Do you call the shots?

Bharat Kumar

IF you had tonnes of money, would you overnight invest in a business that imported orchids from Brazil, processed them here and exported them to Australia? Maybe not immediately. You would want to know the demand for processed orchids in Australia, whether buyers would want orchids processed in India and whether you can add some value to a product before selling outside. If so many questions come in the sale of orchids, why aren't entrepreneurs -- who are jumping into the call centre bandwagon -- asking the right questions?

``We receive ten enquiries daily. All kinds of people come to us. And many have no idea what it takes to build a call centre business,'' laments N. Raghunandan, Managing Director, Servion Global, a Chennai-based company that provides technology solutions for companies setting up a call centre business.

Weird requests

``We want complete turnkey solutions'' ask people who have made money in real estate, flooring and even tiles. His point is that any one who has the money thinks that a 25-50 seat call centre will bring business automatically. For this, he approaches a technology provider and asks him to provide everything from scratch -- real estate to interior designs to infrastructure to people, for a fee. If technology providers had all that expertise, they would be in the call centre business instead of providing solutions.

``Please do a build, operate, transfer model for us'' or ``Access to funds is not a problem, we are a large diversified group'' or ``I am setting up a call centre court.'' According to Raghunandan, ``Just because you are a success in some other business, does not automatically make you eligible for a foray into the call centre business. Also, people with the idea of setting call centre courts modelled after ``Food Courts'' fail to see that in the latter, we get a variety of foods each of which does not compete with the other. But, if you have rented 50 seats to five different parties at 10 each, they end up competing against each other. So, why would anyone come here?''

The weirdest request to Raghunandan was this: ``Please accompany us for a presentation we are giving to our venture capitalists''. That looked like the last straw for Servion, which only provided technology capability to consumers. Raghunandan spent an hour or so last fortnight with the press to indicate what aspirants must look for before they foray into this business. And being a technology provider, he might have something valuable for such aspirants. Here goes:

Technology, a lesser cost

A DataMonitor report in 2000 says that telecom and technology costs at 17 per cent each do not form a chunk. The survey indicates that the primary costs come from telemarketing and sales (30 per cent) and customer care applications (32 per cent). According to Raghunandan, ``Those who think that the problem ends with outsourcing technology and the set up of the infrastructure are mistaken. That's when their role begins.''

Technology roadmap

Call centres typically begin with a single media call centre. In other words, the single medium is voice. Then they graduate to CTI call centres, multimedia call centres and integrated contact centres.

The business maze

There are several questions unanswered before an entrepreneur wishing to set up a call centre business. Should I focus on the domestic market or exports? Should I bet on cost arbitrate? Should I go for e-mail response capabilities or voice? What is the total investment outflow? What is the right size for the call centre, 10, 100 or 1,000? Should I set up the infrastructure first, or get business and then go for the former?

The technology maze

Entrepreneurs put themselves through an endless list of questions: do I need a PBX, if so what model? What is the bandwidth I need? How do I integrate to different databases, do I need in-house skills, how do I handle voice? Do I need text to speech? How do I integrate voice and data in the centre? What are the best technologies available? Who are the vendors? Are technologies future-proof? Will I get the right people? What about training them?

Demand potential

Raghunandan says, ``Before we get down to intensely considering each of the above questions, here is the potential we are tapping. There are over a million agents (employees at a call centre) in the US alone. There is a growing demand in other segments. For instance, for every drug in the pharma industry, there will have to be a hotline so that people can call in and ask for details. The demand is expected to grow to 4.5 million in the US and 9 million worldwide. But, in all, today's outlook for the next two years is not even 100,000 agents in India.''

A to-do list

Technology is not an issue. The latest and tested technologies are available for a fee. The Indian entrepreneur would do well to NOT use technology as a unique selling proposition. Rather, he would be better off telling clients how he can make a difference to their business and importantly, to their customers.

Every contact centre is a new business. It requires management focus, cannot be a side-business for any individual promoter who will have to have a sound business plan for funding.

Infrastructure comes first. No customer closes an order unless he sees the call centre infrastructure. This is an absolute truth.

There is no escape from dirtying hands and selling like the blazes! In other words, you need to go out, make your face known to clients. Some people try to clinch deals just with visiting cards -- no PowerPoint presentations, no photos of infrastructure. Not done. Be professional and be committed.

Focus on niche areas where rates are not the major deciding factor. Evaluate the cost of retaining a customer as compared to rates.

Productise your service. A well-thought out sales strategy and marketing collaterals are a must.

Sell the strengths of India as a location, the people and the service levels being prime. Do NOT justify indigenous technology versus Western technology.

Always attempt to contact customers directly. Never go to consultants as a first choice.

Build integrated call centres up front, instead of progressing in stages. Do not build end-user dependent interfaces. Business logic should be independent of user interface and data access.

Finally, there is no shortcut to experience and long-term brand building.

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