Life at the other end of the call centre

The present economy is growing by leaps and bounds with the lifestyle becoming very extravagant and people working hard to have a comfortable living. The transition is more towards the private sector than the public sector and the in trend is that of call centres. More and more multinationals are getting their base as India as call centres in India provide an exclusive blend of traits that have instituted it as the favoured stop for all companies accounting to the technological and communication development.

The globalization of business started from Delhi and slowly and steadily call centres started picking up pace and people from all walks of life got a place in it. As Delhi was known for its ethos, customs and its lively history, call centres in Delhi had an upper hand due to a mix of tradition and modernity and the call centres became the façade of the modernistic culture.

The Customer Interaction Centre even referred to as a Call centre, is a place which focuses in receiving and broadcasting a large amount of data, helps the customer with answering queries and is voice-based.

The late 90’s witnessed the likelihood by other multi-national companies to outsource their call centres and BPO services overseas in order to cut the operational costs and also even upsurge efficiency. India was the very first one to have faced this new age experiment. It has been also seen that the call centre services in India could be set up due to the undermentioned factors:

• Constructive government policies
• Exceptional communication groups
• Relatively low wages
• Expert English conversant personnel
• Cost reserves
• Enhanced quality
• Improved productivity

All the above- mentioned factors have steered the organizations to outsource the call centre services to India or to mount up the prevailing global operations. Additionally, they have helped in the volatile business growth of outsourcing in India.

The services that provide a support for the services which are offered by a call centre are known as the call centre support services and are required by a company for smoother functioning. Some of them are mentioned as under:

• Technical services
• Front and back office operations
• Financing
• Account
• Help Desk
• BPO

The call centre services are the ones that manage the help desk units and also tailor to all the technical or any other queries raised otherwise by a customer and also embarks on sales and marketing activities. The services help an organization to stay connected with a customer by inbound or outbound calls and makes the customer happy and induct new customers as well. Some of the services are:

• Inbound Calling
• Outbound Calling
• Customer Service Operations
• Responding to Service
• Inbound Sales and Marketing
• Chat and Email maintenance
• Technical Support services
• Procurement of Order

It does not matter if the call centre is big or small, is staffed with less or fewer agents, all are in need of facilitating remote operations, assimilate business operations, regulate costs and confirm business stability. They are in need of call centre solutions that restructure business undertakings and enhance the processes, amend the communications, and are self-administered with least interference.

Some of the call centre solutions are as under:

• Audio Visual Solutions- These include the meeting room, board room, audio interface etc.
• Mobile Solutions- This comprises of handsets, mobile hardware support, mobile service provider, mobile application support etc.
• Security Solutions- It consists of content and email encoding and web Solution etc.
• Cloud and Data Solutions- This includes the online support and wireless access points.
• Support Solutions- These cater to hardware, network and server support.
• Network Solutions- These include the desktop security, network monitoring, Wide Area Network as well as Local Area Network etc.
• Voice Solutions- These include the billing evaluation, call centre services and call recording and monitoring.

The sales and productivity of a call centre entirely depend on the satisfaction of the customer. There are two types of voice- based interfaces which are available to the customer. These are the inbound and outbound calls. These are explained in brief as below:

Inbound call Centre- The inbound calling is a process wherein the agents receive calls from a customer for some information, support and assistance for using the products or services of the company.

A) Outbound call centre –This is contrary to the inbound calling and entails the agents calling the clients to generate sales and also attract new customers.

Business process outsourcing (BPO) is the commissioning of secondary business undertakings and roles to a third- party and comprises of human resource, payroll, call centres and ITES (information technology enabled services).This is also referred as the back office outsourcing.

Apart from the outsourced call centres are the domestic call centres which are located in one’s country and takes care of business like the customer care, finance, payroll etc. depending on the requirement of the company and ideal for the organizations who want to keep it within the country and not overseas.

All these call centres are integral but the call centre rates differ for setting the call centres depending on the factors below:

• Contract terms
• Volume of Calls
• Skillset needed by agents
• Complication of projects

Inbound call centre rates differ depending on the factors below as they are at the receiving end and not targeting at sales.

• Shared price
• Committed price
• Monthly price

Outbound call centre, however, has a pricing set up based on the below factors as it is focussed on lead and sales generation.

• Hourly basis
• Commission basis
• Hourly as well as commission basis

Thus, we can say that call centre is emerging and developing at a remarkable speed and becoming a significant and vital constituent of the prevailing organizations. It serves on the motto "A happy customer leads to a profitable and successful organization". Hence, they target at the satisfaction of the customers which in turn benefits the company, giving better returns and in developing the economy as a whole.