CALL CENTER SERVICES: Moving to the Next Level

Now the call center companies have settled down to do some serious business

and they are getting along well, the focus shifts to the next level. This has

led to the growing importance of call center training companies, organizations

engaged in providing benchmarking services for these centers, besides real

estate and other ancillary services company.

n Recruitment

and Training: The success of call center business in India will depend on

the kind of training that will be available to the call center companies The

pioneers in the field sought to fill the training gap by importing training

tools — that included getting trainers from the US to kick off their

operations. These trainers were flown in to do the needful and needless to say,

they did a fairly good job. But as the capacity of these operations kept

increasing astronomically, the companies are unable to handle on-the-job

training.

Considering that most of the training that is being imparted in the country

is nowhere near the global standards and the fact that there is a great training

divide between what is needed and what is available or delivered, some companies

have tried to fill up the gap.

The need for trained professionals has led to the emergence of two types of

training markets. One, the easy way out was setting up shops to train people to

take up these jobs. Training institutes saw this as an opportunity to fill up

the training gap.

Amidst all this chaos, the immediate gainers are those companies who are

genuinely serious about paying attention to the whole process of call center

training and wanting to extend their expertise to offer training solutions to

the companies who wanted to setup such centers. These companies strongly object

to being clubbed with the student-training institutes. They say, they are pure

B2B players who offer training solutions to the call centers. They take up the

training responsibilities right from the recruitment process to training,

retraining and continuing education. The Mindbank provides a total recruitment

and training solution to the call center companies in India. Holistic

Enterprises, offers similar solutions to the startup call centers, domestic as

well as international.

Considering the need for manpower development as key critical factor the

success of the fast-growing call center industry, the largest computer training

player in India NIIT, launched its initiative Planetworkz. Planetworkz offers a

three-week certificate course in customer service program to a one-year program

that prepares fresh hires in generic education for an ITeS career.

Before that Aptech Computer Education had launched its IT Enabled initiative

called ‘Calltech’. Aimed at the Call Center market in India, the course is

designed to provide the required skill-sets to aspiring call center

professionals. Calltech imparts technical and professional training modules for

providing the students with a leading edge. The curriculum has been designed by

industry professionals trained by AT&T and also includes modules by Call

Center and sales experts. The course equips students with all the contemporary

requirements of the industry with a rich training imparted by faculties with

expertise in communication skills training, who are aware of cultural nuances of

different communities. The course targets freshers and working professionals

with positive communication and social skills as well as technical professionals

aspiring to work for the Call centers.

Other players in the field include Holistic, Hero Mindmine, Karrox, Webcom,

STIknowledge. Tata Infotech, primarily an IT education company from the Tata

group has also diversified into the call center training area.

n Certification

and Benchmarking: There has been a sudden spurt in the interest about

getting certified and benchmarked by call center companies, especially

international ones. Surprisingly not a single domestic call center have bothered

to go for certification and benchmarking. According to reports most of the call

centers are facing trouble related to existing standards like ISO 9000 as they

are being taken as being predominantly manufacturing-oriented. There was a

certification and benchmarking gap in the industry which has been very well

fulfilled by COPC, a US-based agency and Jon Anton’s Benchmark Portal, a

Purdue University initiative. QAI (India), has recently started helping Indian

companies in getting offering training, assessment and certification on behalf

of COPC, ISO and Six Sigma.

Importance of Benchmarking

Customer Accessibility: Global competition has reduced organizations'

product/service differentiators and led to significantly greater "customer

focus and accessibility". To improve customer experience, comparing data

points within the organization with competition is important to optimize

resources and achieve business goals efficiently. Benchmarking provides

important information to increase customer experience and reduce cost.

Customer Lifetime Value: To retain customers and enhance 'customer

lifetime value', organizations invest in the research and analysis of customer

behavior. It becomes important to study competition continuously to drive a

differentiation strategy for retaining customers.

Leveraging Best Practices: Studying competitive best practices brings

tactical efficiency. Benchmarking helps leverage best practices where a lot can

be learnt from the competition-the larger the peer group the better the scope

and examples.

Being Globally Competitive: Benchmarking helps understand how similar

companies compete and differentiate themselves in a particular market space if

the right peer group is chosen.

Benefits of Benchmarking

Peer Group Profiling: Peer groups are better defined by industry (e.g.

comparing a bank with another bank) but sometimes organizations may select a

different cut especially if it is to look at the efficiency of a particular

process. Selecting the right peer group is important and comparisons help reduce

barriers to change.

Helps Reach Global Standards: In order that organizations in India

become globally competitive, benchmarking can be an important input in studying

aspirational standards and defining a plan and strategy to achieve the same.

Business and Operational Leverage: Benchmarking is not about

reinventing the wheel–it is a surefire way to learn the way globally

competitive organizations operate in one’s industry space and learn about

global best practices so that mistakes are not repeated. A benchmarking

exercise, followed by regular performance improvement programs and special

initiatives can help organizations see rapid improvements.

Methodology and Use of Data: Benchmarking provides for

best-in-class comparison; helps identify areas of improvement, adaptation and

change; validates business models; clearly identifies opportunities for cost

reduction, and helps understand performance gaps in financial terms.

Benchmarking takes time, effort and dedication and its real results are

apparent over a period of two or more years.

However, the study itself is short and sharp and best conducted in about 1-2

weeks. It needs a multifunctional team to answer the questionnaire and can be

politically sensitive for any organization since it means honestly sharing key

performance data. It also needs strong facilitation skills, both to complete the

exercise and to interpret the results and maximize its intrinsic value.

EXPERTS PANEL Ranganath Iyengar and Ranbir Sarkar, co-founders, Think Harbor