| Research |
28.03.2008
Are voice-based call center outsourcing contracts moving away from India? Part 3
By Softigator member Nick Jiwa
I want to reiterate that I’m not suggesting India’s call center industry will capitulate. Far from it. I’m simply shedding light on an industry trend that started a few years ago and all signs point to a continuing decline for the demand of voice services in India.
On the flip side, India’s non-voice back office services are experiencing dramatic growth and will continue to do so. It also appears that collections and receivables management along with level (3) technical support will more than likely continue to thrive in India. Voice customer care, telesales, and other types of customer interaction will continue on in India but I don’t believe this part of the industry will see dramatic growth. I’ve interviewed many US corporations, decision makers, outsourcers, colleagues and friends and the consensus is to maintain current volumes in India while seeking out alternative destinations, move business out of India altogether or consider India for only certain types of voice services...
More in the members' area at
http://www.softigator.com/callcenterbusinessnetworking/start.html
Nick Jiwa
CustomerServ, LTD
www.CustomerServLTD.com
Nick Jiwa is a Softigator member and can be contacted in the members' area. Register now!
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27.03.2008
Are voice-based call center outsourcing contracts moving away from India? Part 2
By Softigator member Nick Jiwa
Through my informal research I did get responses from several indignant Indian outsourcers that refused to accept this fact. I respect everyone’s opinion and I’m not suggesting that the industry will languish in India. India was primarily responsible for fueling the dramatic growth of the call center and BPO industry and no one can ever refute that. I am however stating a real-world fact, that India is becoming a less attractive option for companies that need to outsource voice services.
Recently we were involved in RFPs for several of the Fortune 500. The RFPs were for voice based customer care. In each case the client instructed us not to allow any India based call centers to bid. Furthermore, many of our existing clients have moved English language voice call center business away from Indian to the Philippines, South Africa, Mexico, Central America, re-deployed to home-shored sites and other offshore destinations. So why is this happening? Let’s focus on the reasons behind the issues facing voice based call center delivery in India:
More in the members' area at
http://www.softigator.com/callcenterbusinessnetworking/start.html
Nick Jiwa
CustomerServ, LTD
www.CustomerServLTD.com
Nick Jiwa is a Softigator member and can be contacted in the members' area. Register now!
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26.03.2008
Are voice-based call center outsourcing contracts moving away from India? Part 1
By Softigator member Nick Jiwa
Recently I asked a number of outsourcing industry veterans to provide a personal opinion on the longevity of voice call center services in India. I asked that everyone provide a “real world” assessment instead of referring to white papers and statistics from the myriad call center industry information services. The responses that I received were quite interesting and while some feel that certain types of voice call center services will continue to thrive in India, a great majority feels that voice is definitely declining in the largest and most prolific of all BPO outsourcing markets in the world.
More in the members' area at
http://www.softigator.com/callcenterbusinessnetworking/start.html
Nick Jiwa
CustomerServ, LTD
www.CustomerServLTD.com
Nick Jiwa is a Softigator member and can be contacted in the members' area. Register now!
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25.03.2008
Trends regarding pricing structures in the Call Center Outsourcing market
Two major trends have changed the pricing structures in the Call Center Outsourcing market significantly:
On the one hand more and more companies want to outsource whole end-to-end processes - often including back office activities and even non-Call Center related processes. Clients may even want to outsource whole customer service departments; sometimes via a sell-and-lease back model (full outsourcing often including people and technology) and sometimes they just decide to close their own department down and hire a bureau.
More in the members' area.
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17.03.2008
SOA and its impact on CRM and Call Centers
The CRM market has changed rapidly in the last few years. Back in the 90ies CRM vendors suggested to their clients the “All-in-one-box” approach and recommended to replace all IT systems containing customer data by one large integrated system. This failed, mainly due to the immense workload of centralizing all the information. Right after this hype with often millions of Pounds wasted, user companies stopped their interest almost completely and CRM condemned. In the last few years increasingly more companies go for a quite realistic approach...
More of "SOA and its impact on CRM and Call Centers" in the members' area at
http://www.softigator.com/callcenterbusinessnetworking/artikel/artikelid_223.html
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11.03.2008
How to select a Call Center Outsourcing provider
Some members have asked about decision criteria, how to select a call centre outsourcing company. Outsourcing call centre services can be seen as a wheel of steps which continues to turn over and over again. Whether your business is Finance, Mobile Phones & Telecoms, Utilities or any other industry. Only repetition and improvement will enable top performance in outsourcing.
Thus, one should never forget that outsourcing vendor selection can only be as good as your outsourcing model. For instance, you will not make a good decision if you are looking for "a telemarketing company" measuring their call durations because you pay them per call minute. And in reality you are looking for a partner to take over complete processes such as "order taking" or "appointment setting". In that particular case, you would be better off looking for a Business Process Outsourcing provider (BPO) and charging per process result. e.g. per order or per made appointment.
That said, let's talk about the selection criteria, once you have your outsourcing model in place and know who you need.
More in the members' area at
www.softigator.com/callcenterbusinessnetworking/artikel/artikelid_221.html
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05.03.2008
How to develop the contents of a Call Center Outsourcing Service Agreement
The Editor
There is obviously no general advice what exactly should or even must be ruled in each and every case. As I am not a legal expert, but a Call Centre specialist, my points listed below have the character of some advice how to set up the rough contents of a Call Center Outsourcing Service Agreement.
It must be emphasized that the contract itself must be developed by a lawyer. However, for a successful Call Centre Outsourcing agreement your legal department or lawyer will need the input of some Call Centre expert regarding what should be agreed upon at all.
There is obviously no general advice what exactly should or even must be ruled in each and every case. As I am not a legal expert, but a Call Centre specialist, my points listed below have the character of some advice how to set up the rough contents of a Call Center Outsourcing Service Agreement.
It must be emphasized that the contract itself must be developed by a lawyer. However, for a successful Call Centre Outsourcing agreement your legal department or lawyer will need the input of some Call Centre expert regarding what should be agreed upon at all.
With Call Centre performance and the need for managing the Call Center Outsourcing provider changing frequently its ways and intensity, it is useful to have two kind of regulations in place: an Outsourcing Service Agreement as the general framework) plus Service Level Agreements containing the terms & conditions for a specific project which change frequently - such as prices, volumes, Key Performance Indicators and business processes.
Call Centre Outsourcing should be managed ruling at least the following factors in one's bespoke way...
More in the members' area at
www.softigator.com/callcenterbusinessnetworking/artikel/artikelid_219.html
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01.03.2008
Call Center Outsourcing in the Health Care Market
Gunther Wendt from Walter Services SMC Healthcare and Peter Teich from PTC Consulting hat an interesting controversial “sparring” regarding the business opportunities for Call Centre Outsourcing providers in the Health Care industry.
With the UK being the current leader in Europe’s Health Care Outsourcing market, Wendt claims Germany soon to move from its current rank three to the top. Being the largest Health market in Europe, the Health Outsourcing market in Germany yet needs to mature a bit compared to the UK, Wendt reports.
Outsourcing options at the moment include e.g. Interim Management for various Marketing functions and Call Centre Management plus external Field Sales Force for the Sales departments. Wendt claims that structures in the pharmaceutical industry are currently not focused sufficiently on the high expectations of patients and customers – much higher ones than in other, more B2B related industries.
More in the Softigator members’ area at
www.softigator.com/callcenterbusinessnetworking/start.html
If you have questions or comments to this article, get in touch at service@softigator.net.
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