Answering Service Challenged by Help Desk!

The answering service of call center units has an unlikely adversary in its own backyard! Yes, help desk services has thrown its hat into the ring and is gearing up for a tough challenge to beat phone answering service as the main revenue earner for the BPO unit. That’s the trend that is coming to light in the recent past. The trend is stronger for the rural BPO services where the local agents are not conversant with the English language and therefore unsuitable for the inbound call center work. However, they are more than making up for it through their help desk work. Help desk work comprises of call center services like billing and product information and web marketing services.

At a skeletal level, the non-voice part of the call center is coming up strongly to make their presence felt. Even for something like lead generation, BPO agents are not relying on voice calls anymore. They are making better use of emails and websites to drive up the sales lead generation efforts. The aim is to ensure that the BPO service puts forward a multi-prong attack to get what they want: consumers or users or subscribers. Answering service stands threatened as the primary revenue earner for the call centers. Though help desk services still have a long way to go, the start has already been made.

Telemarketing Defines Life!

The working hours in the telemarketing sector have redefined the life led by the call center agents. The awkward shifts of work have put them in a situation where they have no choice but to adjust to the ways of the call centers. But they have not made a bad job of it. They have adapted to the BPO way of life in their own way. The body clock may have gone for a toss! The health hazards may have increased. But a good day at the telemarketing services desk is all it takes to put them firmly back in place. The call center services agents have decided to take the not-so-comfortable timings in their stride as some demand of their professional life.

















It’s not just at the individual level that the BPO firms have changed perceptions. In various developing countries, the concept of working nights was very foreign and alien. The coming of call centers has changed that. The people and the society at large are more comfortable with the graveyard shifts of the telemarketing services than they were a couple of years back. This means a lot to the telemarketing sector employees who had to face quite some resistance at home and in the social fabric. And it’s also changed the way you hang out with friends who are not part of the business process outsourcing industry. You cannot be with your friends during the day (sleeping) or night (working)!

Slack after Spike in Telemarketing Growth

The surveys conducted on the growth of the telemarketing unit have indicated signs of a slack after a sharp spike in the first quarter of 2010. The total worth of the BPO market fell from being $2.8 billion in March to only $1.5 billion in June. The reason why there is a decline is that the number of call center deals sealed in the March quarter was higher than in the next one. The value of the deals clinched in the June quarter was less because the business firms depended more on offshore outsourcing to destinations like Africa and Latin America where the call center services do not cost as much. The end of the recession immediately prompted the companies to offshore their telemarketing services of these destinations.

A clearer picture about the telemarketing industry will emerge in the present quarter. Will this quarter stabilize the call center growth and take it forward? Or will it signal the start of a dip in call center services? The answers can be available only when the quarter comes to a close. The insiders of the industry feel that the graph will shoot up because of increased expansions of call centers and telemarketing services. The industry is also looking forward to some deals being inked after the lackluster period between March and June. India continues to be at the forefront of this change, with a market share of 60-65%.

Global BPO Contracts Rise, Price Falls

The number of contracts between business firms and BPO units shot up by 12% in the recent months, more specifically in the last quarter of April to June. However, the money that changed hands in the process because of the call center dealings was only $3.03 billion. That’s 22% less than what it was in the quarter prior to that. The reason that business process outsourcing insiders give is that because of offshore BPO service, the amount of money is not high enough. Companies have extensively used call centers in the developing countries to get their work done. As a result, they had the benefit of cost cuts. This is why the call center services didn’t see much of money being generated in the industry.

The BPO trends that can be seen here is indicative of the future as well. It’s common knowledge that the call center units working out of offshore destinations will continue to bag the telemarketing projects. The advantage of cost is not something that is forfeited easily. Moreover, sensing the amount of money in the BPO service sector, the call centers in these countries are improving their telemarketing services quality. This is making the task even more difficult for the domestic business process outsourcing units. And true to expectations, they are sitting idle with the major chunk of the projects making their way out of the country.

Latin America Beckons BPO

Latin America as a call center destination is in the spotlight now. Many top notch BPO firms from countries like USA and UK are now looking for destinations in Latin America to house their call centers. The advantages of being in this region are plenty, not to mention the big one of being the first movers. The region has promising prospects in terms of infrastructure, manpower and availability of space to set up BPO hubs. The biggest draw seems to be the fact that people in these regions are more in tune with the lifestyle of the consumers living in USA and UK and generally over Europe. This makes them better suited for telemarketing services as opposed to what people thought initially.

Telemarketing, like any other form of marketing, requires some sort of understanding about the customer and his/her needs. When the call center agents have an understanding of the lifestyle led by the consumers, they can present their case in a better way. It also helps the outbound call center agents to recognize the dormant requirements in the consumers and make sales pitches accordingly. In a way, it makes the job easier for the call centers that take up the task of doing their BPO work from Latin America. As the industry of BPO service grows in these parts, the bigger players of the sector would definitely show an interest. But as I wrote, the first movers’ advantage would be crucial in the long run.

Telemarketing Laws Amended for User’s Benefit

The Federal Trade Commission has amended the telemarketing laws in USA. According to the new laws, a call center offering debt recovery facilities and debt consolidation services cannot charge from people unless they actually provide the services. The FTC amended the telemarketing services law in a sort of knee-jerk reaction after several call centers were found to be duping the citizens in fraudulent call center services. They were getting the users to pay up to initiate services and then disappeared off the face of earth. The FTC feels that such practices burn a deeper hole in the already burnt pockets of the debt-ridden. The law applies for all firms that are registered as ‘for profit’ organizations.

The rules are a little relaxed for the non-profit ones. However, the FTC has put in stringent rules for call center units to pass off as non-profits. There are some call centers out there that are not registered as non-profits. Yet, when they are into telemarketing, they promote themselves as non-profits to bypass the rules of telemarketing services that they will be otherwise subjected to. Though the rules will not be a problem for the bona fide call center units, the ones up to some mischief will be in some sort of a bother. The law also forbidding BPO units from charging any fees for services that they have not provided comes into effect from October 27.

Telemarketing Sector Proliferates

The telemarketing sector in India is showing the inevitable signs of growth. The top 10 call center companies in the country have grown by 15% in their combined earnings in this fiscal year. The amount of money that they were making in the BPO business touched $6.1 billion. If you consider the rest of the companies in the fray, the growth in the telemarketing services is definitely something of substance. That the BPO service unit in India was growing at this break-neck speed was mentioned in the report published by the International Labor Organization (ILO). However, the ILO also wrote that the answering service industry was growing at a faster rate, almost double, in the Philippines.

The Indian BPO scene has always been the yardstick to measure growth in the call center industry. If the Indian telemarketing scene has a good percentage of growth, it’s no wonder that the telemarketing services sector as a whole looks promising. The inverse is true as well. With continued threats that rock the call centers in India, leading them to keep contingency plans always at hand, the growth of 15% is nothing short of phenomenal. Other reports have already proved that the Indian business process outsourcing industry is already larger than the IT sector.