Call Centers: A Streamline of Opportunities
JOBS-ICT Private Limited (JIPL) organized a Call Center Seminar on the 14th of August, 2008 at the JIPL Office in Baridhara. The seminar titled “Call Centers: A Streamline of Opportunities” was aimed to create a stand to discuss the various issues of call center business in Bangladesh, starting from the planning process to the implementation stage.
Mr. Ali Kamal and Mr. Samuel Bretzfield were the key speakers for this event. Both gentleman have years of experience in the call center business in the US, Philippines, Pakistan and the Middle East.
Ali is a certified Project Management Trainer (PMP) from Pakistan. He has years of experience in managing call centers offshore, particularly in Dubai. He was in charge of the call center of Halliburton, one of the largest ventures in Dubai. He is also affiliated with Tech-Access in Pakistan, a predominant hardware/software support company for call centers.
Samuel brings with him over 10 years of experience in the call center and BPO industries. Starting out as an agent working he worked his way through the company as a trainer, manager and onto general manager. He successfully launched call centers in the US and the Philippines. Not only did he manage call centers, he knows what businesses look for when hiring an offshore outsource companies. Sam was responsible for selecting and deciding the criteria companies need to meet to attain call center business form the US. With this wide area of expertise Sam sees the call center industry as a wonderful opportunity for Bangladesh and is jointly training future Bangladeshi agents here at JIPL. His keen knowledge and insight into the outsourcing community is a priceless asset.
The seminar started off at 10:30 am with the introductory speech by Ms. Elli Takagaki, CEO of JOBS-ICT Private Limited and commented on the dire need of the solutions to the problems that the call center industries in Bangladesh have. The floor was then given to Mr. Ali Kamal who gave an overview of the call center industry and shared his valuable experiences during his venture in this industry. Starting from his own introduction and where he worked, he explained the concept of call centers and its traditional form to the new technologies that are used now in this industry. He talked about how to improve the environment of a call center so agents feel comfortable working there. Students are the main employees attracted to this part-time line of work. Mr. Kamal explained that it is necessary to invest in your workers. In order to keep workers satisfied and deter them from leaving the company, it is important to have flexible hours of work, good working environment and attractive incentives.
One of the few ideas he came across during his presentation was the “Buddy System”. It mainly focuses on call center agents who are students and attract their other friends to work with them. This, in turn helps create a friendly working environment with an added bonus that female agents and their families feel comfortable with the late night working system. The call center job is a 24-hour job. Agents have to work nights. From the perspective of Bangladesh, Pakistan and some other Asian countries, it is difficult for women to work at night, especially if the working environment is not positive. Thus female students find it difficult to have consent from their parents. The Buddy System helps improve this situation. This system was successful in Pakistan, Mr. Ali Kamal stated, and is one of the main reasons many University age female students continue to be dedicated employees to the call center industry. This is just one of many attention strategies that can be provided.
Mr. Kamal stressed the need of proper agent training, since it is the core area factor and the hidden tool behind the success of the business. He then categorized the implementation stage of a call center into five phases starting from the business analysis to the hardware and network applications.
Next was Samuel Bretzfield as the key presenter at the event. The presentation began with the discussion of his personal experience in this industry and then shifted to industry facts. He did a case study comparison between the Philippines and Bangladesh. From the facts of the Philippines he showed how the Bangladesh can equally be successful and competitive in the call center industry. “Philippines did it and so can we!” Sam explained the competitive edges Bangladesh has in the field. He stated that although English is the language that is widely used in Philippines, training is still essential for call center agents to develop their accents and then move on to the next step. Sam also stressed that it is widely necessary for owners and agents of call centers to understand all the key terms of this industry.
He said that Bangladesh has ample opportunities in this market in spite of being a new player. He encouraged the participants to define a solid business strategy and start off with a world class set up if capital investment is available. The “if you build it they will come theory.” If the capital is not available he advises to instead prove their quality of work.
Once the call centers start proving their worth, clients will see the hard work and automatically be reliable and attracted to this area. “Hard work always pays off” Sam explained that investing on recruitment and training is the core criteria to achieve success in this industry. Human resource is the utmost priority in this line of business.
Many of the call center licensees only have a short period of time to begin operation since they already have issued licenses from 3-4 months back. They are left with the dilemma on how to begin and what is the process. Some of them already have a set up, but lack either call center agents to run their operation or proper clients.
Key questions brought up by the participants in the Q & A session were:
• How to hire clients for call centers?
• What is the startup process?
• How do we get accounts, what comes first the chicken or the egg?
• How do we manage the call center agents?
• How do we access the hardware and software for the call center?
JIPL a consultancy and a recruitment agency has the skills, knowledge and resources to provide solutions to all of these problems.
August 21, 2008 at 5:15 pm
Now a days call center funda is very much common to the business world, the way out sourcing and hiring of employees are increasing……………….. so its very common, but the thing is how long it will run properly as now a days the big companies also started cost cutting. Any ways blog is so nice and its a good information for the whole working society.
August 24, 2008 at 12:14 pm
Hi,
I really appreciate your view on this matter. It is indeed a good thinking of yours but from what I feel, this industry is sustainable. Firstly, even though the big companies are going for a cost cutting strategy, serving their customers by the help of call centers is something that they are highly dependant on. And its not going to be wise to lose a customer as its hard to get a few more through additional marketing. Moreover, they can always outsource this to other companies, who are specialized and cheaper. In addition to that, from the perspective of Bangladesh where the wage rate is still lower comapred to those of other countries, call center business do seem to have a good platform and is a booming industry.
Thank you for your comment.
Talal
August 29, 2008 at 1:09 pm
It’s true thatv cost cutting plays a major role in outsourcing but companies have to choose a perfect BPO or a call center so that they can perform on their matrics.
Thanks
September 6, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Call center is indeed a booming industry and this is especially true here in the Philippines. A bulk of Filipino graduates would rather work for a call center instead of delving on a career that suits their training and experience primarily because of the pay they would get from working in a call center.