Share what you know with millions of people
Focus is the best place to turn what you know into remarkable content
0
What are you thoughts on Indian call centers for inside sales?
We're looking to outsource our call center efforts specifically to some Indian telemarketing firms. What are your thoughts on call centers based out of India? Are they a worthwhile investment?
Events
- Dos and Don'ts of Small Business Marketing May 29 @ 11 am PT
- Lead Nurturing 202: The Next Generation May 31 @ 11 am PT
- The Tricks to Paid Media June 6 @ 11 am PT
- Display Advertising for Brand Awareness June 20 @ 11 am PT
Related Activity
6 Answers
You can find a great directory of domestic (USA/Canada) Call Centers for you to consider outsourcing your telemarketing calls to at http://www.atsi.org/assnfe/companydirectory.asp?SEARCH_TYPE=7&SnID=458599223.
But before you consider sending your Call Center work overseas - just ask your friends & neighbors about their Call Center experiences.
I’m sure that some of your friends will tell you that they’ve occasionally had the experience of dealing with a Call Center Agent based in the USA who was clearly a poor fit for the job - and who delivered a poor caller experience.
But when it comes to describing their experiences dealing with a company that has shipped their Call Center work overseas - the vast majority of your friends & neighbors will tell you that they generally have a hard time understanding – or being understood by the Agent – and that their call is typically being handled by a ‘script reader’.
The Call Center Agent is your ambassador to your customers. The human voice of the Agent provides your company’s human face. If your prospect cannot understand the Agent due to accent issues or communicative style - the problems are compounded. Your prospect can become agitated and the company may wind up losing a sale. In the present economic environment, just hearing a foreign accent could trip that trigger. Losing dollars chasing dimes is not a wise long-term Telemarketing Strategy.
Companies are also re-examining the impact of sending their Call Center jobs overseas on their corporate reputation. Corporate Social Responsibility is considered an important factor in business success today. Companies are thinking twice about employing workers in countries with poor human rights records - or lax labor standards such as India.
Ask your friends what they think about the exploitation of Labor. Call Center workers in India experience abuse & exploitation to a degree and on a scale that would be viewed as criminal in some instances by North American Courts of Law. For example; Indian Call Center Agents are treated as 21st Century ‘cyber-coolies’. They work graveyard shifts - under high pressure – in work environments where liberal attitudes to sex and club drugs are encouraged and thriving. Colluding employers have set up “Blacklist” data bases - containing the details of their Call Center employees - so that “negative insider elements” can be detected at the recruitment stage. Workers in their hundreds are fired without so much as one cent in severance pay.
Overwhelmingly your friends & neighbors will tell you that when they are contacted by telephone – they want to speak with a Call Center Agent from their region - who is typically better able to serve and communicate with them. Probe a little deeper – and they’ll also tell you that they’re opposed to shipping Call Center jobs overseas – and particularly to countries with poor human rights records - or lax labor standards such as India.
From the Jan. 2010 Issue of Site Selection: “Offshoring calls to India works in very limited situations. Interaction with clients and understanding the culture & environment of clients doesn’t work very well at all. The direction of the industry is to bring these customer facing jobs back to the USA.”
The latest Labor Market Outlook from the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development in the UK: “UK companies are bringing back call centre operations to the UK from India. Most of the companies that we deal with are looking to keep call centre staff in the UK wherever possible because there is a significant increase in the level of service and customer satisfaction provided."
Top performing Call Centers drive their Revenue & Performance through superior hiring tactics. We help employers gain better insight & more accurate predictions as to which applicants from a pool of Candidates would perform up to, or beyond their established standards. You can find out about a Free Trial of SPAS Call Center Agent Pre-Employment Screening Software at http://www.telesoftsystems.ca/64201.html
I have just contracted one.... I will post the results in a couple of weeks...
I work in this business and have an idea. For a North American company this makes tremendous sense if they understand and draft the process well in the planning stages and maintain a close command, control & review mechanism during implementation and while running. It is not something that happens on its own and needs a clear management buy in and commitment to successfully see the process through. For inside sales the key benefit that is derived is better and more effective cold calling and better management of the sales meeting effort. The job of knocking on the doors is essentially being outsourced to a low cost location in a different time zone and the front end sales guy can focus on just making his meetings with some amount of interest by the prospect already in place.
Steve,
Approach with caution. The decision to outsource inside sales is a strategic one and should be treated as such regardless of the location of the outsourcer. This decision also hinges on how your organization defines inside sales. For some organizations this means lead nurturing/generation for others it means complete ownership of the sales relationship with a particular customer segment. Are you contemplating any integration between inside sales and your organization's field sales and/or channel sales organizations?
From experience, I would first recommend a very thorough understanding of these issues within your organization so that the outsourcer can be properly aligned/managed. Depending on the nature of your sales process, marketplace, competitors, value of product or service, I would also recommend a co-source model as an interim step to a fully outsourced solution. This model would see an outsource provider set-up operations in one of your domestic locations, sharing those facilities with key inhouse resources. The outsourcer would be responsible for human resources, performance management and sales operations while your organization would play the role of strategist.
It is critical to the success of an outsourced inside sales force that they are percieved by customers as a seemless extension of your organization. The co-sourced model allows your organization to reap some cost optimization benefits while ensuring that the outsource provider is appropriately understanding your organization, customers, competitors, and marketplace. I would suggest that it is impractical for an outsourcer to achieve these mandates from a location which will be approximately 9.5 hours our of the local time zone.
Cheers,
William
Dear Mr Mayfield
There has been lot of concerns on outsourcing your sales process. Whether the vendor will understand the needs properly,whether they have the proper backup and support,whether they will reach the aggressive targets. Let me tell put across a fact that we are a outsourcing firm based out of India. And believe me your concerns are something that we face with all our client's across the globe especially when it come to outsourcing there inbound and backoffice process. But you need to start the talks with the vendor at some point of time and believe me it might take a month to stabilize and complete fit into your system for any vendor. This is because there are lot of factors involved in it. Vendor who understand the demography, target market, your organisation, your product and the country will be able to achieve and fulfill your needs very early.
So please start your talk with the vendor whom ever you want to go with.
We would be more than willing to respond to your queries. You are also welcome to chat with us to broaden the ambit of understanding your specific requirements and giving it a proper shape.
Note: If you want to know more about us, feel free to contact us.
Regards
Rajiv Singh
CTO and Business Analyst
HandPhone: +91-9558515759
Email Id: rajiv.singh@smartoutsourcing.co.in
Website: www.smartoutsourcing.co.in
Hi Steve,
I wouldn't want to scream about our Organization. I'm not sure whether the offer is still open. I know I'm pretty late in even discussion this because I'm 40 days late form the day you've asked whether its good to utilize Indian Contact Center's towards your inside sales. We'll do what the Japanese or the Chinese do. To know your employee you need to even get to his family members to know how they are and they go an extra mile and support them as well then he will will work the way you want and give an extra 1000% on what he does.
We'll feel free to contact me to know about Quantum Business Management Pvt Ltd.
www.qbadvisory.co.uk and www.qbm.in
Vincent Cooper
Quantum Group
Answer This Question