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Call centers - India leading the way
Communication tool that is still used most frequently is a telephone. There
is hardly any business that works without a phone. Personalization of your
customer service with call center is an effective way to improve business
communication via a telephone. A successful marketing campaign starts with a
keen understanding of your customers. By knowing you what your customer
wants you can serve your customers more efficiently. A call center is a
central place where customer and other telephone calls are handled by an
organization, usually with some amount of computer automation. All good call
centers use some kind of contact manager software that helps in building a
customer database. A prospective client wanting to have a call center
facility has two options – either he sets up his own personalized call
center for his business or utilize the services of professional ‘outsourcing
company’ providing call center facility. The outsourcing option is usually
much cheaper but finding the right vendor for your business is sometimes a
problem.
In recent years India has become a major hub of call center facilities.
India's call center industry accounts for a quarter of all software and
services exports from the country. Indian call centers and Information
enabled technology services are currently employing about 1.2 million people
and transforming into an almost $2 billion industry. In order to meet the
growing international demand for cost-effective, customer-oriented call
centers, many organizations worldwide are outsourcing these services by
setting up call centers in India. When a Customers in the U.S. or Europe
dial a toll free number, advertised by the company, and these calls are
diverted via satellite or over leased fiber optic cables to a call center
located in India. There are several factors that make India an ideal
destination for call centers -
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A booming telecommunications and Information technology industry and
availability of state of the art Information technology and
telecommunication facilities.
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Cost-effective manpower: In a call center operation, manpower typically
accounts for 55 to 60 percent of the total cost. In India, manpower is
available at a fraction of the cost overseas. Indian companies can provide
call center services to clients based in the U.S. or the UK at one-sixth
to one-fourth of what it costs in U.S., UK or Australia.
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A huge workforce of educated, English-speaking, tech-savvy personnel –
India has the second largest English-speaking population and also the
second highest number of higher education and technical training centers
after the USA. India has a technical pool of nearly 5 million highly
trained people.
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High Quality: Indian companies are increasingly adapting to international
quality standards.
Government of India has provided many incentives to promote the
telecommunications and outsourcing.
Qualities of an ideal call center -
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Flexibility- The call center should be able to adapt to the requirements
of the client company and ready to offer tailor made packages.
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Good technological capability and maintenance facility.
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Emergency backup facility should be available.
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Language – The vendor should be able to offer services in the native
language of the prospective customers (e.g. English). The fluency in
language and accents are important to many customers.
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Should have a professionals approach with ‘human touch’ and courteous- It
is very important that the persons working in the call center should not
only have prompt and professional solutions for the problems of the
customers but they should also have a ‘human touch’ so as to provide
complete satisfaction to the customer.
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Good reputation, business philosophy and ethics.
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Commitment for customer satisfaction.
Many Indian call centers already provide international class service at
affordable cost but some smaller companies still have a long way to go
before they can satisfy their prospective clients. Basic ‘Mantra’ for a
successful call center is ‘Customer satisfaction at affordable price’. |
