publish and propagate relevant material are generally more successful at galvanizing and growing a target audience.

Statement of Work

A statement of work or SoW is a document that defines the various aspects of a program or project. It defines work activities, deliverables, key metrics (KPIs) as well as the deployment timetable for a given program or project. 

A critical function of the statement of work is to ensure all stakeholders have a common understanding of the work required, staffing requirements, and the expected outcomes of the work. Because the statement of work is both comprehensive and precise, it is the foundation for all participants in the program or project to execute the work specified. 

An SoW will include most, if not all, the following sections:

• Introduction
• Project/Program Rationale
• Scope of Work
• Project/Program Tasks 
• Deployment and/or Operations Milestones
• Deployment and/or Operations Deliverables
• Deployment and/or Operations Schedule
• Project/Program Standards and Key Performance Indicators
• Project/Program Success Definition
• Deployment and/or Operations Requirements
• Project/Program Commercial Terms
• Project/Program Closure (if required)

Domain

A website domain is often called a domain. Usually, a domain refers to the name a website owner selects to be its user-friendly address online. In our case, our domain is “Lumikha.co.”

The domain name supplements the IP address or Internet Protocol address, which contains a string of four or six numbers (XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX). The IP address gives each device attached to the Internet a unique designation for routing requests. Because numeric sprigs are hard to remember, domain names offer a simple system for routing traffic to a desired destination on the Internet.

Domain names offer opportunities to extend or build an online brand using a company, organization, or individual name and or description of their associated activities. In contrast to a brand name like “lumikha.co,” we might use a domain like “marketingandcustomerservice.co” to attract people searching the Internet for those services.

Click-To-Call

Also called click-to-talk or click-to-dial is a feature, often embedded in a website or an app, that allows a user to call directly by hitting a button, image, or text link. A clear call-to-action that calls you directly gives the user direct access to a customer or support agent without leaving the website or app.

Intuitively, we know that click-to-call’s convenience leads to better results. Inbound phone calls generally convert better for marketing sites, and, likewise, quick access to your support team leads to excellent customer satisfaction for service support sites. The data backs this up: Google reports that 70% of mobile browsers call businesses directly from a website or app on their mobile phone.

Call to Action

A call to action directs a website user to make a specific response. The action indicated is often considered a conversion and moves the user into a sales funnel of some kind. A call to action is universal across many marketing media from websites to television commercials to magazine advertisements to Google Adwords.

Writing an active call to action uses concise command phrases with action verbs like: “call now” or “find out more.”

Backlink

A backlink is a hyperlink or web link from an external website that points to your website or a specific piece of content on your website. The links are also called inbound links, and the external website is often called a referring domain.

Backlinks are relevant because users often find a site by following credible links and search engines like Bing and Google use backlinks to help form a decision about a site’s domain authority. A website’s authority is what search engines use to arrive at search placement for a given term. In short, the website (domain) authority is equivalent to the website’s strength.

Average Handle Time (AHT)

Average handle time is a metric that tracks the amount of time an agent spends working through customer requests. Handle time includes the total talk time and the after-call work (ACW) required to complete the call. Examples of after-call work include: document a trouble ticket or assigned a call disposition.

Calculate average handle time by adding the length of all calls plus the associated after-call work and divide by the total number of calls handled (TaimeTime + ACW / Total Calls). Call length includes hold time and transfer time.

Overly long call handling may indicate opportunities in product knowledge, call control, or closing techniques.

First Call Resolution (FCR)

First call resolution is the practice of working on completing a support request or answering a customer question during the first call related to a particular issue. Because first call resolution is an essential factor for customer satisfaction, it is one of the vital Customer Service performance metrics to track.

First call resolution is an index of a customer service team’s efficiency. It describes how good the agents are at understanding, diagnosing, and resolving an issue without transferring or calling the customer back. Quality training and support tools like a knowledgeable can help agents address calls with greater confidence and speed.

Teams that emphasize first call resolution will often have a higher average handle time (AHT), which is another metric most customer service teams use to track their performance. Ultimately, first call resolution accurately tracks customer satisfaction.

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)

“Business process outsourcing” is an apt definition of the activity it references: isolating and documenting a specific business task so that a person or organization can assign it to another person or organization for execution. Often, but not always, the term refers to moving call centers and other business functions to India or the Philippines or other lower-cost countries to take advantage of labor arbitrage.

BPO work lives up to its potential when it moves beyond pure labor arbitrage to provide better services enhanced by efficient process management, smart workflows that combine talent with automation, artificial intelligence, and cloud services.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

A Key Performance Indicator is any metric used by managers and organizations to understand how a given process or activity is performing. The best indicators illuminate critical areas that need attention. Popular areas addressed by KPI’s include customer understanding, financial performance, internal process efficiency, and employee satisfaction. Key Performance Indicators are specific metrics that track organizational or individual objectives over time. It pays to understand the most critical goals for a given process or activity to draft KPIs that provide insight rather than irrelevant or trivial data.