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CHAPTER - III
INDIAN BPO INDUSTRY: A PROFILE
3.1 INDIAN BPO SECTOR
It is true that the Indian BPO sector is witnessing an unprecedented boom but
the flip side of the industry cannot be ignored. For some time, the Indian BPO
industry has been battling certain complex problems such as labour attrition, poor
infrastructure and lack of data protection laws. The IT industry has, during the last
decade, been probably the most attractive sector to work in. It has, therefore, been
able to get the best talent. The challenge now is to safeguard and build on this prime
position. Attractive compensation, challenging assignments, good working conditions
and growth opportunities are amongst the main determinants of where talent
gravitates, along with the indefinable "glamour value" of an industry or a specific
company. Taking care of these parameters is a necessary task for the IT industry.
Retaining talent is a major challenge for companies, especially in a growth
boom, when a lot of "seduction" of employees between one company and another is
common place. However, the attrition rate for the industry as whole, (i.e., people
moving out of IT into other industry sectors) has been low. Even so, this will continue
to be a challenge at both levels: for the individual company and the industry. The IT
industry has provided an excellent physical work-environment. It needs to continue to
be a leader in providing these facilities, including food, fitness and sports facilities.
While these "add-ons" are not inconsequential, work satisfaction through challenging,
cutting-edge assignments, and substantial growth prospects are definitely major
determinants for retention. Providing these is critical, and is of particular importance
in the ITES/BPO sector, where attrition rates tend to be high for just these reasons.
Compensation is probably the single most important parameter in most cases.
The challenge here is to provide on attractive package in the context of rising
expectations, and yet minimize overall cost escalation. In this situation, "poaching"
people from other companies by offering higher pay packages is self-defeating for the
industry as a whole. An important corrective lies in ensuring an ever-growing and
sufficiently large supply pipeline of fresh entrants.
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The recent past has seen an increase in the MNCs setting up BPO operations in
tier II & III cities
In today’s competitive world skilled workforce is an asset which has to be
leveraged for enhancing organization performance. There are numerous opportunity
for human asset who hamper the performance of organization by quitting for better
opportunity elsewhere not only organization has to make extra efforts to identify the
right replacement but also has to give sufficient period for the individual to perform.
The organization has to make proactive efforts to retain people .Retention is a crucial
issue pertaining to BPO firm. The study attempts to explore employee attrition and
retention strategies of BPO organization and also a comparative analysis of same.
Indian BPO industry has largely been concentrated in and around the
metropolitan areas such as NCR, Mumbai, and Bangalore etc.
Figure 1: The MNCs setting up BPO operations in tier II & III cities
Table No. 3.1 City
Sr. No.
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Source: “NASSCOM
Graph No. 3.1 Graphical Representation of City wise Distribution of
20%
24%
City wise Graphical representation of BPO componies
Table No. 3.1 City-wise Distribution of ITES – BPO Companies
City Frequency Percentage
NCR 149 19.25%
Bangalore 85 10.98%
Mumbai 72 9.30%
Hyderabad 62 8.01%
Chennai 48 6.20%
Kolkata 16 2.07%
Pune 156 20.16%
Others 186 24.03%
Total 774 100.00%
NASSCOM KPMG Study 2009”, Zinnov Research
Graph No. 3.1 Graphical Representation of City wise Distribution of
ITES – BPO Companies
19%
11%
10%
8%6%
2%
24%
City wise Graphical representation of BPO componies
NCR
Bangalore
Mumbai
Hyderabad
Chennai
Kolkata
Pune
Others
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BPO Companies
Percentage
19.25%
10.98%
9.30%
8.01%
6.20%
2.07%
20.16%
24.03%
100.00%
Research
Graph No. 3.1 Graphical Representation of City wise Distribution of
NCR
Bangalore
Mumbai
Hyderabad
Chennai
Kolkata
Pune
Others
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Customer Source-wise Breakup of Indian BPO Industry
24%
76% International BPO
Domestic BPO
Table No. 3.2 Customer Source-wise Break of Indian BPO Industry
Source Frequency
International BPO 76%
Domestic BPO 24%
Source: “NASSCOM KPMG Study 2009”, Zinnov Research
Graph No. 3.2 Graphical Representation of Customer
Source-wise Break of Indian BPO Industry
Indian BPO Industry – A Geographical Perspective
• Indian BPO industry is mostly centered on the metropolis.
• The metropolises together house about 75 percent of the total BPO companies
of India.
– NCR – this refers to the New Delhi, Noida, Gurgaon region, which has
25 percent of the total BPO companies in India.
• However, tier II & III together has around 25
The Indian Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector has emerged rapidly,
and its exports have grown from $565 million in 2000 to about $7.3 billion in 2005.
These exports are projected to increase to $20 billion by 2007 and employment in the
sector is expected to rise from its current level of 300,000 to over 1.1 million by 2008
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(Chanda, 2005; NASSCOM, 2005a). There is also a clear upward trend regarding the
Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) of “high-end” or “up-the-value chain” jobs.
Typical users of KPO to India are market research agencies, consulting firms,
investment banks, legal firms, pharmaceuticals, automotive companies, and corporate
planning departments. Globally, the KPO pie will reach about $25 billion by 2010,
and India should command 60 percent of its market share (Singh, 2005a). Many
analysts are questioning the sustainability of such a rapid growth of the Indian BPO
sector and fear it might burst like the dot.com bubble. A number of constraints are
already emerging. For example, by 2008 the sector will experience a shortage of
around 262,000 employees. Moreover, the BPO industry has a high turnover rate, and
employers find it difficult to retain talented employees. A number of weak players in
the business have gone bust (Business Line, 2005). Activities, such as mergers and
acquisitions, which will lead to industry consolidation, are emerging. All such
developments and trends have serious implications for the Human Resource
Management (HRM) function given that the BPO industry is primarily people-driven.
These are unique and major developments in India’s economy and, therefore, policy
makers realize that addressing labor needs and emerging human resource issues is
critical. The existing literature, however, contains few empirical studies conducted in
India that highlight the nature of human resource management (HRM) systems
relevant to the BPO sector. Herein, we provide an historical overview of the growth of
the Indian BPO sector and the need to examine the HRM systems of these companies.
A discussion of the literature in HRM on outsourcing centers, and specifically HRM
practices in India, follows. We then describe the qualitative and quantitative methods
adopted to carry out the empirical investigation in 51 Indian BPO units. Finally, we
present our results and discuss their implications for the HRM practices in the Indian
BPO industry.
3.2 MAIN FACTORS IN THE EXPLOSIVE GROWTH OF THE INDIAN BPO
INDUSTRY
The Indian BPO industry’s initial focus was on creating a strong and reliable
platform, using technology as a selling point, thus building on the success of the
Indian software industry of the late 1990s. Then it moved to the level of infrastructure
development where technology is increasingly used as a differentiator and for
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bettering the quality of service delivery. This evolution in offering quality of service
has been possible for two main reasons. First, India has what is known as “people
attractiveness.” India produces over two million English-speaking graduates every
year who are ready to work for salaries that are as much as 80 percent lower than
those paid to their Western counterparts. This availability of technical and computer-
literate human resources who can offer lower response time with efficient and
effective service makes India a magnet for multinational corporations (MNCs).
Second, India presently enjoys the advantage of “location attractiveness.” Enormous
savings are possible for foreign firms by outsourcing their processes to India because
of the availability of a relatively inexpensive but strong and established infrastructure
that offers telecom services, improved international bandwidth, technology parks, a
well-developed software industry, and an existing base of blue-chip companies
already operating there.
In addition, many Indian BPOs have successfully adopted several global
industry standards such as SEI-CMM, ISO, TQM, Six Sigma Quality, and COPC.
Furthermore, with an emphasis on a secured environment, Indian BPOs are adopting
standards such as ISO 17799, BS7799, COBIT, and ITSM. The government now
provides a more conducive regulatory environment for global corporations with
incentives like the ten-year tax holiday and rebates in custom duties. Of course, the
round-the-clock advantage for western companies due to the huge time difference
between India and United States/United Kingdom offers them a competitive
advantage over their rivals. At present,the United States and United Kingdom together
account for nearly 80 percent of the existing IT and BPO offshoring in India.
3.3 A Historical Overview of Developments in the Indian BPO Sector
The changes in the Indian economy over the last 15 years or so have been responsible
for the growth of the information technology sector and, after that, the BPO industry.
From its independence in 1947 to 1991, India adopted a “mixed economy” approach
(emphasizing both private and public enterprise) which effectively reduced
entrepreneurship and global competitiveness—both necessary for national growth.
Despite the formalities of much centralized planning for decades, the Indian economy
failed to reach its potential and, in fact, hit bottom in 1991. India experienced a
double-digit rate of inflation, decelerated industrial production, a very high ratio of
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borrowing to the GNP, and a dismally low level of foreign exchange reserves. Foreign
reserves became so low that they were barely able to meet the cost of three weeks’
imports. The Indian government pledged gold to the Bank of England to meet the
country’s foreign exchange requirements. The World Bank and the IMF agreed to bail
out India on the condition that it changed from a regulated regime to a “free market
economy.” To meet these challenges, the government announced a series of economic
policies beginning with the devaluation of the rupee, followed by new industrial,
fiscal, and trade policies.
A number of reforms were made in the public sector, and controls over the
banking sector and foreign investments were liberalized. Since these reforms, the
economy has become dynamic and vibrant, and foreign investments have accelerated
significantly. The World Bank forecasts that by 2020 India could become the world’s
fourth largest economy (Budhwar, 2001; Kapur and Ramamurti, 2001). The liberal
reforms implemented by the government set the stage for India to emerge as a
superpower in the BPO industry in the early twenty-first century. The growth of the
BPO sector was made possible by the already established information technology
sector and the availability of a large number of technically literate English speaking
Figure 2: Growth of Indian BPO Industry (2001-2006) & Customer Source-wise Breakup of Indian
BPO Industry-2006
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people in India. An analysis of the available information from secondary sources
indicates that BPO is now the fastest growing industry in India, and India is
considered the “electronic housekeeper” of the world. BPO services are typically
provided by Information Technology enabled Services (ITES). According to
NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Service Companies), there are
more than 450 Indian ITES-BPO companies (Bhatnagar, 2005). The main activities or
areas covered by the BPOs include customer care, such as remote maintenance, help
desk, and sales support; finance and administration, examples of which are data
analysis, medical transcription, insurance claims, and inventory management; and HR
and payment services including payroll, credit-card services, check processing, and
employee leasing. In addition, the BPO industry has expanded into engineering and
design, animation, market research, network consultancy and management, remote
education, and content development (i.e., digital content, LAN networks, and
application maintenance). BPO activities wherever knowledge processing is required
are all on the increase. Examples of KPO include intellectual property research, legal
and medical research, R&D, analytical services like equity research, information
security services such as risk assessment and management, bioinformatics (for
example, genome sequencing, protein modeling, and toxicology studies), and
procurement and global trade (Ramachandran and Voleti, 2004; Singh, 2005a;
Ravichandran, 2005; Christopher, 2005).
Broadly speaking the Indian BPO industry can be divided into six categories.
1. Captive Units set up by global companies that outsource their back-office
operations from India.
2. Indian Third-Party Vendors that execute transactions and processes for
international clients.
3. Joint Ventures between international BPO companies and Indian partners.
4. Indian IT Software Companies that have added BPO to their service portfolio.
5. Global BPO Players who set up call centers in India (for example, Convergys).
6. Global Consultancies (such as Accenture) who have been advising their clients
on outsourcing and are now leveraging this experience into providing actual
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BPO service (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2002). The most prevalent form of
BPOs operating in India is that of either Captive Units or the Third-Party
Vendors.
3.4 What is a Call Centre?
A Call Centre or Call Center (see spelling differences) is a centralized office
used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume of requests by
telephone.
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is the leveraging of technology or
specialist process vendors to provide and manage an organization’s critical and/or
non-critical enterprise processes and applications. The most common examples of
BPO are Call Centers, human resources, accounting and payroll outsourcing. Business
process outsourcing may involve the use of offshore resources.
Use of a BPO as opposed to an application service provider (ASP) usually also
means that a certain amount of risk is transferred to the company that is running the
process elements on behalf of the outsourcer, BPO includes the software, the process
management, and the people to operate the service, while a typical ASP model
includes only the provision of access to functionalities and features provided or
‘served up’ through the use of software usually via web browser to the customer.
It can be one or all of these:
1. A huge telemarketing Centre
2. A tele servicing Centre
3. A help desk, both internal and external
4. An outsourcer (also known as a service bureau) that uses its large capacity to
serve lots of companies
5. A reservation centre for airlines or hotels
6. A catalog retailer An e-tailing centre
7. An e-commerce transaction centre that doesn’t handle calls so much as
automated customer interactions
8. A fund-raising and collection organization
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9. A Call Centre is traditionally defined as a physical location where calls are
placed, or received, in high volume for the purpose of:
• Sales
• Marketing
• Telemarketing
• Customer service
• Technical support
• Specialized business activity
A Call Centre is operated by a company to administer incoming product
support or information inquiries from consumers. Outgoing calls for telemarketing,
clientele, and debt collection are also made. In addition to a Call Centre, collective
bundling of letters, faxes, and e-mails at one location is known as a contact centre.
3.5 Call Centre: A Good Option
A Call Centre is often operated through an extensive open workspace, with
work stations that include a computer, a telephone set/headset connected to a telecom
switch, and one or more supervisor stations. It can be independently operated or
networked with additional centers, often linked to a corporate computer network,
including mainframes, microcomputers and LANs. Increasingly, the voice and data
pathways into the Centre are linked through a set of new technologies called computer
telephony integration (CTI).
Most major businesses use Call Centers to interact with their customers.
Examples include utility companies, mail order catalogue firms, and customer support
for computer hardware and software. Some businesses even service internal functions
through Call Centers. Examples of the include help desks and sales support.
A Call Centre is a service centre with adequate telecom facilities, access to
internet and wide database, which provide voice-based or abroad through trained
personnel. Call Centers exist in all sectors of business including banking, utilities,
manufacturing, security market research, pharmaceuticals, catalogue sales, order desk,
customer service, technical queries (help desk), emergency dispatch, credit
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collections, food service, airline/hotel reservations, etc. The wide area of services
provided by the Call Centers makes it a lucrative career with a range of opportunities.
Traditionally, Call Centers meant only voice-based customer support. But now
most Call Centers are more of contract centers, offering e-CRM services, which
include voice-based customer support as well as e-mail response, web-based test-chat
services and other customer interaction channels. The Call Centre services can be
‘inbound’ where in calls are received from customers enquiring about a service or
product that an organization provides. The Call Centre services can be ‘outbound’
where in calls are made to customers to sell products or collect information/money.
Etc. Call Centre services can also be ‘specialized’, say in business processing where
in calls are made from one company to another company.
Some Call Centers stick to only domestic businesses dealing with customers
within the country called domestic Call Centers while others such as an International
Call Centre mainly deal with clients from abroad, say from US, Europe, etc. There is
a great scope for Call Centers in India, with a large population of educated English-
speaking people. The wide range of opportunities, comparatively well paid jobs for
the minimum qualification it requires and the facilities the companies provide like to
and fro transport, subsidized meals and medical facilities make call Centers good
option.
3.6 Call Centre Outsourcing Cost Benefits
Lower Labor Costs in Offshore Call Centre Outsourcing. In many Call Centers
in either North America or in Europe, labour costs are the largest share of operating
expenses. In India, labor costs are much lower, about 10-20 per cent of what it is in
the US. Because of this operating expenses are more evenly distributed across labor,
systems and telecom, and real estate and utilities. The savings, for some of these
companies, have been truly phenomenal going up to as much as $250 million
annually. Labour costs in India are quite low compared to the US. Someone
answering complicated financial questions on the phone in the US may expect
$40,000 a year, but in India, labour costs are a fraction of what they are overseas.
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3.7 A skilled and Abundant Work Force
Many Call Centers in America or in Europe hire high school graduates. These
employees often appear to lack commitment and motivation, as can be observed by
the high attrition rates, about 40 per cent or higher.
In India however, Call Centers hire university graduates from the enormous
pools of skilled labor (India alone produces 2 million English-speaking college
graduates and 300,000 post graduates annually). Although just some 5% of Indians
are proficient in English, in a country of more than one billion people, this still
represents a labor pool of more than 50 million people. For these employees, a Call
Centre profession is not just a temporary job, but a career they are committed to.
The types of services being offered by offshore Call Centers are increasing. At
first there was just simple transaction oriented work like back office processing. Now
however, multi nationals have observed the potential of service providers in India as
they have observed astounding success. This confidence has resulted in a larger
number of services being offered. Today, knowledge process outsourcing services,
which require high levels of expertise are also being outsourced to India.
3.8 Call Center Outsourcing-The Operational Approach
The three options are:
1. Captive Facilities
2. Third-party
3. Outsourcing joint ventures
The captive facility option provides the greatest savings and control. However,
it is often the most difficult and takes the longest. In India, GE and American Express
have led in setting up captive facilities – in part because they already had significant
presences in this country.
The third-party outsourcing option reduces the risk and time of setting up
operations-but it also reduces cost savings. Joint venture is the third option. A recent
innovative Joint Venture arrangement is Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT). Under
this model, an Indian company helps set up the Indian operations that the Joint
Venture partner has the option to eventually take over. This benefits both parties. It
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enables the foreign company to get its operations up and running quickly, while
guaranteeing a takeover option. And it gives the Indian company the references and
credibility to become an established player. BOT usage is expected to increase over
time.
The right approach for a company depends on how quickly the offshore
operation needs to be up and running, the degree of control required, the company’s
knowledge and experience in the offshore location, the financial implications and the
availability of management resources.
3.9 Call Center Outsourcing – Increasing Cost Advantages
The Call Center industry is booming in India. Leased line prices have fallen
dramatically. High bandwidth telecom links are available. Toll-free long distance
services are allowed. Foreign companies have realized that it is much cheaper
outsourcing Call Centre business to India, leveraging on its cheaper labor and IT
skills. Besides, exposure to competition is pushing more and more services and
industries to put customer service in the forefront. Manpower cost savings of
approximately 70-80 per cent. Reduced employee attrition, from 70 per cent to
approximately 25 per cent. Process re-engineering benefits. Availability of mature
vendors with the ability to ramp up on demand.
3.10 Availability of skilled manpower.
Fears have been voiced that increasing offshore facilities will affect the
sustainability of the cost advantage. In relatively saturated offshore locations like
Ireland and the Netherlands. It has taken nearly 10 years for wages to increase from
50-75 per cent of those in the US. However, such an increase will take 25-30 years in
locations such as India because of lower initial wages and large educated work force
that is constantly growing-increasing competition among the job-seekers.
3.11 Lower costs but high quality of skills
There is no correlation between lower costs and the skills of the work force,
for in India costs may be lower, but employees are highly educated and qualified.
How well can Indian agents handle the different business situations? As long as the
103
commitment and investment in people are maintained, Indian offshore agents can
handle the same situations better than their counterparts in other countries. They are
skilled, motivated, and highly qualified, and the success of different multinationals
over the last few years is proof of this.
3.12 Which are the Industries Using Call Centre ?
The scope is wide. Any business which has to interact with customers and
manage large volumes of data effectively can use a Call Centre to improve
productivity, sales, delivery and customer satisfaction.
Businesses include:
1. Catalog retailing
2. Financial services
3. Hospitality
4. Cable television
5. Utilities
6. Manufacturing
7. Consumer products
3.13 Customer Service Representatives (CSRs)
Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) are people employed by companies
to serve as a direct point of contact for customers. In the 24X7 world today companies
need to ensure their customers receive an adequate level of service or help with their
questions and concerns. Such customers may be individual consumers or other
companies, each with different needs. Many companies provide customer service via
the telephone through call centers. The CSRs interact with customers to provide
information in response to inquiries about products or services. Hey also handle and
resolve complaints and communicate with customers through a variety of means.
Telephone is the most popular, but increasingly, customer service is supplied by e-
mail. Faxes and regular mail correspondence and even a direct meeting can also
heused by the CSR. Some customer service representatives handle general questions
and complaints, whereas others specialize in a particular area. Freshers have to
undergo intense training to make them suited for the job.
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3.14 Job Prospects and Career Options.
There is a great scope for Call Centers in India. The large population of
educated English speaking people and the comparative low cost are encouraging more
and more companies from abroad / inland to base or outsource their Call Centers to
India. Remuneration: As a fresher, one could start his / her career in an International
Call Centre as a Call Center Executive and earn highly attractive pay packages.
Eligibility: There are no specific educational qualifications required to become a CSO
(Customer Service Officer/Operator sensitive) in a Call Centre. It is a good option for
plus two or fresh college graduates as well as even housewives and retired people.
Personal Skills and Attributes: The skills required vary depending on the project and
the type of business that is being handled. A very good command over English
language is the main skill required. Computer literacy, typing speed, knowledge of
consumer behavior, marketing skills (a certificate or Diploma in Marketing in case of
‘outbound’ telemarketing is preferable), the ability to enter and retrieve information
quickly from databases and an ability to analyze problems are other useful skills that
come in handy.
Good communication and listening skills are important. Customer Service
Officer (CSO) should have the patience to listen to and comprehend the need, be
unfailingly polite, good natured, and reasonably intelligent to choose between options
and remedy problems effectively to the satisfaction of the customer. Persuasion skills
are needed in an ‘outbound’ contact centre where you either collect money from
defaulting customers or try to promote sales and encourage customers to use your
client’s products. They may be required to work at odd hours especially in
International Call Centers where the customers may be calling from places where the
timing may be several hours behind IST.
Training: Fresher’s have to undergo intense training to make them suited for
the job. The training includes accent training, listening skills, ‘slang’ training, accent
neutralization, telephone etiquette, telesales etiquette and cyber grammar, interaction
skills, customer relationship, management skills and Call Centre the product of the
company, even how it could malfunction, and breakdown and fails its objective, to
deal with complaints from customers. Continuous training at regular intervals
including updating on the latest references and slang the callers are likely to use,
105
updating on the new products, developing faster ways of accessing information is a
must for growth in this field.
There is no standardized training period. It can be between two weeks to
twelve weeks depending on the project. There will be an initiation programme, which
includes familiarizing the companies work culture and the international environment
in which they deal with their clients to have an awareness of the culture abroad. Then
the actual training begins which includes both theoretical and on the job training.
In India, the training is usually done by the company itself. There are many
institutes that give training in this field abroad; recently the trend is picking up in
India also. International certifications from STI knowledge, a leading provider of Call
Centre training in the US, have recently been introduced in India. STI offers
international certifications following a Web-based exam after completion of the
course. The certifications are Help Desk 2000, Call Centre 2000 and Knowledge 2000
for all the three tiers, i.e., the operators, managers and director.
3.15 Call Centre Supervisors and Managers
After working as an operator for three or four years, you will be promoted to a
supervisory level based on your ability and performance. As vacancies occur it will be
published in house, an interview will be conducted and promotions made. As a
supervisor, you will be in charge of the various operators working under you. Then
you can be promoted to the managerial level depending on your experience, ability
and skills acquired. Performance is measured based on targets achieved in the
particular business. In outbound centers, like telemarketing your performance is
calculated on sales per hour, or in collection department of a bank, performance is
measured on contacts made and money collected. In inbound Call Centers,
performance is measured on the basis of average talk time, that is, the time you take to
satisfy the customer, analysis and understanding of the problem and the courtesy
extended to the customers.
A Call Centre experience is regarded as worthwhile experience for customer
relations, sales jobs or insurance sector. One has a better chance of moving on to other
industries with experience in Call Centers. For examples, you can move to insurance
sector if you have had experience dealing with insurance clients in your process.
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3.16 The Importance of Good Customer Service
The key to customer retention is good customer service, Regardless of
whichever industry one is a part of, customer care is of utmost importance. An
increasing number of organizations are realizing that with growing competition, new
technological innovations and constantly improving services and products, consumers
are being pulled in different directions. It is vital to ensure that customer loyalty
programs are an integral part of an organization. Acquiring new customers is
important, but holding on to existing customers is crucial. After all if existing clients
are satisfied they will help in acquiring new ones by spreading the news of your
outstanding customer services. Take a look at these statistics:
• Repeat customers spend 33% more than new customers.
• Referrals among repeat customers are 107% greater than new customers.
• It costs 6% more to sell something to a prospect than to sell that same thing to
a customer.
So you can see the need for a consistent and committed customer support
service that will nurture and strengthen this bond. Some of the main problems
customers have are of unresolved complaints, pricing issues, competitors having
better offers, or they just feel you do not care enough. One has to be constantly tuned
in to a customer’s needs. Determining what they want is an important factor in
organizational success. Since the market is in constant flux, one needs a consistent
and committed approach in order to gauge and be in touch with the changing whims
of a consumer.
But what if customer care is not one of your core activities? You may lack the
expertise, resources, and finances to ensure good customer services. Outsourcing to
competent and dedicated customer care professionals is a great option and the path
that many global companies are taking.
3.17 The Need to Outsource Customer Services
The fact that there needs to be an intense focus on customer care is
indisputable. Acquiring new customers as well as keeping existing clients satisfied by
anticipating their needs can only be done through good customer service.
Outsourcing, after all, offers a convincing case for ROI (Return On Investment),
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minus a lot of the risk inherent in setting up a complex operation that is not a core
competency. India is becoming an increasingly popular location for outsourcing and
one can be assured that there will be professional and highly qualified people
handling your clients and providing good customer care service.
3.18 Fears of Outsourcing Customer Services
Outsourcing can invoke certain fears, doubts, and anxieties pertaining to
different things. Culture, Skills, Competency Working with people from a different
country who are not familiar with the particulars of your culture can seem to be a
problem, In India there is a large pool of people who are fluent in English and even
though there may be some initial problems with accent or different terminology, these
supposed obstacles are overcome during the intensive training that customer care
professionals have to go through in order to be a part of customer contact centers.
People employed in the contact centers are well educated, a minimal educational
qualification being a college graduate. India has state-of-the-art contact centers, high
availability of infrastructure resources, and liberal government policies on Call
Centers.
3.19 Is it actually cost effective?
Yes! Outsourcing your customer service needs to India will not only ensure
you of quality customer care but also your cost savings could be as high as fifty per
cent! Outsourcing creates a layer between company and customer. Conventional
wisdom traditionally has held that any activity important enough to have an impact on
productivity – be it customer care, distribution, transportation, or manufacturing and
assembly – is best performed, or at least managed, in-house. But in the last ten years,
this belief has proved to be incorrect. Most companies now outsource their logistics,
distribution and transportation operations. And, increasingly, many companies have
chosen to outsource their manufacturing operations, especially if they do business on
a global scale. Now, the same phenomenon is catching on in the customer care
industry.
Technology has become so advanced today that one does not have to be
physically close to actually have access to data or build relations with one’s
customers. Whatever information and knowledge your offshore customer contact
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center has is immediately accessible by you. There is no impeded access to any sort of
data.
Besides, if one does not have the resources or finances to undertake customer
care at one’s own company, it is a wiser option to outsource to a company that can
completely focus on just this aspect of your business. This focus will make sure that
the quality of your customer services improves. We do not simply act in the capacity
of a facilitator or manager, but will be part of your team, always staying in the process
and this interaction makes sure that there is a seamless relationship between you, your
vendor, and your customers.
3.20 Customer Care Services
There are various ways of improving your relationship with customers and
they can all be successfully outsourced. Depending on your needs you can choose
what sort of customer support service you need.
• Customer Care Services include:
• Telemarketing/Telesales
• Customer Support
• Order Taking
• Customer Service
• Product Support
• Technical Help Desk
• Collections
• Market Research
3.21 Outsource Inbound Call Centre Services
Customer support has become integral to organizational success. It is for this
reason that Call Centers have carved out a niche for themselves. In a world of ruthless
competition, survival is the keyword-which involves not only a vibrant and dynamic
attitude while carrying out business but also ensuring a flawless customer support
service. This is why the need for an inbound Call Centre service is inevitable.
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3.22 How can an Inbound Call Centre in India enhance your Business?
Let a state-of-the-art inbound Call Centre in India handle the phones. Every
missed Call can be a missed opportunity. Whether you need to answer 100 calls in a
day, or 10,000, you will find an inbound Call Centre to be a professional and cost-
effective extension of your business. The customer support agents in an Indian
inbound Call Centre services will cater to your customer support needs and an
answering service will also allow you to be confident when you are away from your
office and not worry about your business. Knowing that your calls are being answered
properly, professionally, and courteously. Ensure the satisfaction of today’s
demanding customer, through an Indian inbound Call Centre service.
What are the Advantages of Outsourcing to an Indian Inbound Call Centre?
An Indian inbound Call Centre service can offer communication services specifically
designed to maximize the efficiency of your direct marketing efforts or to be a part of
your technical support team. They will work together with you as a partner, building a
strong, successful long-lasting relationship with your customers.
3.23 What Benefits can an Inbound Call Centre in India offer? An inbound
Call Centre in India can offer:
• Skilled, professional, customer support and technical service representatives
• Improved market coverage
• Faster ramp-up, launch, and roll-out of new campaigns
• Experience with programs similar to yours
• Rapid response to market conditions
• Account management expertise
• Enhanced reporting capabilities
• Market testing capabilities
• Remote call monitoring
3.24 Why not just have answering Machines to answer Queries?
Answering machines or voice mail can be perceived as cold and impersonal.
Live telephone answering services like inbound Call Centers give you amore
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professional image. Statistics show the percentage of hang-ups on answering
machines is significantly greater than a live answering service.
3.25 Call Center Outsourcing-Financial Implications
Call Centre outsourcing is proving to be one of the most successful ways to
increase cost effectiveness. Companies like GE, American Express, Sprint, Dell,
AOL, and Amazon illustrate this pattern. After trying Call centre outsourcing to lower
cost locations like India, these and many others Fortune 500 companies have
improved cost effectiveness by up to 50 per cent! Moreover, they have also improved
the quality of their customer support and satisfaction.
3.26 Call Centers in India
In order to meet the growing international demand for cost-effective,
customer-oriented Call Centers, many organisations worldwide are outsourcing these
services from locations like India. India has intrinsic strengths which can make A
booming IT industry, with IT strengths recognised all over the world. The largest
English-speaking populations after the USA. A vast workforce of educated English
speaking tech-savvy personnel-a boon in a high growth industry faced with a shortage
of skilled workers. One company in India proposes to harness the high-quality
technical support available here by hiring 300 PhD’s to provide very high end
consulting through video conferencing telephone. Given these advantages, India could
build a $ 17 billion industry by 2008 according to the NASSCOM McKinsey Report.
How large is the Call Centre Industry in India?
There are 25 CTI-enabled Call Centers and 300-500 non-CTI call centers in India.
British Airways’ subsidiary employees about 750 people and is expected to hire 800
more, while GE has 10000 personnel at its Gurgaon facility. There are others like Tata
Consultancy services, Wipro spectra mind, HCL technologies ltd. Sutherland, global
services and All sec technologies ltd;
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3.27 Additional Issues in Call Centers
There are many other issues that have to be planned for while managing Call
Centre. A few of these issues are listed below:
Call center noise hazards
Planning for failure of equipment
Need for flexibility in meal-times and washroom needs
Needs for job variety and training
Job exhaustion and stress
Staff turnover (high attrition rates are common in the CallCenter
Research by the UK’s Health and safety Executive showed 30 per cent of call centre
employees interviewed claimed symptoms of acoustic shock. Potentially this suggests
that 300,000 UK operators may be acoustic shock victims.
Variations on the Generic Call Centre Model
The various components in a call centre discussed in the previous sections are the
generic form of a call centre. There are many variations on the model developed
above. A few of the variations are listed below:
1. Remote Agents: An alternative to housing all agents in a central facility is to use
remote agents. These agents work from home and use a Basic Rate ISDN access
line to communicate with a central computing platform. Remote agents are more
cost-effective as they don’t have to travel to work; however, the call centre must
still cover the cost of the ISDN line. VOIP technology can also be used to
remove the need for the ISDN, although the desktop application being used
needs to be web-enabled or VPN is used.
2. 2. Temporary Agents: Temporary agents are useful as the can be called upon if
demand increases more rapidly than planned they are offered a certain number
of quarter hours a month.
3. Virtual Call Centre: Virtual call Centre are created using many smaller centers
in different locations and connecting them improves service levels.
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4. Interaction Centers: As call centers evolve and deal with more media than
telephony along, some has taken to the term, “interaction centre” Email, Web
callback and many more are gradually being added to the role.
3.28 Criticism of Call Centre
Criticisms of call Centre generally follow a number of common themes:
From Callers:
Operators working from a script
Non-expert operators (call screening)
Incompetent or untrained operators, incapable of processing customer’s requests
effectively
Overseas location, with language and accent problems
Automated queuing systems
From Staff:
Close scrutiny by management (i.e. frequent random eavesdropping on operator’s
calls) Low pay Restrictive working practices (i.e. there isn’t much spaces for personal
creativity since many operators are requests to follow a pre-written script) High stress:
A common problem associated with front end jobs where employees deal directly
with customers.
Poor working conditions, (i.e. poor facilities, poor maintenance and cleaning,
cramped working conditions management interference).
As detailed above none of these are inherent in the call center model, although many
companies will experience some or all of the above while implementing a call centre
approach. As the science suggests, done properly, a call centre can offer the quickies
route to resolution of customer queries, capitalizing on the ready availability of highly
skilled and intelligent people in some area.
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3.29 Main Factors in the Explosive Growth of the Indian BPO Industry
The Indian BPO industry’s initial focus was on creating a strong and reliable
platform, using technology as a selling point, thus building on the success of the
Indian software industry of the late 1990s. Then it moved to the level of
infrastructure development where technology is increasingly used as a differentiator
and for bettering the quality of service delivery. This evolution in offering quality of
service has been possible for two main reasons. First, India has what is known as
“people attractiveness.” India produces over two million English-speaking graduates
every year who are ready to work for salaries that are as much as 80 percent lower
than those paid to their Western counterparts. This availability of technical and
computer-literate human resources who can offer lower response time with efficient
and effective service makes India a magnet for multinational corporations (MNCs).
Second, India presently enjoys the advantage of “location attractiveness.” Enormous
savings are possible for foreign firms by outsourcing their processes to India because
of the availability of a relatively inexpensive but strong and established infrastructure
that offers telecom services, improved international bandwidth, technology parks, a
well-developed software industry, and an existing base of blue-chip companies
already operating there.
In addition, many Indian BPOs have successfully adopted several global industry
standards such as SEI-CMM, ISO, TQM, Six Sigma Quality, and COPC.
Furthermore, with an emphasis on a secured environment, Indian BPOs are adopting
standards such as ISO 17799, BS7799, COBIT, and ITSM. The government now
provides a more conducive regulatory environment for global corporations with
incentives like the ten-year tax holiday and rebates in custom duties. Of course, the
round-the-clock advantage for western companies due to the huge time difference
between India and United States/United Kingdom offers them a competitive
advantage over their rivals. At present, the United States and United Kingdom
together account for nearly 80 percent of the existing IT and BPO offshoring in
India.
What is really a revelation for top managers in Western MNCs is that employees of
similar talent and skills cost much less in India than in the United States or Europe.
For example, an Indian entry-level staff member earns between $150 and $250 per
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month, which results in annual savings of $30,000 for every BPO employee.
According to McKinsey, if a bank shifts the work of 1,000 people from the United
States to India, bout $18 million is saved annually. Similarly, giant U.S.
pharmaceutical firms can reduce the cost of new drug development, currently
estimated at between $600 million and $900 million, by as much as $200 million if
the work is outsourced to India.
Such cost savings are evidenced from the cost of a recently built new center for
Standard Chartered Bank in Chennai (Madras), which was $33 million—a fraction of
what a similar building would cost in the western world (Merrell, 2003; Chengappa
and Goyal, 2002).
India also enjoys various advantages over its nearest competitors, Ireland and the
Philippines, in the BPO industry. For example, in comparison to Indian centers
recruiting over 100,000 employees, only about 18,000 and 8,000–10,000 people are
recruited by Ireland and the Philippines, respectively. Ireland and the Philippines
have 150 and 70 centers, respectively. Accordingly, the revenue earned by the Irish
and Philippines centers is very little compared to those in India which has over 450
BPO companies. The annual salaries of graduates in the United States, Ireland,
Singapore, and the Philippines are $28,000; $19,500; $16,000; $2,900, respectively.
In India, the average annual salary is around $2,400. Interestingly, in China, salaries
are even lower at around $2,000 a year. However, China does not have the same
number of English-speaking graduates available. Moreover, in comparison to India,
which produces over 2,100,000 graduates annually, China, the Philippines, Ireland,
and Singapore produce 950,000; 380,000; 42,200; and 12,500 graduates, respectively
(Chengappa and Goyal, 2002; Punch, 2004; Shastri, 2004). India’s “people” and
“location” advantages have made it more attractive to global corporations, and it
currently has a dominant position in the BPO industry. The Indian BPO sector has
been forecasted to grow at an annual rate of fifty percent and employ as many as one
million people by 2008 (McKinsey, 1999; NASSCOM, 2001; 2005b; The Economist,
2004; Sifynews, 2005; Prahalad, 2005).
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3.30 Emerging HRM Problems in the BPO Industry in India.
Despite the growing success of Indian BPO industry, analysts and media
reports have started to focus on problems and challenges facing the sector.
According to the global management consulting firm, Diamond Kluster
International’s 2005 “Global IT Outsourcing Study,” the number of clients
prematurely terminating an outsourcing relationship has doubled to 51 percent, while
the number of clients satisfied with their offshoring providers has decreased from 79
percent to 62 percent. The issues related to poor infrastructure of reckless start-ups as
a source of dissatisfaction in India have also been discussed (Pande, 2005;
Christopher, 2005). Although outsourcing continues to help Western firms save
significant sums of money despite such concerns (The Hindu, 2005; Read, 2001),
these problems are real and growing and have the potential to make India less
attractive for BPO. Hence, there is a critical need to address such issues effectively.
Many troubles facing the Indian BPO industry relate directly to the management of
human capital. For example, the 2005 “global offshoring outsourcing summit” of the
Indo-American Chamber of Commerce noted several trends which will shape the
future of Indian BPO industry. Some of the challenges include annual turnover rates
ranging from 20 to 80 percent and an imbalance in the demand and supply of a
skilled and talented workforce. There is also an emerging shortage of manpower at
the mid-management level. The basic “cost-effective” model of Indian BPOs appears
to be weakening as the wages continue to rise annually by 10–20 percent, and in
some cases, revenues are declining. There is an increasing scarcity of the appropriate
skills gained through the education system, which is low on quality and relevance.
Because of shortages, hiring new talent has become more expensive. In 1999, the
average pay packet of an entry-level agent was $160–$180; now it is $300–$350.
Due to high attrition rates, every employee who quits costs the company another
$900–$1,100 to recruit and train a replacement. Finding the right candidate is now
becoming a problem. At present for every 100 applicants in Mumbai, just one or two
make the cut. Four years ago, the success rate was 20 percent (Rediff.com, 2005a,
2005b; Sangameshwaran and Rai, 2005). Apart from this, BPO employees are
experiencing problems related to stress, sexual and racial abuse, and dissatisfaction
at work (Walletwatch, 2003; Cacanas, 2004; Singh, 2005b; Witt et al., 2004; Rose
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and Wright, 2005; Houlihan, 2002). The literature on HRM practices in the Indian
BPO industry is scant and offers little guidance on how to remedy such problems by
effectively managing human resources.
3.31 Paying Attention to HRM Systems in India
Many Indian entrepreneurs, and gradually the Indian government, are realizing the
importance of the boom created by the country’s BPO sector and are taking steps to
foster it. India has a new IT law that aligns it with 11 other countries in compliance
with common e-commerce rules that allow for legally valid paperless transactions and
legal transfers. The government has ended its monopolies on long distance and
Internet bandwidth. Such facilities and resources are encouraging firms to create
BPOs in India (The Economist, 2004). In the midst of such economic developments,
the nature and role of the HR function is also changing and evolving (Saini and
Budhwar, 2004).
The personnel function in India originated in the 1920s, when concern for labor
welfare in factories resulted in the Trade Union Act of 1926 that gave formal
recognition to workers’ unions. The Royal Commission of 1932 recommended the
appointment of labor officers, and the Factories Act of 1948 laid down the duties and
qualifications of labor welfare officers. Such developments formed the foundation of
the personnel function in India (Saini and Budhwar, 2004). However, the influence of
social contacts, caste, relationships, and politics on Indian HRM policies and practices
remains prominent (Sparrow and Budhwar, 1997). This creates an interesting tussle
between existing strong social traditions (such as the importance of social contacts
and one’s affiliation to a particular group) and the pressure to move to modern
professionalism (i.e., pressure to formalize and rationalize management systems).
HRM practices need to be consistent with a systematic and rationalized
employment system. For example, the adoption of formal testing of job applicants,
job evaluation, training needs analysis, training evaluation, and performance-related
pay are activities associated with highly structured systems. To a great extent, such an
approach is clearly observable in outsource contact centers (OCCs) operating in
developed nations. Batt and Moynihan (2002) summarize OCC work under three
categories, namely, mass production, professional services, and hybrid mass
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customization. Such a categorization seems to be valid for BPOs operating in India as
well.
However, less research evidence exists regarding structured employment systems in
Indian organizations where rules about practices such as recruitment, training,
promotions, and lay-offs are ad hoc and are subject to easy manipulation by
employers (VenkataRatnam, 1995; Sparrow and Budhwar, 1997). Furthermore,
social, cultural, economic, and political factors exert a strong influence on Indian
HRM policies and practices (Budhwar and Sparrow, 2002). At times, selection,
promotion, and transfer are based on ascribed status and social and political
connections, so there is a strong emphasis on collectivism—family and group
attainments take precedence over work outcomes (Budhwar and Khatri, 2001;
Kanungo and Mendonca, 1994). Similarly, Sharma (1984) reported that staffing is
primarily governed by familial, communal, and political considerations. Motivational
tools are more likely to be social, interpersonal, and even spiritual. In such conditions,
the employees’ orientation emphasizes personalized relationships rather than
performance (Kanungo and Mendonca, 1994). These matters suggest that Indian
HRM systems are less formal and rationalized. On the other hand, multinational
companies, for many reasons (such as control and coordination), may adopt global
standardized policies and practices in their subsidiaries around the world (Bjorkman,
2004). Given the sector’s rapid growth and the involvement of a large number of both
national and multinational firms, and a significant impact of Indian BPOs on the
global economy, understanding the nature of the HRM systems of Indian BPOs is
crucial. Our research thus seeks to assess the status of HRM practices of Indian BPOs,
and we sample from both Captive as well as Third-Party units— the most prevalent
types of Indian BPOs.
3.32 Methods
Given the exploratory nature of the research, we adopted a mixed-method approach
(comprising in-depth interviews of managers, self-completing questionnaires, and
secondary sources). Our direct sources of information were the HR managers of
Indian BPOs who agreed to be interviewed. Access to the BPO units was secured
through two of the researchers’ previous research undertakings and other contacts,
and from networking techniques. The interviews were conducted and the data were
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collected from late 2004 to July 2005 from a total of 51 (30 Captive and 21 Third-
Party) Indian BPO units. These are located in several locations with a majority being
in northern India near Delhi. Summary statistics of the BPOs included in this research
are presented in Table 1.
During the interviews, the managers provided qualitative data on the firm’s HRM
practices and elaborated on their experiences with these practices. Apart from the
qualitative information, the participants also completed a questionnaire related to a
number of HR practices and policies. In total, the data collection meetings lasted
between 45 and 90 minutes. Typically, the most senior HR specialist of the unit or
someone with the good understanding of the company’s HR functions provided data.
Although speaking to other employees could have provided a more comprehensive
picture of the HR role, giventhe limitations of time and the nature of research, we
focused on the “subject matter experts.” Senior HR managers were the best informed.
In some cases, the interviews were allowed to be tape recorded, which were
transcribed and later content analyzed, and quotes from the interviews are provided in
our analysis.
The interview schedule consists of a number of sections. The first section has 15
questions on the demographic details of both the interviewees and their companies.
The next section examines the nature of the HR department and the organizational
structure of the firm. This is followed by a series of subsections on HRM practices
including recruitment, training and development, compensation, appraisal/assessment,
career management, attrition/employee turnover and retention, and the types of
challenges facing the HRM department. In addition, a 23-item, self-completing
questionnaire on various aspects of procurement, employee involvement, and
employee turnover was completed by the HR managers.
The most commonly used job designations of the respondent organizations were
HR/HRM/ HRD manager/director and general manager. The average work experience
of the respondent organizations was 8.2 years. Basic demographic details of the
sample show that 42 percent of the firms are each U.S.- and India-based, followed by
the United Kingdom at 8 percent, Germany at 4 percent, and Finland, Switzerland,
and French-based at 2 percent each. Sixty percent of the research firms established
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their operations in India after 2002. Almost all the sample firms (98 percent) serve
overseas clients.
3.33 What is a Call Centre?
A Call Centre or Call Center (see spelling differences) is a centralized office
used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume of requests by
telephone.
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is the leveraging of technology or specialist
process vendors to provide and manage an organization’s critical and/or non-critical
enterprise processes and applications. The most common examples of BPO are Call
Centers, human resources, accounting and payroll outsourcing. Business process
outsourcing may involve the use of offshore resources.
Use of a BPO as opposed to an application service provider (ASP) usually also means
that a certain amount of risk is transferred to the company that is running the process
elements on behalf of the outsourcer, BPO includes the software, the process
management, and the people to operate the service, while a typical ASP model
includes only the provision of access to functionalities and features provided or
‘served up’ through the use of software usually via web browser to the customer.
It can be one or all of these:
A huge telemarketing centre
A teleservicingcentre
A help desk, both internal and external
An outsourcer (also known as a service bureau) that uses its large capacity to serve
lots of companies
A reservation centre for airlines or hotels, A catalog retailer An e-tailing centre, An e-
commerce transaction centre that doesn’t handle calls so much as automated customer
interactions A fund-raising and collection organization.
A Call Centre is traditionally defined as a physical location where calls are placed, or
received, in high volume for the purpose of:
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Sales
Marketing
Telemarketing
Customer service
Technical support
Specialized business activity
A Call Centre is operated by a company to administer incoming product support or
information inquiries from consumers. Outgoing calls for telemarketing, clientele, and
debt collection are also made. In addition to a Call Centre, collective bundling of
letters, faxes, and e-mails at one location is known as a contact centre.
3.34 Call Centre: A Good Option
A Call Centre is often operated through an extensive open workspace, with work
stations that include a computer, a telephone set/headset connected to a telecom
switch, and one or more supervisor stations. It can be independently operated or
networked with additional centers, often linked to a corporate computer network,
including mainframes, microcomputers and LANs. Increasingly, the voice and data
pathways into the Centre are linked through a set of new technologies called computer
telephony integration (CTI).
Most major businesses use Call Centers to interact with their customers. Examples
include utility companies, mail order catalogue firms, and customer support for
computer hardware and software. Some businesses even service internal functions
through Call Centers. Examples of the include help desks and sales support.
A Call Centre is a service centre with adequate telecom facilities, access to internet
and wide database, which provide voice-based or abroad through trained personnel.
Call Centers exist in all sectors of business including banking, utilities,
manufacturing, security market research, pharmaceuticals, catalogue sales, order desk,
customer service, technical queries (help desk), emergency dispatch, credit
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collections, food service, airline/hotel reservations, etc. The wide area of services
provided by the Call Centers makes it a lucrative career with a range of opportunities.
Traditionally, Call Centers meant only voice-based customer support. But now most
Call Centers are more of contract centers, offering e-CRM services, which include
voice-based customer support as well as e-mail response, web-based test-chat services
and other customer interaction channels. The Call Centre services can be ‘inbound’
where in calls are received from customers enquiring about a service or product that
an organization provides. The Call Centre services can be ‘outbound’ where in calls
are made to customers to sell products or collect information/money. Etc. Call Centre
services can also be specialized, say in business processing where in calls are made
from one company to another company.
Some Call Centers stick to only domestic businesses dealing with customers within
the country called domestic Call Centers while others such as an International Call
Centre mainly deal with clients from abroad, say from US, Europe, etc. There is a
great scope for Call Centers in India, with a large population of educated English-
speaking people. The wide range of opportunities, comparatively well-paid jobs for
the minimum qualification it requires and the facilities the companies provide like to
and fro transport, subsidized meals and medical facilities make call Centers good
option.
Call Centre Outsourcing Cost Benefits
Lower Labor Costs in Offshore Call Centre Outsourcing
In many Call Centers in either North America or in Europe, labour costs are the
largest share of operating expenses. In India, labor costs are much lower, about 10-20
per cent of what it is in the US. Because of this operating expenses are more evenly
distributed across labor, systems and telecom, and real estate and utilities. The
savings, for some of these companies, have been truly phenomenal going up to as
much as $250 million annually. Labour costs in India are quite low compared to the
US. Someone answering complicated financial questions on the phone in the US may
expect $40,000 a year, but in India, labour costs are a fraction of what they are
overseas.
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A skilled and Abundant Work Force
Many Call Centers in America or in Europe hire high school graduates. These
employees often appear to lack commitment and motivation, as can be observed by
the high attrition rates, about 40 per cent or higher.
In India however, Call Centers hire university graduates from the enormous pools of
skilled labor (India alone produces 2 million English-speaking college graduates and
300,000 post graduates annually). Although just some 5% of Indians are proficient in
English, in a country of more than one billion people, this still represents a labor pool
of more than 50 million people. For these employees, a Call Centre profession is not
just a temporary job, but a career they are committed to.
The types of services being offered by offshore Call Centers are increasing. At first
there was just simple transaction oriented work like back office processing. Now
however, multi nationals have observed the potential of service providers in India as
they have observed astounding success. This confidence has resulted in a larger
number of services being offered. Today, knowledge process outsourcing services,
which require high levels of expertise are also being outsourced to India.
Call Center Outsourcing-The Operational Approach
The three options are:
1. Captive Facilities
2. Third-party
3. Outsourcing joint ventures
The captive facility option provides the greatest savings and control. However, it is
often the most difficult and takes the longest. In India, GE and American Express
have led in setting up captive facilities – in part because they already had significant
presences in this country.
The third-party outsourcing option reduces the risk and time of setting up operations-
but it also reduces cost savings.
Joint venture is the third option. A recent innovative Joint Venture arrangement is
Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT). Under this model, an Indian company helps set
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up the Indian operations that the Joint Venture partner has the option to eventually
take over. This benefits both parties. It enables the foreign company to get its
operations up and running quickly, while guaranteeing a takeover option. And it gives
the Indian company the references and credibility to become an established player.
BOT usage is expected to increase over time.
The right approach for a company depends on how quickly the offshore operation
needs to be up and running, the degree of control required, the company’s knowledge
and experience in the offshore location, the financial implications and the availability
of management resources.
Call Center Outsourcing – Increasing Cost Advantages
The Call Center industry is booming in India. Leased line prices have fallen
dramatically. High bandwidth telecom links are available. Toll-free long distance
services are allowed. Foreign companies have realized that it is much cheaper
outsourcing Call Centre business to India, leveraging on its cheaper labor and IT
skills. Besides, exposure to competition is pushing more and more services and
industries to put customer service in the forefront. Manpower cost savings of
approximately 70-80 percent. TheReduced employee attrition from 70 percent to
approximately 25 percent.TheProcess re-engineering benefits; Availability of the
mature vendors with the ability to ramp up on demand; Availability of skilled
manpower.
Fears have been voiced that increasing offshore facilities will affect the
sustainability of the cost advantage. In relatively saturated offshore locations like
Ireland and the Netherlands. It has taken nearly 10 years for wages to increase from
50-75 per cent of those in the US. However, such an increase will take 25-30 years in
locations such as India because of lower initial wages and large educated work force
that is constantly growing-increasing competition among the job-seekers.
Lower costs but high quality of skills
There is no correlation between lower costs and the skills of the work force, for in
India costs may be lower, but employees are highly educated and qualified.
How well can Indian agents handle the different business situations?
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As long as the commitment and investment in people are maintained, Indian offshore
agents can handle the same situations better than their counterparts in other
countries. They are skilled, motivated, and highly qualified, and the success of
different multinationals over the last few years is proof of this.
3.35 Which are the Industries Using Call Centers?
The scope is wide. Any business which has to interact with customers and mange
large volumes of data effectively can use a Call Centre to improve productivity, sales,
delivery and customer satisfaction.
Businesses include:
1. Catalog retailing
2. Financial services
3. Hospitality
4. Cable television
5. Utilities
6. Manufacturing
7. Consumer products
8. Customer Service Representatives (CSRs)
Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) are people employed by companies to
serve as a direct point of contact for customers. In the 24X7 world today companies
need to ensure their customers receive an adequate level of service or help with their
questions and concerns. Such customers may be individual consumers or other
companies, each with different needs. Many companies provide customer service via
the telephone through call centers. The CSRs interact with customers to provide
information in response to inquiries about products or services. Hey also handle and
resolve complaints and communicate with customers through a variety of means.
Telephone is the most popular, but increasingly, customer service is supplied by e-
mail. Faxes and regular mail correspondence and even a direct meeting can also he
used by the CSR. Some customer service representatives handle general questions and
complaints, whereas others specialize in a particular area.
The Fresher has to undergo intense training to make them suited for the job.
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The Job Prospects and Career Options.
There is a great scope for Call Centers in India. The large population of educated
English speaking people and the comparative low cost are encouraging more and
more companies from abroad / inland to base or outsource their Call Centers to India.
Remuneration: As a fresher, one could start his / her career in an International Call
Centre as a Call Center Executive and earn highly attractive pay packages.
Eligibility: There are no specific educational qualifications required to become a CSO
(Customer Service Officer/Operator sensitive) in a Call Centre. It is a good option for
plus two or fresh college graduates as well as even housewives and retired people.
Personal Skills and Attributes: The skills required vary depending on the project and
the type of business that is being handled. A very good command over English
language is the main skill required. Computer literacy, typing speed, knowledge of
consumer behavior, marketing skills (a certificate or Diploma in Marketing in case of
‘outbound’ telemarketing is preferable), the ability to enter and retrieve information
quickly from databases and an ability to analyze problems are other useful skills that
come in handy.
Good communication and listening skills are important. Customer Service Officer
(CSO) should have the patience to listen to and comprehend the need, be unfailingly
polite, good natured, and reasonably intelligent to choose between options and
remedy problems effectively to the satisfaction of the customer. Persuasion skills are
needed in an ‘outbound’ contact centre where you either collect money from
defaulting customers or try to promote sales and encourage customers to use your
client’s products. They may be required to work at odd hours especially in
International Call Centers where the customers may be calling from places where the
timing may be several hours behind IST.
Training: Freshers have to undergo intense training to make them suited for the job.
The training includes accent training, listening skills, ‘slang’ training, accent
neutralization, telephone etiquette, telesales etiquette and cyber grammar, interaction
skills, customer relationship, management skills and Call Centre the product of the
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company, even how it could malfunction, and breakdown and fails its objective, to
deal with complaints from customers. Continuous training at regular intervals
including updating on the latest references and slang the callers are likely to use,
updating on the new products, developing faster ways of accessing information is a
must for growth in this field.
There is no standardized training period. It can be between two weeks to twelve
weeks depending on the project. There will be an initiation program, which includes
familiarizing the companies work culture and the international environment in which
they deal with their clients to have an awareness of the culture abroad. Then the actual
training begins which includes both theoretical and on the job training.
In India, the training is usually done by the company itself. There are many institutes
that give training in this field abroad; recently the trend is picking up in India also.
International certifications from STI knowledge, a leading provider of Call Centre
training in the US, have recently been introduced in India. STI offers international
certifications following a Web-based exam after completion of the course. The
certifications are Help Desk 2000, Call Centre 2000 and Knowledge 2000 for all the
three tiers, i.e., the operators, managers and director.
3.36 Job prospects & Career Options
There is a great scope for Call Centers in India. The large population of educated
English speaking people and the comparative low cost are encouraging more and
more companies from abroad/ inland to base or outsource their Call Centers to India.
GE capital, American Express, Wipro Spectra mind, Infowavz International
(Mumbai), Daksh, Reliance InfoTech are some of the Call Centers which are on a
recruitment spree.
3.37 Call Centre Operators/Customer Care Executives
This is the entry level in Call Centers. Your general duties include answering
telephone calls, talking down details of the caller’s query and logging this information
on a computer, providing the caller with appropriate information or advice, in some
cases, selling a caller products or services. In outbound Call Center services such as
tele-marketing, an operator will also need to identify potential customers and make
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outgoing calls marketing their organization’s product, occasionally following-up calls
by sending letters, faxes or e-mail, deal with customer complaints, etc. A Call Center
operator’s duties will depend on the type of product or service that the organization
provides and the type of client he/she is servicing, Customer service executives can
move on to the technical, financial or the insurance sector, etc.
3.38 Call Centre Supervisors and Managers
After working as an operator for three or four years, you will be promoted to a
supervisory level based on your ability and performance. As vacancies occur it will be
published in house, an interview will be conducted and promotions made. As a
supervisor, you will be in charge of the various operators working under you. Then
you can be promoted to the managerial level depending on your experience, ability
and skills acquired. Performance is measured based on targets achieved in the
particular business. In outbound centers, like telemarketing your performance is
calculated on sales per hour, or in collection department of a bank, performance is
measured on contacts made and money collected. In inbound Call Centers,
performance is measured on the basis of average talk time, that is, the time you take to
satisfy the customer, analysis and understanding of the problem and the courtesy
extended to the customers.
A Call Centre experience is regarded as worthwhile experience for customer relations,
sales jobs or insurance sector. One has a better chance of moving on to other
industries with experience in Call Centers. For examples, you can move to insurance
sector if you have had experience dealing with insurance clients in your process.
3.39 The Importance of Good Customer Service
The key to customer retention is good customer service, Regardless of whichever
industry one is a part of, customer care is of utmost importance. An increasing
number of organizations are realizing that with growing competition, new
technological innovations and constantly improving services and products, consumers
are being pulled in different directions. It is vital to ensure that customer loyalty
programs are an integral part of an organization. Acquiring new customers is
important, but holding on to existing customers is crucial. After all if existing clients
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are satisfied they will help in acquiring new ones by spreading the news of your
outstanding customer services. Take a look at these statistics:
Repeat customers spend 33% more than new customers. Referrals among repeat
customers are 107% greater than new customers.
It costs 6% more to sell something to a prospect than to sell that same thing to a
customer.
So you can see the need for a consistent and committed customer support service that
will nurture and strengthen this bond. Some of the main problems customers have are
of unresolved complaints, pricing issues, competitors having better offers, or they just
feel you do not care enough. One has to be constantly tuned in to a customer’s needs.
Determining what they want is an important factor in organizational success. Since
the market is in constant flux, one needs a consistent and committed approach in order
to gauge and be in touch with the changing whims of a consumer.
But what if customer care is not one of your core activities? You may lack the
expertise, resources, and finances to ensure good customer services. Outsourcing to
competent and dedicated customer care professionals is a great option and the path
that many global companies are taking.
The Need to Outsource Customer Services
The fact that there needs to be an intense focus on customer care is indisputable.
Acquiring new customers as well as keeping existing clients satisfied by anticipating
their needs can only be done through good customer service.
Outsourcing, after all, offers a convincing case for ROI (Return On Investment),
minus a lot of the risk inherent in setting up a complex operation that is not a core
competency.
India is becoming an increasingly popular location for outsourcing and one can be
assured that there will be professional and highly qualified people handling your
clients and providing good customer care service.
Fears of Outsourcing Customer Services
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Outsourcing can invoke certain fears, doubts, and anxieties pertaining to different
things.
Culture, Skills, Competency
Working with people from a different country who are not familiar with the
particulars of your culture can seem to be a problem, In India there is a large pool of
people who are fluent in English and even though there may be some initial problems
with accent or different terminology, these supposed obstacles are overcome during
the intensive training that customer care professionals have to go through in order to
be a part of customer contact centers. People employed in the contact centers are well
educated, a minimal educational qualification being a college graduate. India has
state-of-the-art contact centers, high availability of infrastructure resources, and
liberal government policies on Call Centers.
Is it actually cost effective?
Yes! Outsourcing your customer service needs to India will not only ensure you of
quality customer care but also your cost savings could be as high as fifty per cent!
Outsourcing creates a layer between company and customer.
Conventional wisdom traditionally has held that any activity important enough to
have an impact on productivity – be it customer care, distribution, transportation, or
manufacturing and assembly – is best performed, or at least managed, in-house. But in
the last ten years, this belief has proved to be incorrect. Most companies now
outsource their logistics, distribution and transportation operations. And, increasingly,
many companies have chosen to outsource their manufacturing operations, especially
if they do business on a global scale. Now, the same phenomenon is catching on in the
customer care industry.
Technology has become so advanced today that one does not have to be physically
close to actually have access to data or build relations with one’s customers. Whatever
information and knowledge your offshore customer contact centre has is immediately
accessible by you. There is no impeded access to any sort of data.
Besides, if one does not have the resources or finances to undertake customer care at
one’s own company, it is a wiser option to outsource to a company that can
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completely focus on just this aspect of your business. This focus will make sure that
the quality of your customer services improves. We do not simply act in the capacity
of a facilitator or manager, but will be part of your team, always staying in the process
and this interaction makes sure that there is a seamless relationship between you, your
vendor, and your customers.
Customer Care Services
There are various ways of improving your relationship with customers and they can
all be successfully outsourced. Depending on your needs you can choose what sort of
customer support service you need.
Customer Care Services include:
Telemarketing/Telesales
Customer Support
Order Taking
Customer Service
Product Support
Technical Help Desk
Collections
Market Research
Outsource Inbound Call Centre Services
Customer support has become integral to organizational success. It is for this reason
that Call Centers have carved out a niche for themselves. In a world of ruthless
competition, survival is the keyword-which involves not only a vibrant and dynamic
attitude while carrying out business but also ensuring a flawless customer support
service. This is why the need for an inbound Call Centre service is inevitable.
How can an Inbound Call Centre in India Enhance your Business?
131
Let a state-of-the-art inbound Call Centre in India handle the phones. Every missed
Call can be a missed opportunity. Whether you need to answer 100 calls in a day, or
10,000, you will find an inbound Call Centre to be a professional and cost-effective
extension of your business. The customer support agents in an Indian inbound Call
Centre services will cater to your customer support needs and an answering service
will also allow you to be confident when you are away from your office and not worry
about your business; Knowing that your calls are being answered properly,
professionally, and courteously. Ensure the satisfaction of today’s demanding
customer, through an Indian inbound Call Centre service.
What are the Advantages of Outsourcing to an Indian Inbound Call Centre?
An Indian inbound Call Centre service can offer communication services specifically
designed to maximize the efficiency of your direct marketing efforts or to be a part of
your technical support team.
They will work together with you as a partner, building a strong, successful long-
lasting relationship with your customers.
What Benefits can an Inbound Call Centre in India offer?
An inbound Call Centre in India can offer:
Skilled, professional, customer support and technical service representatives
Improved market coverage
Faster ramp-up, launch, and roll-out of new campaigns
Experience with programs similar to yours
Rapid response to market conditions
Account management expertise
Enhanced reporting capabilities
Market testing capabilities
Market testing capabilities
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Remote call monitoring
Why not just have answering Machines to answer Queries?
Answering machines or voice mail can be perceived as cold and impersonal. Live
telephone answering services like inbound Call Centers give you amore professional
image. Statistics show the percentage of hang-ups on answering machines is
significantly greater than a live answering service.
CallCenter Outsourcing-Financial Implications
Call Centre outsourcing is proving to be one of the most successful ways to increase
cost effectiveness. Companies like GE, American Express, Sprint, Dell, AOL, and
Amazon illustrate this pattern. After trying Call centre outsourcing to lower cost
locations like India, these and many 0others Fortune 500 companies have improved
cost effectiveness by up to 50 per cent! Moreover, they have also improved the
quality of their customer support and satisfaction.
3.40 Call Centers in India
In order to meet the growing international demand for cost-effective, customer-
oriented Call Centers, many organizations worldwide are outsourcing these services
from locations like India. India has intrinsic strengths which can make
A booming IT industry, with IT strengths recognized all over the world.
The largest English-speaking populations after the USA.
A vast workforce of educated English speaking tech-savvy personnel-a boon in a high
growth industry faced with a shortage of skilled workers.
One company in India proposes to harness the high-quality technical support available
here by hiring 300 PhD’s to provide very high end consulting through video
conferencing telephone. Given these advantages, India could build a $ 17 billion
industry by 2008 according to the NASSCOM McKinsey Report.
How large is the Call Centre Industry in India?
There are 25 CTI-embled Call Centers and 300-500 non-CTI call centers in India.
British Airways’ subsidiary employees about 750 people and is expected to hire 800
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more, while GE has 10000 personnel at its Gurgaon facility. There are others like Tata
Consultancy services Wipro spectra mind, HCL technologies ltd. Sutherland, global
services and all sec technologies ltd;
Additional Issues in Call Centers
There are many other issues that have to be planned for when managing Call Centre.
A few of these issues are listed below:
Call center noise hazards
Planning for failure of equipment
Need for flexibility in meal-times and washroom needs
Needs for job variety and training
Job exhaustion and stress
Staff turnover (high attrition rates are common in the CallCenter
Research by the UK’s Health and safety Executive showed 30 per cent of call centre
employees interviewed claimed symptoms of acoustic shock. Potentially this suggests
that 300,000 UK operators may be acoustic shock victims.
Variations on the Generic Call Centre Model
The various components in a call centre discussed in the previous sections are the
generic form of a call centre. There are many variations on the model developed
above. A few of the variations are listed below:
1. Remote Agents: An alternative to housing all agents in a central facility is to
use remote agents. These agents work from home and use a Basic Rate ISDN access
line to communicate with a central computing platform. Remote agents are more cost-
effective as they don’t have to travel to work; however, the call centre must still cover
the cost of the ISDN line. VOIP technology can also be used to remove the need for
the ISDN, although the desktop application being used needs to be web-enabled or
VPN is used.
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2. Temporary Agents: Temporary agents are useful as the can be called upon if
demand increases more rapidly than planned they are offered a certain number of
quarter hours a month.
� Virtual Call center: Virtual call centers are created using many smaller centers
in different locations and connecting them improves service levels.
� Interaction Centers: As call centers evolve and deal with more media than
telephony along, some has taken to the term, “interaction centre” Email, Web callback
and many more are gradually being added to the role.
Criticism of Call Centers
Criticisms of call centers generally follow a number of common themes:
From Callers:
Operators working from a script
Non-expert operators (call screening)
Incompetent or untrained operators, incapable of processing customer’s requests
effectively
Overseas location, with language and accent problems
Automated queuing systems
From Staff:
Close scrutiny by management (i.e. frequent random eavesdropping on operator’s
calls)
Low pay
Restrictive working practices (i.e. there aren’t much spaces for personal creativity
since many operators are requests to follow a pre-written script)
High stress: A common problem associated with front end jobs where employees deal
directly with customers.
Poor working conditions, (i.e. poor facilities, poor maintenance and cleaning,
cramped working conditions management interference).
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As detailed above none of these are inherent in the call center model, although many
companies will experience some or all of the above while implementing a call centre
approach. As the science suggests, done properly, a call centre can offer the quickies
route to resolution of customer queries, capitalizing on the ready availability of highly
skilled and intelligent people in some area.
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