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BPO and Contact Centre

BPO and Contact Centers brought in huge employment opportunities for graduates in India. It employs over million people today and is growing phenomenally every year. Apart from handsome pay packages and incentives, it offers faster career progression. Believe it or not, time taken to get into managerial role in a BPO/Contact Center environment is much less than that in IT industry.

Basic qualifications you need to have are Graduate Degree in any discipline, good attitude, excellent communication, listening skills and of-course learning agility.




Our Role

Although there are 100s of companies offering employment in the sector, your success depends on finding the right one that will offer a rewarding and fulfilling career rather than a mere job. Our strength is that we know great companies who offer best learning and exciting career development opportunities. We will work with you to understand your career aspirations and aptitude and will recommend the best companies that will fulfill your dreams.

If you are a fresh graduate out of the college, we may need to undergo training in soft skills that include voice neutralization and accent training. This helps to develop an accent that is familiar to the people you are going to interact with. For most of the candidates from India, this is a smooth and natural transition as most of us know more than one language.

If you are experienced, we will find a suitable position according to your experience and career aspiration and it will be absolutely no cost to you.

Pls register to pursue a challenging career in this sector. One of our consultants will contact you as soon as we find a suitable position for you.

Register / Post your Resume






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BPO / Contact Centre / Call Centre – Knowledge bites



• What does BPO stand for? What does it mean?

• What is a Contact Centre/Call Centre?

• What is a typical Contact Center like?


• What does ITES stand for? What does it mean?


• Specific Skills required in the ITES Sector: A segment-wise break-up

• Application of Contact Centers in the business world

• How does a Contact Center function?

• What are the key responsibilities of outbound Contact Center personnel?


• What are the key responsibilities of inbound Contact Center personnel?

• Different types of Contact Centers and their uses

• Specific skills and attitudes required for employment in Contact Centers

• Career prospects and velocity of growth

• Monetary benefits and other perquisites

• Current salaries in the ITES/BPO/Contact Center world in India

• Travel opportunities

• Training and recruitment

What does BPO stand for? What does it mean?

BPO stands for Business Process Outsourcing. Major corporations in the US and Europe are outsourcing their back office operations to India to save costs. E.g., employee payroll is maintained in India for their employees worldwide. All customer interaction services including call centers are also part of BPO. This involves voice (telephone) and non-voice (email, chat) based customer interaction services, transaction processing, telemarketing, technical support or analyzing of customer specific data. It also involves back office jobs such as claims processing, payroll processing, credit card processing etc. Back office operations manage an entire activity or function on a turnkey basis for their clients. This enabled corporations to focus primarily or exclusively on their core business functions.

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Types of Back Office Services


Today, back office services cover the following:

Administration

Tax processing
Claims processing
Asset management
Transcription and translation
Document management
Other administration
Finance

Billing services
Accounting transactions
General accounting
Tax consulting and compliance
Risk Management
Financial reporting
Financial analysis
Financial management
Other finance services

HR (Human Resources)

Benefits administration
Education and training
Recruiting and staffing
Payroll services
Hiring administration
Records management
Other HR services
Payment services
Credit/debit card services
Check processing
EDI

What is a Contact Centre / Call Centre?

A Contact Centre / Call Center is a central place where customer and other telephone calls are handled. Typically, a Contact Center has the ability to handle a considerable volume of calls at the same time, to screen calls and forward those to someone qualified to handle them. Call centers have evolved tremendously from being just a medium of voice based customer support into integrated contact centers, which are capable of handling customer queries over the phone, or over internet (eg. chat, connecting to customer equipments remotely).

The definition of a Contact Center is changing in this world of e-business but the core fundamentals of a making a call (via phone, e-mail, website, or fax) to a centre will remain un-changed.

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What is a typical Contact Center like?

A Contact Center is a place with state-of-the-art telecom and online infrastructure that helps provide customers complete information and support on a set of products/services. Contact Centers are here to stay in business simply because they are the most efficient and economical way to handle customer queries and grievances.

A typical Contact Center would feature Contact Center Agents, Customer Relation Executives and Customer Service executives. These are individuals fluent in English with a distinct American / British accent. They help promote the company's products and services, help customers use them effectively, handle complaints promptly and get valuable feedbacks.

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What does ITES stand for? What does it mean?

ITES stands for Information Technology (IT) Enabled Services. IT-enabled outsourcing can be defined as,
• These outsourcing services that use information processing and delivery of the service.
• IT Enabled services are functions and services provided from a country different from the one where the end products are delivered through a telecom network or other electronic media.

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Specific Skills required in the ITES Sector: A segment wise break-up

Segment

Skills

Call centre

Good communication and language skills, accent understanding team leadership, basic computing skills and

Remote customer interaction

Language and accent understanding

Date search, Integration

Computing, language and analytical skills

Human Resource Services

Country specific HR policies, rules and regulations

Remote education

Subject knowledge, computing and language skills

Engineering and design

Technical and engineering design and computing skills

Translation, medical transcription and
Localization

Language understanding, basic computing (word processing knowledge) and understanding of various medical terminologies

Animation

Drawing and creative skills, computer graphic skills

Finance and accounting

International/ country specific accounting rules

Market Research

Statistical, sales and marketing concept understanding

Network Consultancy and Management

Understanding of different network configurations and support equipment, technical/computing skills


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Application of Contact Centers in the business world

Typically, a customer calls a number, which is toll free and is assisted by the consultant. The operator can access the database and gives the response. This is a very useful feature in airline reservations, hotel reservations, banking services, technology solutions, etc. The areas, which are addressed by contact/call centers, include sales support, airline/hotel reservations, technical queries, bank accounts, client services, receivables, telemarketing, market research, etc.

As companies have learned that service is the key to attracting and maintaining customers (and hence, revenue), the common perception of the Contact Center has changed. In some industries (catalogue retailing, financial services, hospitality) a Contact Center is the difference between being in business and not being in business. In other industries (cable television, utilities) call centers have been the centerpiece of corporate attempts to quickly overhaul service and improve their image. It is a strategic asset that companies can use to improve their customer relationships, and more importantly, to learn more about their customers. Call centers have evolved from cost centers to profit centers.

• Spectrum of IT Enabled Services
• Customer interaction services including Call/contact centers
• Medical Transcription
• Back Office Transactions, including payroll and Revenue accounting, data entry/data conversion (including finance and accounting)/HR Services
• Insurance claims processing
• Legal databases
• Content Development/animation Engineering and design/GIS
• Logistics Management

It's a good working hypothesis to assume that any company that sells any product has a call centre, or will shortly have one, because it is the most effective way to reach (and be reached by) customers.

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How does a Contact Center function?

A typical Contact Center functions as follows - A caller uses a toll free number that is connected to a customer support centre. When the call reaches the call centre, a trained consultant with access to a wide database of information, answers the call. The dedicated telecommunication links connect a remote Contact Center to the parent organization through voice and online database access. Therefore, a caller maybe calling a local number in USA, but the call maybe answered in India without any time delay and the caller is oblivious of where the call is being answered. These services are very popular in countries such as USA, Europe, Japan and Australia.

Call centers can be of different types. A regional Contact Center implies that a centre in America to handle America, Europe to handle Europe and a centre in South East Asia and Australia to handle Asia. This enables some economies of scale but duplication of efforts can minimize operational efficiency. The other option is to have a global Contact Center where all calls across the globe are handled. This results in tremendous economies of scale, which is cost effective.

An inbound centre is one that handles calls coming in from outside, most often through toll free numbers. These calls are primarily service and support calls, and inbound sales.

An outbound centre is one that does mainly outgoing telemarketing.

Inbound is the biggest component of Contact Center traffic these days, though perversely, outbound represents the area of largest projected growth in the next few years. In truth, the majority of centers contain some element of both inbound and outbound.

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What are key responsibilities of outbound Contact Center personnel?

Make outgoing calls to follow up on overdue account holders worldwide, offer solutions.
Update the relevant information in the database.
Adhere to the highest standards of quality and compliance.
Be customer friendly and extremely courteous.

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What are key responsibilities of inbound Contact Center personnel?

Handle inbound calls relating to customer queries on a product or service.
Update databases.
Adhere to the highest standards of quality and compliance.

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Different types of call/contact centers and their uses

Contact centers have become catalysts for transformation, freeing up businesses to focus or core activities. A Contact Center can be any of the following:
A telemarketing centre
A tele-servicing centre
A help desk, both internal and external
An outsourced centre (also known as a service bureau) that uses its large capacity to serve multiple companies
A reservation centre for airlines or hotels
A catalogue trainer
An e-tailing centre
An e-commerce transaction centre that handles automated customer interactions
A fundraising and collection organization

The Contact Center is traditionally defined as a physical location where calls are placed or received, in high volume for the purpose of:

Sales
Marketing
Telemarketing
Customer service
Technical support
Specialized business activity

While early descriptions of contact centers called them places of doing business by phone that combined a centralized database with an automatic call distribution (ACD) system. today, these centers have evolved to become sophisticated business enterprises providing integrated services that are essential to the success of corporations they serve. A Contact Center can now range in size from a micro centre with 5-10 seats to a huge setup with thousands of seats.

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Specific skills and attitudes required for employment in call/contact centers

An excellent command in English is the basic requirement. Being a graduate is the other, although most call centers will recruit under-graduates if they have good English language skills. As call centers operate round the clock, one has to be ready to work night shifts. The major emphasis is on being able to handle interpersonal communications with a high degree of confidence. This is because a Contact Center operator continuously interacts with customers, must listen to and deal with complaints and queries, and must be able to function effectively as the “voice of the company”.

• Sales
• Fluency in written and spoken English
• PC Skills
• Ability to work in teams
• Listening skills
• Analytical skills
• Customer focus
• Be a graduate (competent under graduates are employed by most Contact Center companies)
• Agents must serve well-informed and diverse customers; adjust to changes in products, service and technologies; operate in a time-sensitive, multimedia environment; communicate with customers quickly and accurately; and understand Web-and IVR (interactive voice response) based applications.

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Career prospects and velocity of growth

The typical career path for an agent handling calls would be to move into the acting team leader and then manage his/her own team of 10/12 people in the capacity of a team leader. Team leaders, in time, start to manage multiple teams and grow to become assistant managers and then, managers. The surprise is that the time taken for growth to a managerial level is much faster than even in the IT industry. An entry-level agent can progress to a full team leader in two years or less with a quantum jump in emoluments.

There are a number of other career paths in the industry. Many customer service executives move into the role of trainers. People handling call gain a significant amount of product and process knowledge. As a trainer, the role is that of imparting process and product knowledge to new trainees. Other roles include managing the command centre, joining project teams, recruiting, etc.

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Monetary benefits and other perquisites

The average, entry level, salary for a customer service executive is approximately Rs. 8,000 per month. This increases to Rs. 10-12,000 per month, within a year. Additionally, there are many performance linked incentive plans. The ITES industry is where IT service was ten years ago. Talented people with a strong will to succeed ca make the best of this opportunity and emerge winners.

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Current salaries in the ITES/BPO/call-Contact Center world in India

Customer Care Representatives [CSRs]: Rs. 8,000 – Rs. 15,000 per month
Team Leaders: Rs. 17,000 – Rs. 26,000 per month
Managers: Rs. 3 lacs - Rs. 5.5 lacs per annum
Training Heads: Rs. 8 lacs – Rs. 12 lacs per annum
Training managers: Rs. 5 lacs – Rs. 8 lacs per annum
Trainers: Rs. 2 lacs – Rs. 5 lacs per annum
Specialized ITES professionals who possess MBA, BE, B.Tech., C.A., and other expert qualification or experience may be paid higher salaries depending upon the expertise required for the desired work profile and their level of experience.

Besides salaries, ITES professionals are also paid liberal incentives depending upon regularity, achievement of targets, and length of service and nature of work, which can even exceed their salaries at times.
Other perquisites include pickup facilities, subsidized/free western and Indian snacks and meals and a five-day week as a matter of course. Most contact centers also provide other lifestyle perquisites ranging from Hawaiian nights, weekly in-house dance sessions and free discotheque passes to ATM facility and further education classes within the office complex.

Many of these ITES companies provide various facilities to it’s agents within its campus. These include Bank ATM services and concierge desk that takes care of telephone bills. Film ticket booking, sending greetings and flowers to all its employees. In addition to all this, some of them are offering MBA and engineering courses as an option for its employees by partnering with premium institutes!

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Travel opportunities

At times, the staff might require extensive training. Such training may happen at client locations in the US/ UK for a period of about 4-8 weeks. This provides the staff an opportunity to visit client locations and learn about the culture first-hand.

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Training and recruitment

Training forms an important part of one’s career development. ITES companies generally provide employees with extensive Accent Neutralization training, American/ British culture training, Customer Delight, Team Building and Time Management training. The training costs for an employee in a Contact Center are quite prohibitive, ranging from anywhere between Rs. 25,000 to as high as Rs. 50,000 running from 2 to 5 months. The fact that such training is provided at the start of a career means that a person will consequently find it easier to achieve professional excellence and increase the probability of a successful career.



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Information Technology


'IMMEDIATE Hiring SAP professionals for an MNC' Send resume to hr@prudentialtech.com NOW!'

We are hiring in the following IT areas for our reputed clients:-

Specialist or Architects

 

        Project Managers

 

Java Architect

.Net Architect

              Integration (B2B/A2A) Architect

E-Commerce Specialist

        Sibel CRM Specialist

Oracle Data Architect

        SQL Server Data Architect

Data warehouse

        Data Mining

Oracle financial Specialist            

        People soft Specialist

SAP Specialist

 Developer or Programmer or
Programmer Analyst

 

        Java Developer

Net Developer

J2EE Developer

WebSpehere                                  

Weblogic

ASP Developer

SQL Server Developer

Oracle Developer

        VB Developer

VC++ Developer

        C++ Developer

C Developer

        Mainframe Developer

Middleware Developer ( MQ)

        EAI Developer

C# Developer

Administartors

 

        Database Administrator

Linux Administrator

        Software Administrator

Unix Administrator

        Web Administrator

Windows Administrator

Testing/Quality Professionals 

 

        Functional Tester

Regression Tester

        Performance Tester

WinRunner and  LoadRunner experts

Specialist or Architects

 

        Project Managers

 

Java Architect

.Net Architect

Integration (B2B/A2A) Architect

E-Commerce Specialist

        Sibel CRM Specialist

Oracle Data Architect

        SQL Server Data Architect

Data warehouse

        Data Mining

Oracle financial Specialist            

        People soft Specialist

SAP Specialist

 Developer or Programmer or
Programmer Analyst

 

        Java Developer

Net Developer

J2EE Developer

WebSpehere                                  

Weblogic

ASP Developer

SQL Server Developer

Oracle Developer

        VB Developer

VC++ Developer

        C++ Developer

C Developer

        Mainframe Developer

Middleware Developer ( MQ)

        EAI Developer

C# Developer

Administartors

 

        Database Administrator

Linux Administrator

        Software Administrator

Unix Administrator

        Web Administrator

Windows Administrator

Testing/Quality Professionals 

 

        Functional Tester

Regression Tester

        Performance Tester

WinRunner and  LoadRunner experts

If you are actively looking for a change in IT career, please post your resume. Our consultant will get back to you once we find a suitable position.

Register/Post your Resume


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We are looking for 1000s of contact center / Call Center professionals for various MNCs and reputed Indian companies.

If you are interested or if you know someone who can be best fit for this job, pls refer them to us. You will be rewarded for it.

We will pay you upto Rs1000/- for each successful* candidate referred by you**
( Rs.200 for junior levels Rs.500 for lead levels Rs.1000 for Senior Management positions)

*Reference is successful if your candidate is appointed through us to a firm and the person is working for the company at least one month.

** Conditions Apply.

This is how you should participate.
1. Discuss with your friend on his willingness and fitness to the job

2. Send his/her resume to hr@prudentialtech.com
Subject: Referral: your name candidate name contact number


3. or call us at 9900744811/08025504087/08025504062
Provide your name and contact details to register to the referral program.

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