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What It Takes To Start A Call Centre Business
Anyone who claims to offer innovative ideas regarding starting a call centre business is clearly not in the loop of the industry. One should accept the fact that, call centre business is not based on innovation but rather on strategies.
Given this, there are some people who go ahead with the proposition of call centre business. To start a call centre business you need to arrange for a certain amount of capital. After having finalized that you want to get into call centre business, it is imperative that you need the infrastructure in place. Then plan out for a core team to propel your business and around ten trained call centre agents to start the pilot process.
If any call centre firm has to make a mark in the call centre business, the focus should be on high-end quality. Any call centre business will excel if there are experienced people in the company. Accent neutralization and training in various situations is must. The message should be very clear in terms of handling a call. This is an intense business and there is no getting back after the call has been messed up.
The next is to register under STPI so as to get maximum benefit of duty free imports for all kinds of computer hardware. In addition to this, the other important requirements are carpet area, equipment, communication and manpower. The carpet area can range from 55-155 sq feet per agent and this depends on number of seats. It also depends on the number of services rendered by the centre.
You can estimate the total carpet area by planning the space for facilities, amenities and support areas. The communication or connectivity depends on the volume of traffic and services rendered by the call centre firm.
For example a 200- seat call centre will usually invest in a 2 Mbps international private leased circuit for inbound services. This will comprise of two half circuits in India and the other two in US or UK through an international carrier.
The manpower employed in call centre falls under two broad headings. These are operations or agent and management or support staff. The ratio between the two depends on variety of parameters based on organization, services deployed and the client requirement.
Next comes the technological needs, in terms of technical resources the following things are needed like a voice witch/EPABX, modems, routers, multiplexers ( for data and voice transport), RISC/CISC servers, headsets, desktops, IVR( Interactive Voice Response), E1/T1 circuits for connectivity, CTI( Computer Telephony Integration) and ACD( Automatic Call Distributor) are needed.
One can look up to spending $10,000 per agent for setting up a call centre that includes all types of expenses. The cost of maintenance for a seat would be around $4000-$5000 per year. The industry experts say that most of the operation costs will be two- third of their billings.
One thing which has been highlighted before is the consistent delivery of value services and no BPO firm should be generalist but should have an expertise in certain vertical. In terms of getting clients, the company should have a core team who have gone through a learning process in a call centre and the essential team of HR, Finance, Trainers and Operations in place.
Speaking in terms of return on investment, if a call centre business is managed efficiently, the entrepreneur can reap profits within two or three years in business. One more important aspect of this business is the attrition level of BPO industry. One should have proper recruitment plan in mind and should try to stick to it.
Labels: business blog, Business Growth, Business Ideas, Call Centre Business, Call centres, Customers, outsourcing, virtual call center
Know The Basics Of Starting A Call Center
What is a call center?
A call center is centralized office where large volumes of requests are received and transmitted by telephone. A call center is a place set by a company to administer incoming product support or to answer the queries of the customers. It is a physical place where customers and telephone calls are handled by a BPO service provider usually with the help of computer automation. Typically, a call center has the capability of handling considerable volumes of calls, screen calls, forward them to qualified agent who can handle calls and log them.
Types of call center:
Call center are of two types, these are outbound call center and inbound call center
The other types of call center are web enabled call center, CRM (customer relationship management) call center, telemarketing call center and phone call center
What are the key responsibilities of outbound call center personnel?
- Make outgoing calls to prospective customers to promote product and services
- Update relevant information in the database as and when required
- The agent is expected to stick to the highest standard of quality and compliance.
- Be friendly and courteous to the customers.
- Make sales to the required target.
What are the key responsibilities of inbound call center personnel?
- Handle inbound calls relating to customer queries on a product or service.
- To offer customized services that are designed to meet the requirements of the business.
- To integrate customer care services.
- To understand the business, product and services
- Help in maximizing the efforts of direct marketing.
How does a call center function?
A typical call center functions in the following way, a caller dials a toll free number that is connected to a customer support center. When the call reaches a call center, a trained call center agent answers the call and has access to wide database of information. The dedicated telecommunication links connects the remote call center to the parent organization through voice links and online database access. Therefore even if the caller may be calling a local US number but the calls will be diverted to an offshore BPO service provider.
What are the application areas of call center?
- Sales support
- Technical queries
- Database development
- Complaint handling
- Relationship and accounts management
- Lead generation and follow up
- Telemarketing
- Credit and billing
- Market research
How to start a call center?
Starting a call center is a complex, time consuming and expensive business. The steps to start a call center may vary depending on whether you want to start an in-house or outsourcing call center. Similarly the equipment and manpower requirement is also different for an inbound and outbound call center. Both large and medium sized companies are realizing the benefits of call center. Starting a call center of your can be a lucrative business. Here are some points to consider while starting a call center.
- Study the call center industry and select a location.
- Examine the four basic types of call center.
- Determine the process, permit and licenses required in order to comply with the rules and regulation of your area.
- Compare the prices of equipment such as Internet and telephone.
- Define the company’s strategy and methods that you will apply to measure the productivity, quality, customers and employee satisfaction.
- Create a business plan and outline the business goals, financial needs, staffing plan and logistics
- Choose a business mentor. There are experts who offer business advice to entrepreneurs, their advice can be beneficial.
Most of the in-house call center function as part of the business and provides services for that business. While an outsourcing call center is the one that provides BPO services to other companies. By knowing the basics of call center industry one can successfully venture into call center business. The next important goal is to follow the plan, improve it, expand it and fine-tune it.
Labels: Basic of Call center, BPO, BPO blog, BPO services, business blog, Business Growth, Call centres, career, Marketing, virtual call center
Inbound Customer Service
Today many companies outsource their inbound customer services to an offshore call center. Most of the business owners have a hard time to give up the responsibility to their own employees, let alone an outsider. Customers are lifeline of any business and most of the companies value their esteemed customers. Most of the large business houses outsource the non-core aspects of their business after much thought and extensive research.
Today, the companies have realized that, customer service outsourcing is an important tool to boost sales and gain maximum revenues. While there are still many who are reluctant to outsource their inbound customer services. The truth is that in today's competitive business environment inbound customer service is smart choice. It allows companies to handle the important aspects of their business. Most of the reputed call centers have skilled work force. They are professional and are trained to handle calls proficiently which are needed to manage a business successfully.
Inbound customer service is important for retention of customers. Acquiring a new customer is seven times more costly than keeping the existing ones. An inbound customer representative understands the importance of customer relations and manages those relations in most professional manner. The call center services offered by an outsourcing firm is tailored to place the importance of customer service.
The inbound customer service offered by reputed call center is focused to make each customer a customer for life. A professional call center agent makes sure that each phone call that he or she handles results in something positive that your business can build upon. They play a pivotal role in making sure that the customers are satisfied with your product and services.
By outsourcing inbound customer service, a company actually increases the level of customer service. A call center has trained operators that are always available to handle customers need,concerns and problems. They process the requests of the customers as well as answer the queries of the customers related to the product or services. They also take all necessary action to resolve each and every issue so that the customers have unmatched level of satisfaction.
Today running a small or a large business is a daunting task. This is due to labor costs, recruiting problems and ever changing telecommunication equipment. At this time inbound customer service provides the basic ingredient for a company's success.
The call centres in India providing inbound customer service are well equipped with good infrastructure, highly qualified agents, security solutions and cutting edge technology.
The call centres in India have state-of-the-art multimedia centers that offer multichannel interaction through voice email, SMS and fax services. There is no doubt that Indian call centres can handle a range of outsourcing services.
Some of the inbound call centre services have specialization in appointment setting, research surveys, lead generation, debt collection, consumer response, dealer locators, direct mail response, email management services, help desk solutions, inquiry handling, interactive voice response, product technical information and telemarketing in verticals like mortgage, insurance, telecom industries. The inbound customer service includes order taking, technical support, customer service, answering service and help desk services.
Labels: BPO, BPO blog, business blog, Business Growth, Business Ideas, Call centres, Customers, Inbound Customer Service
Is Time to Fire Your Call Center?
Call Center Services have grown tremendously in the last decade. The reason is that companies are saving on the bottom line by cutting costs and outsourcing this work by opting for these services. The CCS faces a lot of challenges which surrounds customer experience. If you try find respond of customers of CCS, only one-third of them register positive responses! The agents have to shoulder responsibility not only to sell the products of the company but also establish brand equity for it through various channels. Some of the common problem of these services is high employee attrition, absenteeism, inconsistent answering performance and poor call quality. An often carefree attitude within a call center directly affects the overall performance of the call center.
A few of the service complaints of CCS are failure to resolve customer problems in one call, accumulation of clutter in reaching the appropriate representatives or to qualified supervisor if the problems not solved within five minutes of calling, failure to create credit among the customers especially in outsourced customer care centers. First of all, do not treat your CCS as cost cutting centers. Do not cut on training and quality control measures. In your haste to cut the cost you will lose on quality services to your customers and lose reputation and ultimately revenues. Improving the functioning of your call center must include these- efficient deployment and use of labor, effective leveraging of technology, capacity management, and demand management.
Coming to the internal functioning of CCS, there should be absolutely no lack of communication among the agents and customers. Only communicating through e-mails is not enough. It is easier and cost effective nowadays to be in touch trough the internet. Provide your account manager with as many voice interactions with the customer. Language and cultural difference of the customers is another problem in CCS. This problem needs certain contact points between the customer and service providers make way for smooth execution of any project. The offshore CCS has more problems with the accent of the customers. In this case it is advisable to go on a Live Chat. If any target is missed by the service providers, the party that will decide on the payment withholding needs to be defined frankly. This will assure that the service providers will never make frequent errors and will be extra careful.
The CCS should take extra care to keep its customers updated on a weekly basis. They should always feel they have got track of their project. It ensures less errors and hassles at the time of project delivery. Call centers generally lack leverage to invest in innovative technologies and strategies. Using knowledge base applications helps in managing the information load and keeps the agents up-to-date on the latest marketing based promotions. There are many communication applications such as Voice of the Customer (VOC) which helps to make the workforce more effective and reduce cost.
Greater effort should be make to encourage customer feedback through prompted questions and unstructured feedback which is then mined using speech analysis. You must absolutely make sure that your agents do not type when they are talking to the customer or take multiple calls and talk to more than one customer at a time. This will ensure that the agent is actually listening to the customer and 100% attention is given to the customer. Ongoing alignment is necessary because expectations are a moving target. Innovations, competitors' moves, and economic and social trends are some of the forces that cause continual morphing of customers' expectations. CCS is a consumer-centric business; this should kept in mind all the time.
All Call Centers should make themselves well equipped for call floods. At such times it happens that the calls are routed to inexperienced agents and results in consumer dissatisfaction or even frustration. Be pro-active and invent solutions for any imaginable situation at your center; make a strategy and develop a call routing strategy and test them in advance to cope with the actual problems when they arise.
There are many technical solutions available such as extension of voice of the customer program. You may also establish a call handling service, which would report about out of the service phone lines before the customer does! Make sure your agents can flag problems (such as slow pop-up windows or poor voice quality) during a call. If the quality has already deteriorated, it is no use rectifying the technical lapse later. You should also pay attention to forbid any fraud perpetuated by the agents which might involve false representation of data. There should be constant detecting of problems of the IVR systems.
The agents too need to have some fun and relaxation sessions. The call center management and employees should stay current all call center news and trends. Subscribe magazines or create a library shelving books and reports for the employees whereby they can increase their knowledge and skills. All this help in planning a customer service program that works for both their employees and customers. You will be able to address the customer needs all the time and making them happy even though they may not satisfied with the product or service. You may also subscribe to newsletters and whitepapers for the knowledge growth of the members of your Call Centre.
Labels: BPO, BPO blog, BPO services, business blog, Business Ideas, International Market, Marketing, virtual call center
Customer Communications Group Joins Forces with Pluris Marketing
"COMP is all about making customer-centricity easy for our clients, and Pluris brings to the table a high-functioning, real-time optimization technology that is simply unequaled in the industry," said Sandra Gudat, President and CEO of CCG.
The partnership idea between the two companies began when Gudat and Pluris Marketing’s Senior Vice President, Bob Fetter, had a conversation about the state of traditional segmentation and offer versioning. Both knew they had complementary resources for a one-of-a-kind promotions optimization offering.
"The match between CCG and Pluris seemed like the perfect combination," Fetter said. "We knew that both CCG and Pluris Marketing clients needed a better way to produce highly targeted, relevant communications. Many of our clients understand that more than half of all of their promotions were disproportionately reducing margins on generated revenues."
Gudat agreed. "This partnership allows us to meet a need that’s been growing in the marketplace for some time. And now, because of the current economic climate, that need for an ROI-based, seamless optimization offering has grown exponentially."
The COMP product will reduce the time needed to gather customer data, analyze it and respond to it with a customized offer from more than six months to less than one day.
I have to leave now as I have to catch the news of Soccer 2010 World Cup
Labels: BPO, BPO blog, BPO services, business blog, Business Growth, Call centres, International Market
The Career Goal in Finance
What’s the end game after a number of years of going to school? Maybe to have a stable career and life but this does not occur overnite. It takes blood, work, sweat and tears which is also the career goal in finance. How will we do that? Well, folks always say a good education opens doors.
A finance career works the same way given that there are numerous corporations that you can work in after graduation explaining why you must do a little research first to discover what facets of the industry interests you the most. When you’re able to perform some research in each of them, it will be easy for you to develop the talents wanted to excel in this in the future.
A career in finance can occur if you graduate with a degree in mathematics, economics or stats. But since the market is really competitive, you’ve got to make yourself shine by earning an MBA degree years on. You do not have to get one after 2 years of work as there are some people who are studying in their forty’s.
Aside from that, it’s best to read up books and participate in meetings and become an affiliate of a pro organization. You have got to be informed of the most recent trends and build up your network because that somebody you know may get you that job you’re looking for. 2 examples of these organizations include the Yank Financiers organisation and the Association for Fiscal Pros . They have events prepared all year long that will enable you meet new folk with similar career goals.
For those that do not have an idea what facet of financing yet to chase, this is the time to ask help from one of your professors. Certainly , this person can tell you what sort of job is firmly related to what was taught in class. With that in your head, it’s time to go looking for firms that engage in precisely that.
While you’re still at school, another thing that might help will be to apply as an intern in one of these firms. Some corporations will give an income while other won’t . If you do well here, they will potentially give you an offer even before you graduate or inspire you to work for them full time.
If the company you’re looking for does not have any vacancies now, leave your resume or application anyhow so that if an opening comes up, somebody will give you a call so all you have got to do is give it your best in the interview. At the same time, be active in your faculty organization because an alumni member may looking out for new abilities that will be of benefit for the company. We need to target something so a concept can be turned into a plan and then executed. A career goal in finance is only 1 example because folk with other interests can do the same and achieve success in whatever enterprise they opt to pursue.
