Smeda Call Centre Essay Example

English listening comprehension; basic skills in computers and the Internet such as e-mail, chat programs, and web browsing; and a polite and confident attitude toward customers. The ideal back-office representative will have all of the above capabilities, but he is also motivated by something inside of himself to succeed. Other terms for this concept are motivation or self-initiative. He will pursue a good command of English written and reading comprehension, and understanding of English idioms and different types of American slang, and have a will to be persistent, caring, flexible, 3 PREF-81/Feb 2005/Rev 1 Pre-feasibility Study Call Center (In Bound Call and Support Center) observant, and assumptive with each unique customer he deals with. He will know that he is serving often well-informed customers who expect respect. He will be able to adjust to changes in technology as well as the products and services he will offer.

Hence the major success factors are:

1. Investment in staff training pays, the staff is the major factor in the service sector.
2. For seamless service, a good backup plan for bandwidth is recommended.
3. Choice of good equipment is critical for better voice quality: remember good quality service always pays.
4. Dependence on one big client is like driving a car without a spare wheel.

In case of disaster, nothing can be done. It is highly recommended to get at least two clients before starting any capital layout. Continues marketing efforts to increase the number of clients is essential for the business.

Project Profile

Opportunity Rationale In the year 2000, major research firms predicted that by 2003 approximately US$60 billion would be spent on call center services worldwide. India was already employing 16,000 personnel for

USA companies two years ago with the claim that Indian call center agents are more reliable and skilled and can operate at a much lower cost per transaction than USA call centers. Pakistan is an excellent example of a nation of many extremely fluent English-speaking and Internet literate people who have the future-thinking entrepreneurial attitude needed by USA companies looking for outsourcing their customer support, technical support, telemarketing, accounting and more. Internet is more affordable, and bandwidth is subsidized more.

Such encouragements can play a major role in acquiring business in this sector. A few of the basic reasons that make Pakistan a better choice for Call centers are pro-active government policies encouraging growth in business process outsourcing (e. g. Software technology parks, subsidized rates of bandwidth & internet connectivity) and a huge talent pool, with strong technical background (24 million graduates, over 0.5 million graduates joining the workforce every year).

The Labour rate is cheap (i. e. employees with the same skill set can be hired at a much lower cost as compared to places like the USA, Canada & Europe). A virtual 12-hour time zone difference with the USA and other markets for call center services is in Pakistan’s favor, an added attraction for end-users and for call centers operators.

Project Brief Call Center Definition

“A call center is a physical environment dedicated to servicing and interacting with customers or potential customers. It is comprised of agents whose primary dedicated function is to handle inbound and outbound traffic via the telephone and other increasingly available sophisticated channels”. Call centers are dependent on telephony-based equipment that aggregates incoming calls, distributes them over a group of customer service representatives

(CSRs) and queues the calls when necessary. The access to call centers is through 0800 free phone numbers. The typical services are airline booking/ confirmation, helpline, banking, hotels, reservations, medical prescription entries, insurance claims and data entries, etc.

The customer calls are routed to the call center through VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology to overseas destinations where trained operators respond to the inquiries of the customers. The customer is oblivious to the fact that the operator attending the call is located in an overseas destination. The service requires a quick response, high-quality communication links and efficient handling without any noticeable time delay.

Pakistan is among the ten most populous countries in the world with a population base of approximately 146 million. The country has undergone a major economic transformation from a regulated system to one, which has seen approximately 15 years of deregulation and liberalization and improvements in social and economic indicators across the board. The GNP per capita is US$ 492 per annum, which translates into a competitive human resource cost structure for this industry and enables the businesses in the call center domain to be internationally competitive.

Proposed Business Legal Status

An enterprise can be a proprietorship or a partnership and even it can be registered under company law with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan. Selection totally depends upon the choice of the entrepreneur.

As per the size of the call center discussed in this report a sole proprietorship or partnership is recommended.

Sector and Industry Analysis

Sector Characteristics The Pakistani IT industry centers on a strong national revolution towards developing the country as a major player in the international forum. Support programs from the government coupled

with an established private sector are creating many opportunities for realizing this goal. IT professionals trained in a variety of disciplines from abroad and locally are applying their innovative ideas to maximize the benefit obtained from the information revolution. More and more international companies are seeking solutions from Pakistani professionals to remain competitive in the global economy.

The biggest growth factor in Pakistan is the domestic sector where an increasing number of companies are adopting technology products developed locally. E-commerce and enterprise-wide systems are fast-growing with more than 2,000 websites.

Subsector Information IT-enabled services are a market of the future. The call center business in the past decade has increased dramatically all over the world. Pakistan offers state-of-the-art technology and infrastructure for establishing a world-class call center.

Companies in Pakistan are developing hardware and software at a lower cost than our competitors. Our trained professional call center operators are techno-literate individuals and undergo special language training courses to ensure that callers are unable to detect that they are talking to someone in another part of the world. The number of Call Centers/Support Centers is increasing year by year at a compound growth rate of 10% p. a.

The Call Center is an IT-enabled service that is gaining high attention in modern corporate culture and corporate governance. This sector is capable of earning multi-million dollar export revenues to Pakistan. Though the current contribution of the IT sector is very negligible it has the potential to contribute significantly to the GDP of our economy.

Government Policy Direction

Government of Pakistan has announced the the policy for the establishment of Call Centers in Pakistan to provide service to offshore companies. This Includes Tax Holidays,

preferred bandwidth provision on lower rates, facility of half-circuit bandwidth and permission to have full-duplex VSAT based satellite back up for call centers alone.

Outbound VoIP calls are only allowed to call centers so that they can provide more cost-effective solutions.

Billing Manager Corporate Customer Care (CCC) who will act as primary interface with the call center operator for all telecommunication requirements will coordinate with offices responsible for the preparation and raising of the bills and ensure that billing is done regularly for international connectivity/PRIs. iv. Customer Facilitation Code 128 is available for registration of faults of ISP/Data/Software exporters at Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. DE IT Maintenance Support will be responsible for rectification of faults and satisfactory service to the valued customers. In case of regions, other than Karachi, Lahore & Islamabad, DE's nominated in each region by the respective GM's to handle ISP/Data Software demand will also handle this demand following the above laid down procedure.

Market Information

Market Potential With an estimated 5,000 Telemarketing, Teleservices agencies and Call Center providers in the United States and over 800 in Australia, the search for a partner can be time-consuming and frustrating this poses a huge market potential in the coming days. As per a market study by Call Center Journal, in 1999, the outsourced inbound U. S. all center industry was worth over $10 billion and is expected to be worth around $35 billion by 2005.

The business potential lies in U. S. A., UK, Canada and other Western economies.

It is estimated that approximately 22 notable organizations and another 50 less known call centers operate in Pakistan, operating 5-100 seats. Of all the call centers, 60% operate less than 20

seats, 30% operate 20-50 seats and 10% operate 51-100 seats. There are Government-sponsored plans to set up call center hotels of 1500-2000 seats where the infrastructure would be provided and the seats could be leased to various users with their own management. The call center industry in Pakistan is still very young with 80% of such operations having set up in the last 2 years. 6.

Target Customers

The potential customers are as follows: large telemarketing companies, companies with high customer interaction i. e. service providers like banks, hotels etc., large companies with a high volume of inbound calls like airline booking/ confirmation, helplines for insurance companies, etc., marketing companies.

Service Mix Offered

The proposed business model is to provide Inbound Call and support center with the possibility of online web-based chats and emails inquiry backup. This service mix is the best combination for a small to medium-scale call centers.

The proposed technology to be used is the VoIP-based Call routing with Sea-Me-We3 based Fiber optic full-duplex bandwidth provided by PTCL and VSAT Satellite Bandwidth backup for continued service.

The PBX exchange is replaced with soft (PC-based) software telephone exchange to bring in extra features like IVR and Advanced call waiting and to bring in cost efficiency. The server software recommended is all Linux-based including the email exchange. Network load management is also a crucial factor, for more convenient management of the network Eddie Network Management System is recommended for more info please visit http://eddie.sourceforge. net. For the recording of voice data on system servers NAS is recommended for more info please visit http://radscan. om/nas.html The network overview is as follows: The Diagrams provided here are only subjective to provide operational

and cost constraints. For more in-depth knowledge of technologies available and technological tech papers please visit http://www. bitpipe. com/rlist/term/CallCenters. html? src=google.

Technology/Process Options

As other technological solutions are also available in the market but the suggested solution is proven to be better in both quality and cost-effectiveness. The alternative modes can be the lowest cost solutions like SuperFone which gives access to the service without even using any infrastructure except the Bandwidth. But of course, it will not give the scalability and the quality large North American companies want. One other solution may be using all hardware-based equipment like PBX exchange and using an even better voice compression codec like G. 711, but of course, it is not very cost-effective and is only suitable for some larger call centers with more than 100 seat capacity.