Tips for Reducing The Cost in Call Centers

It is a continuous thought priority to all call centers to know how they can save money in their contact centers and throughout their operations.

Few tips which is step by step to go for the cost reducing

Make a Team: Make a team which will do the review. Because call centers efforts are heading for at customer service, process improvement and potential cost reduction, form a team that can bring different disciplines to the process. Also include general training and quality training, human resources, center scheduling, telecom traffic, IT, marketing, and returns and replacement if all of these areas are within responsibilities.

Take the opinions and input of all of team members. Challenge them to assess how things could be done differently, and make them answer the question, “How can costs are reduced without lowering the standard of customer service?” These meeting we can keep in the starting of the year to set up the target.

Marks the Achievements: By marking your achievement, it will be indicator to know the performance measures up against set standards and plans. The major achievements include contacts per hour; service level; abandon rate; attrition/turnover rate; call-handle time; talk time; after-call work time; contact-to-order ratio; transaction volumes for Internet, phone and mail; non-phone volumes and others.

Review: Labor’s cost, quality and availability is becoming an issue for many call centers, particularly in seasonal businesses where the selling curve is more compressed. Review advertising media costs and results, and exchange information with other human resource departments. Review pre-hiring testing, employee selection criteria and practices. By review process we can know the possible improvements and cost reductions for the process. It will help us to know more about a place for temporary agencies rather than relying completely on in-house hiring.

Revenue Generation: As part of their mission, many contact centers are charged with becoming revenue centers in addition to taking orders and providing customer service. By revenue generation reports we can show about success with cross-selling, up-selling, outbound selling and increasing the company’s average orders. It will be really help full for the cost saving in call centers.

ERP gets easier for SMB

Good news for the small medium business (SMB) for which you must be waiting from long time. Now the ERP gets easier for the SMB. A few years back the Enterprise resource planning (ERP) was a self-important expression with expensive software to match. ERP is helpful for the managers to do their responsibilities more efficiently, boost sales and reduce costs. ERP is business management system that gives a support to the mangers of the companies to command of data and workflows to get the clear report of each factors of the business.

The essential part of the business like planning, manufacturing, sales and marketing are also cover with ERP. It also covers activities like inventory control, order tracking, customer service, finance and human resources. For example, ERP software can automatically indicate to the managers when it notices that stocks have gone down in a sales depot. Dealing with the suppliers is sometimes very difficult for the managers but with ERP it will be easier for a company manager to deal with suppliers.

ERP software is now available in much cheaper rate for small business also because now a day’s number of computer users is increasing day by day. A large group of people are using various kind of software to manage all the official details. ERP software, once a privilege for the global multinational, is available on much cheaper rates.

SaaS (Software as a Service) – It is refer to renting of software over the Internet, much like Web based e-mail. SaaS is also contributing to software becoming cheaper and easier to use. Industry officials say the emergence of SaaS and cheaper ERP software has dramatically lowered the barrier for users. Top ERP solution providers are now targeting just about every company, size no bar Consider the case of SAP, the global leader in ERP software, which once was associated largely with multinational giants.

On November 21, 2007 SAP India announced record-breaking quarterly growth for the third quarter of 2007 with the addition of more than 714 new customers till September 2007, translating to more than two new customers per work day in 2007. "A growing SMB (small and medium business) market, opportunistic investors, and middleware technologies converge to make the SMB market for ERP applications one of the most competitive environments for market growth and product innovation within enterprise applications," ---- Says Gopakumar Sivanandan of SAP India.

A spokeswoman for rival Oracle India spokesperson agrees. "Mid-sized companies are driving India's GDP growth today," she says. Microsoft recently launched Microsoft Dynamics NAV designed specifically for medium sized companies.

“Dynamics NAV delivers integrated functionality to support solutions for financial management, supply chain management, CRM and E-Business." According to Sushant Dwivedy from Microsoft India,

For small and medium enterprises sometimes it was very hard to pay the cost at one time.
Earlier it was required Rs 10 to 15 lakhs can be done at a fraction of the price for ERP software. Though it must be that renting out software involves a recurring cost every month. The onetime cost of an ERP package needs returning costs in training and support and to that extent, renting the ERP software over the Web could be a lot better Consider.

The cost of the ERP for SMB is available for three users at Rs 25,000 a month, for five users at Rs 35,000 a month and 10 users at Rs 60,000 a month. No hardware, no personnel, no software cost is required in addition to this. Oracle and SAP have attractive pricing that make affordability a huge attraction. Oracle starts at as low as Rs 2,800 per user license, though it calls for implementation and support cost Much cheaper versions are also available from the Open Source movement, which uses operating systems based on free, modifiable platforms like Linux. Source – HT Times

According to market researcher Gartner, revenues from business platforms in India grow from $12.1 million in 2005 to $16.4 million in 2006, with all leading vendors posting double-digit growth. The Indian ERP market is expected to see a CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of 25.2 per cent over the next five years. The market was $83 million in 2004, and is projected to be over $250 million in 2009.

Is your turnover rate unacceptably high?

Some companies are realizing that their call center staffing processes are not only inefficient, they are also very costly. Many are seeking an alternative and are turning to RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing) as an option. Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) is a growing trend in which companies outsource all or part of their hiring functions to find better-quality people to staff your call center. RPO can be used successfully to fulfill a range of hiring needs for organizations; and is particularly well suited to call centers. Specifically, RPO delivers benefits for call center operations that include sourcing higher-quality candidates, improving fill ratios and “show rates”, decreasing turn-over, and reducing hiring costs.

Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) is a form of business process outsourcing (BPO) when an employer outsourcers or transfers all or part of the staffing process to an external service provider.

An RPO engagement can be structured in one of three ways depending on the needs of the company: Enterprise, Selective or Project RPO.

In Enterprise RPO, the partner manages the entire process across all skill categories and all locations. Selective RPO involves managing a subset of locations or a subset of recruiting processes, such as sourcing, screening, interview scheduling or offer letters.
In Project RPO, the RPO provider delivers hires for a one-time hiring project.

In all three scenarios, a dedicated RPO team works directly with the hiring manager to create a tailored program to meet the call center’s specific needs. The team can work on-site at the client’s locations, off-site in its own facility or a combination of the RPO Benefits

Organisations that partner with RPO specialists can realize a range of significant and sustained business benefits, all of which can be measured.

These benefits include--

Securing the best talent: Competition for the most talented individuals is increasing. Organizations need to secure the best people quickly and efficiently to help them build competitive capability.

Cutting recruitment costs: By transforming processes, utilizing best practice, and replacing a fixed cost base with a variable charging structure, RPO can significantly reduce the cost of recruitment.

Removing the administrative burden:RPO providers take on the burden of operational recruitment activities, making organizations free to focus on value-creating and strategic activities.

Delivering higher quality services:There are many stakeholders in a recruitment process; through improving processes and measuring experience and outcome, RPO providers can demonstrate highest quality services.

Mitigating operational risks:Risks come in many forms, and the expert knowledge of an RPO specialist can help organizations mitigate the risks associated with an inability to scale their business operationally to meet changing market demands, and the risks of non-compliance to legislative and regulatory change.

The more sophisticated and experienced RPO providers will also have a system of “forward-looking” analytics to ensure that hiring goals will be met for each “hiring class.” This predictive process analyzes how many candidates are in the pipeline.

How to hire an RPO provider

If you think an RPO partner could measurably improve the quality of your call center hires while containing costs, research several firms and choose carefully. The field is expanding quickly but there is a wide range of experience, knowledge and track record of success/failure. Specifically, you may want to ask potential providers some key questions, including--

How many RPO clients do you have?
How many hires do you support annually?
What experience do you have with call centers? And what types of call centers?
What percentage of your clients is reference able?
Are your recruiters dedicated to one client or do they work on multiple clients at the same time?
Do you have the flexibility to scale up and down as my needs change?
What is your client renewal rate?

As call center recruiting, hiring and retention remains a challenge for many companies, RPO is emerging as an important option. With turnover down. Significantly decreasing costs -- an increasing number of call center and human resources professionals have embraced RPO as an innovative strategy and a smart business decision.

India Ahead of China

India is growing in the BPO sector at present India is unquestionably the BPO superpower of the world. But it is also true that the competition is always on. There are other strong competitors of India who might ruin India's BPO. There are lot of countries and one which on top is China.

China is one such country which can eat into the BPO share market of India. But for the time being India is well ahead of China because of some inherent advantages. India is currently booming in the BPO arena and has scored over China to emerge as the top offshore destination for Global businesses. In the 2004 offshore index, India remains the star performer. It has once again captured the top spot in outsourcing by a comfortable margin due to its strong mix of low costs and noteworthy depth in human resources. This fact was brought out in a study conducted by AT Kearney, an international consultancy agency.

India has a very important advantage, their command of the English language. There are lots more Indians with good English skills than Chinese. Forrester also endorses the view that scalability of resources (talent pool) is the major factor that makes India an attractive offshore location. “The cost of operations in India can be 20-30% higher than places like Vietnam or lower than places like Brazil. But part of the challenge for these countries is the lack of skills. There is a very limited set of low-end work that companies like GE are looking at and lack of quality resources makes it hard for these countries to get started. The work going offshore today is geometrically more complex than the Y2K work that India got started on with,’’ says Mr McCarthy.

India proved better than China on account of several factors. The study pointed out that China lags behind India in terms experience and other important factors like IT and management education, language skills, concerns about intellectual property and overall country risk.

According to the study, although India and China are the market leaders in this sector, there are huge opportunities present in the market to give ample space to other countries like Philippines, Vietnam, Romania, Kenya, Sri Lanka and North America market to grow.

The study also said although it is unlikely that India would be able to retain its number one slot with China aggressively trying to outstrip it in the business, it would still be able to get a decent share of the pie.

Why BPO Employees Quit Their Jobs

It is true that now day’s employees are not working for salary because they want to relaxation in job. Most youngsters do not like joining the business process outsourcing BPO) due to stress and health issue. BPO employees are quitting BPO job’s to get rid of the stress and strain at work place. Employees do not quit due to salary issues alone. They are least bother about the salary. All the companies are giving good salary.

Now companies are providing good services to fresher and experienced employees with openings with good salary. But preference of the employees now goes to the office where they should have some fun and entrainment for getting relaxation.

In fact, stress and health weren’t even among the ‘top three’ factors for leaving a company.
Union Health Minister A Ramadoss recently called for a “health policy for the tech sector”, stating: “(BPO employees) have a sedentary lifestyle. They smoke, go for late-night parties, and even take drugs. Some get heart attacks in their mid-20s”
Employees are facing stress problem in BPO due to that their health is down. If customers are not getting comfort and the full relaxation in BPO companies then they quit the company. The good part is that if the industry is aware to checking indoor air quality to testing food in labs then it will be really.

Employees of Indian BPO firms, on the other hand, were overall content with their jobs in 2007, states the survey। They were satisfied with the job content, work culture, training, and appraisal. However, it added that they were not satisfied with the image they were stuck with, and least satisfied with their salaries. The average salary hike in the BPO industry grew by 14.8 per cent only in 2007 as compared to an increase of 17.2 per cent last year.
The direct outcome of the fall in salary hike is the increase in attrition rates। The attrition rate went up to 20 per cent from 18 per cent in 2006.

Hyderabad-based Brigade, for instance, appointed a chief fun officer to look into ways of ensuring low employee stress levels and keeping them highly motivated.
The survey also revealed that while large firms ranked better in parameters like work culture and image, niche companies were better in terms of salary and job content.

Now days all call center are providing the best service to employee to give them comfort and the satisfaction in job. The stress level is really sometimes very high but the companies are also focusing to reduce the stress on employees.

Social Networking Sites Causing Problems For Employers

The compaction between the companies is very high. At this movement it is very important to take care of each thing at the company. Workers spending too much time on social networking websites such as Facebook are costing employers a staggering £130m a day according to the findings of one recent survey, and the problem looks set to become much worse if businesses fail to take action, and fast. Facebook shows 125% growth year over year.

The findings from the survey show that some 233 million hours are lost every month to employees surfing the net, with social networking websites causing the greatest concern. It is a fact that these particular websites are very addictive and can often result in users remaining on the sites for hours rather than minutes. Whilst this is worrying news for employers, help is now at hand thanks to a powerful and effective range of software packages available to small to medium sized businesses.

To know about the details of the system there is software which effectively monitors and records everything employees do on their computer and the internet, providing employers with the perfect low-cost solution for monitoring employees. You can use of the software packages significantly prevents, reduces or eliminates the problems associated with abuse. In doing so employers have successfully stamped out inappropriate activity, reduced security breaches and prevented 'Insider' theft.

May be it happened that employee will not feel happy to know that someone is monitoring their work. But as a employer of the company it is very important to have this kind of software a your work place. You will get lot of protection from the improper activities like opening the social networking site at work time or any shopping site etc.

Many employers have been happy for their workers to use the internet for personal use as long as ultimately they do their job and reach their targets. However, this is now proving to be a somewhat costly decision for many businesses as loss of productivity and lack of concentration has proven to significantly hinder their overall performance.

You can choose the latest software packages to monitor the system of your work place. With this you can also stop the cause of the social networking problem.

India Remains Outsourcing Powerhouse

A recent study shows that India will continue to be the favored target for IT/BPO off shoring in spite of rising wages and surging rupee value. When it comes to outsourcing, India continues to rule. According to industry experts, emerging destinations like the Philippines, Brazil, Russia and other countries in East Europe do not, at present, pose a threat to India. It will take at least five year for these emerging countries to pip India’s position.

Reports suggest that on average, an IT worker’s salary in India is growing at about 12% annually. The rupee, too, has risen by around 12% against the dollar this year. Despite this, an Indian software engineer gets only one-fifth of what his counterpart in the US or Western Europe earns. - The Economic Times

India has a very important advantage, their command of the English language. There are lots more Indians with good English skills than Chinese. Forrester also endorses the view that scalability of resources (talent pool) is the major factor that makes India an attractive offshore location. The cost of operations in India can be 20-30% higher than places like Vietnam or lower than places like Brazil. But part of the challenge for these countries is the lack of skills. There is a very limited set of low-end work that companies like GE are looking at and lack of quality resources makes it hard for these countries to get started. The work going offshore today is geometrically more complex than the Y2K work that India got started on with,says Mr McCarthy.

Companies are setting up offshore centers outside India to mitigate geopolitical risk. Besides, clients are also asking companies to have centers close to their locations.At present outsourcing business in India is increasing at a rate four times more than any other country and the county has the resource and margin to meet. Turn Around Time (TAT)
is the time needed for performing a task, especially receiving, completing, and returning an assignment.

According to the study, growing at a rate of 40 per cent annually, India is the lead player in this sector followed by China at the second spot with a growth rate of 25 per cent.

The overall outlook of this industry seems positive with experts predicting that the global market for shared services would grow to 1.43 trillion dollar by the end of 2009 from 1,000 billion dollar at present.

According to the study, although India and China are the market leaders in this sector, there are huge opportunities present in the market to give ample space to other countries like Philippines, Vietnam, Romania, Kenya, Sri Lanka and North America market to grow.

The study also said although it is unlikely that India would be able to retain its number one slot with China aggressively trying to outstrip it in the business, it would still be able to get a decent share of the pie.

Also, processes like human resource, insurance, life sciences, finance, legal services, technical support, risk management, supply chain and media would come up in a big way in terms of business and employment opportunities, the study added.

Vcare call center
Phone: 206.441.7760
E_mail: sales@vcarecallcenter.com

Homeshoring: Buzzing more for popularity Customer Service Center

Contact Center Industry has always looking for new ways and methods to increase the productivity, client satisfaction, employee benefits and satisfaction while keeping the cost as competitive to lure more and more business and clients.

Homeshoring, is also a way to get the employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, cost calculation.

Contact Center Industry has always looking for new ways and methods to increase the productivity, client satisfaction, employee benefits and satisfaction while keeping the cost as competitive to lure more and more business and clients.

Homeshoring is also a way to get the employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, cost reduction at the same time. Homeshoring gives and advantage to companies and BPOs to utalise their available workforce in less space & facility.

IDC, Research firm - proposed in 2005 that homeshoring – the underestimated sibling of offshoring – could play the role of a certain safe-haven for American workers in a globalize world. Now, the same company indicates that the bursting U.S. housing bubble may actually serve to increase the value of homeshored customer care solutions.

Service providers want professional, productive, dependable agents like never before. Captivatingly, with regards to the delivery of high-quality customer care, therefore homeshoring becomes more compelling as a model. In fact, the American home may become increasingly valuable as compared to the American automobile that has long enabled customer care agents to commute to brick-and-mortar centers. At the same time, wage earners are looking for ways to ease the stress of demanding commutes and are now being forced to become more attentive savers.

According to IDC, the homeshored model may end up becoming increasingly valuable as the American home is becoming an appreciating asset in the form of a new kind of contact center for the future.

Benefits form homeshoring bizwiz can offer to both employees and companies make it worth considering, although it will not work in every situation. Instead, companies must be equipped to not only extend its virtual contact center to the employee’s home, it must also be able to effectively manage the employee and find employees able to be productive at home. A good mix can produce a cost effective model that works for everyone.

By: Vcare Call Center

Tomorrow's Call Center: Two-Way Video Interaction

We've heard a lot about the "fast approaching day" when agents will be able to interact with customers via two-way video. This is a really cool idea -- and I see a wide variety of ways that video communications could be used to enhance our daily routines in the not-too-distant future. People in the call center industry have been exploring the idea of integrating Internet Protocol Video in the contact center for years, and now many of the software and equipment makers, including Cosmo COM, Verint, Genesys, Radvision and others are finally ready to make this prophecy a reality.

Future of Customer Service

Within the next few years, experts say, two-way video communications will be the new cutting edge way of doing business.

The banking industry is already starting to deploy "virtual tellers" at branch offices (this in addition to completely branch-free, Internet-based "virtual banks") -- while the retail industry is apparently gearing up to introduce "virtual store clerks."

Banking Industry Leading the Way- For now, it appears the banking industry is taking the lead in bringing this new technology in play. Numerous banks have already deployed "virtual tellers" at branch locations, and some banks are doing away with branches altogether and going to a pure "virtual banking" model (where all transactions are handled electronically via the Internet).

For most of us, using a "virtual teller" at a branch office will not be too different from using an ATM, except you'll be able to communicate via video link with a "virtual teller" who is, in fact, a call center agent located miles away. In addition to handling basic transactions (such as cashing and depositing checks, which in many cases will be handled via pneumatic tube), these "virtual tellers" will be able to answer questions about your account, as well as cross-sell and up sell new products and services that the bank is offering.

This new technology also brings tremendous advantages to the banks themselves, as they will be able to centralize and reduce staff, lower their real estate costs (as branches can be made much smaller) and deliver more consistent service to all customers. This "kiosk-based" form of video communications at bank and retail locations is the prelude to the much larger rollout of fixed-line and mobile two-way video communications, which will ultimately bring this new form of communication into the privacy of our homes.

Hurdles need to overcome- Obviously, there are still hurdles to overcome before video communications becomes commonplace. For one thing, there's still the basic problem of not enough bandwidth on our last-mile networks (in fact, almost half of the U.S. is still on dial-up).

Then there's the simple fact that most consumers do not have video phones or even video cameras and microphones connected to their PCs at home. Perhaps more importantly, there is still a question of how many people really want two-way video communications -- whether actually seeing the person you are speaking with offers enough value to the consumer to make the cost of rolling out IP video communications worth it.

However, with the major wireless service providers of the world working in concert with the handset makers and aggressively rolling out video capabilities on their next generation networks, we are no doubt getting closer to the day when two-way video communications will become a reality. As advanced new mobile devices (i.e., videophones) come onto the market, and consumer demand for them increases, it only makes sense that the call center industry will follow suit.

Show and Tell

Similarly, the retail industry is gearing up to introduce "video kiosks" where you'll be able to ask virtual store representatives questions about the products the store sells -- maybe even take a "virtual tour" of the store before you go inside.

Perhaps one day the "virtual clerk" at Home Depot (NYSE: HD) will be able to tell you that, yes, they do have 12-inch Milwaukee Super Sawzall Blades in stock, that they're in aisle 12, and that they cost $21.97 each before you spend 20 minutes wandering the aisles looking for something that might not even exist.

Farther down the road there's the potential for using IP video for a wide range of customer service and support operations, which people can access from their homes. For example, one day an agent in a tech support center will be able to "show" a consumer who just bought a new computer how to load some new software, or perhaps troubleshoot a set-up problem, right on the consumer's computer screen.

The ability to "show" a consumer how to do something, in real rime, rather than "tell" them over the phone will no doubt have powerful applications in the future.

I see tremendous potential for video in the contact center and I see plenty of applications for it that make sense. However, like all things in technology, this isn't going to happen overnight: the software and equipment makers are going to have to work on it slowly, in bits and pieces, and experiment with it as they go along.

Still, I look forward to the day when I'll be able to get a truly "personalized" customer service experience with a call center agent who I can almost reach out and touch.


By: Vcare Call Center

Is the Customer Always Right?

The answer to this headline is both "yes" and "no." Customers are not always right, but they are always the customers even when they're wrong. Too many practices have rigid rules and policies. How many times have you heard the answer, "this is our office policy"? This can only be described as rigidity. Every situation calls for some flexibility and leeway. By making your staff adhere to rigid rules, you prohibit them from providing customer service that will benefit your practice and image.

Policy Should Not Be Set in Stone

If a customer asks why something cannot be done, your staff should not state that "this is office policy" and leave it at that; they should offer an explanation as to why something cannot be done.

Staff Training Is Essential

Your staff should be trained to understand customer service. The key to determining what customers want is to listen to them. Listening is different from hearing. Listening skills are about 75 percent to 80 percent of communication by understanding the desire of customer. Training staff on customer communication is essential, In order to compete in the marketplace with many other practices, the staff must be focused.

The 'Zones of Service'

Four zones of service -- the rigid zone, the safe zone, the progressive zone, and the indulgent zone. The rigid zone is doing everything "by the book" and adhering strictly to company policy. In the safe zone, everyone is courteous, but everyone gets the same service. The progressive zone offers exemplary, creative service; boutique style. Policies are flexible and used only as guidelines. The indulgent zone continues with the same philosophy as the progressive zone, but without consequence to the costs of providing these services.

Don't Be Afraid of Hard Questions

Another question should be: Once the customer service attitude is initiated, how can it be sustained and keep the staff motivated? One of the best ways to begin the process is to survey your existing customers. Ask how they feel about the office, services, waiting time, convenience of appointments, fees, resolution of problems and more. The feedback will be invaluable and should be done anonymously and randomly. Surveys can be handed out in the office with a self-addressed stamped envelope for ease of return.

The ultimate objective is to improve the practice. Improved customer service will eventually lead to a happier staff, less stress, and improved production. A happier staff will generally create an atmosphere of relaxation in the office, which will definitely be perceived by patients. Give your staff reasons to take pride in their work and you can avoid high staff turnover, which indicates that the practice is operationally driven instead of people driven.

Everybody Pay Attention

Every patient is looking for quality service. The attention paid to their needs is what will set your practice apart from others. Patients also want extra value, and they want their problems solved as they arise. In this way, you not only manage, you exceed your customers' expectations. These are the "keys to customer service."

Develop a Customer Service Program

Developing a good customer service attitude starts with accepting it as a means to developing a quality practice. Instituting these attitudes within your staff is a little more difficult and requires a serious evaluation of who your employees are and how you hire them.

Devote a whole staff meeting to this discussion and role-play everyday scenarios. An office retreat away from the office with a guest speaker to address these issues is also a helpful way to start the process. Not everyone grasps change easily, so starting a customer service and patient satisfaction program should be gradual and incremental.

An office with a happy staff is the best mechanism for developing a customer service program. The most effective means of internal marketing occurs from our staff. If we treat our staff well, they in turn will treat patients well. Employees who are not treated well generally will not treat the other employees or patients well.

Long-term staff members who are well compensated, challenged and educated are the best source for maintaining a quality patient base and recruiting new patients. It is imperative not to overlook the relationship between the staff and patients. Many practices use the slogan "new customer welcome," but it is important not to overlook "old established" customers. These customers must feel welcome too. If too much effort is placed on cultivating new business, the established customer will feel they are no longer important.

Is the customer always right? I will reiterate the answer "yes and no." It is all about how they are treated by everyone in the office.

Leading Software Company forays into call center

In line with strategy to enter the BPO space Mascot Systems , a leading global offshore software services company, today announced its entry into the IT Enabled Services (ITES) segment with the proposed acquisition of the Contact Center and Facility Management businesses of Delhi-based outsourced services provider IT&T Ltd. The Company has signed an agreement to acquire as a going concern, IT&T’S BPO business, by way of a business purchase. It will also acquire IT&T’S Facility Management business by buying out IT&T Technology Services Ltd., a subsidiary of IT&T. The acquisition is subject to approval of Mascot’s Board of Directors, terms and conditions of agreement, and other statutory and regulatory approvals as may be applicable.

Explaining the rationale for the acquisition, the company said in a statement that the acquisition is in line with Mascot’s earlier articulated strategy to enter the BPO space.
The acquisition will enhance Mascot’s services portfolio and enable it to rapidly establish a presence in the BPO space in a relatively cost-effective manner so that the Company can leverage its own strengths and global resources to ramp up the acquired business.
According to Gartner Group estimates, the global BPO market is expected to reach $234bn by 2005. NASSCOM and McKinsey have recently increased their projections for the Indian IT Enabled Services market in 2008 to $21bn from the $18bn earlier.
IT&T’S domain expertise, proven team and operating experience in Customer Relationship Management, Affinity Marketing and Helpdesk Support will enrich the suite of services offered by Mascot and enable it to provide its clients a complete range of IT services and solutions. Mascot has plans to rapidly scale-up the acquired business - both, financially and operationally - over the coming two years by building upon Mascot’s established strengths and competencies.

The BPO business will come to Mascot Systems for a cash consideration of Rs188.81mn while the Facility Management business will cost Rs23.9mn. The acquisition will bring in the BPO business of IT&T Limited as a going concern, including over 400 employees, its infrastructure, equipment, facilities, contracts and intellectual property. Mascot will acquire the customers and prospects of IT&T across the United States and Europe. As part of the deal, the vastly experienced executive management team will become part of the Mascot Group and drive the day-to-day business.


By: Vcare Call Center

Benefits of Call Center Services

A Call Center is an industry term referring to a company phone center that handles such services as help desk, customer support, lead generation, emergency response, and telephone answering service, inbound response and outbound telemarketing.


Normally if you make a set up for your clients to attend their quarries, it is very costly to prepare. For all of these you need to have specific technologies, particular department and excellent manpower. There is an option to get all of these under one roof and meet your all requirement and save your investment money which includes building up infrastructure, setting up technology, and implementing particular department and hired specialist or specific staff. You easily hear about contact/call centers who do meet all above requirement and implement best resource and provide best service to be ahead in competition.

Call Center Services

Call Center services are booming in most developing countries, all around the world. As a result of the competition, Call Center services require aid to carry on their profitable business. Call Center services help the center in reach maximum target. The services help to tune quality programs to promote higher and steady levels of customer satisfaction. The services at these Call Centers include Operations, Customer Service, Tele calling, Backend, technical support, transactional processes etc.

Businesses who do not receive important phone calls put themselves at risk for losing profits. This most often occurs when a first time caller is looking to become a new customer. If an individual is calling a particular business to become a client it is likely that they may not call back if their call was not answered. For this reason there are many business owners who use a Call Center. Many times a Call Center will answer your calls as if they were one of your employees, take a message, and then forward that message on to you.

Few benefits of Call Center services for any company: -

· The benefits combined with developing company own call-handling center are truly incredible once them. Not only will company generate new clients, but also keep existing clients satisfied.

* One of the greatest benefits to having a Call Center services is that company clients will be able to speak to a person the first time that they call. Since everyone hates having to be placed on hold or told to call back, the use of a Call Center service could greatly increase the satisfaction of clients.

· Another benefit of having a Call Center Service for business is that it could increase the number and type of clients. There are many companies who do business with clients all around the world. Contempt a worldly connection, there are many established employees who only speak one language. Many Call Center service representatives are multilingual. They may be able to help new foreign clients. It is also possible to have a 24-hour Call Center service to support clients that are from different areas of the world and in different time zones.

* One of the major benefits of the on-demand Call Centers is the ability to provide any relevant equipment a Call Center operator might want thus reducing the cost of entry into potential lucrative markets.

* Make the most out of your investment and get a nice return by investing in your time wisely. Call Center services will hopefully free up more for you to focus on the work you like and take more time for marketing and advertising, to improve sales and projects.

* Inbound calls can be professionally answered using by agent intelligence and information can be easily given to callers.

* Answering machines or voice mail can be perceived as cold and impersonal. Live telephone answering services like inbound Call Centers give you a more professional image. Statistics show the percentage of hang-ups on answering machines is significantly greater than a live answering service.

· Some companies managed Call Center services based on the Cisco solution. IP-based customer interaction networks are enabling companies to measurably improve response time and increase customer satisfaction while at the same time reducing agent costs and improving network efficiency. (Vcare call center is an example of CISCO based/funded call center in India, which can able to meet your requirements)

The number of benefits of call center services is above-mentioned. Call Center services are more beneficial and profitable for all type of business. If your clients are expanding faster than your business you may find that a call center is a professional solution to the problem.


By: Vcare Call Center

Advanced Network Services

Advanced Call Center Routing Services is an application package on the Cisco Network Applications Manager (NAM) for Service Providers. NAM Advanced Services allows Service Providers to offer advanced Intelligent Network (IN) features capabilities to a broad market of business customers. The features include dynamic call allocation, network-based prompting and queuing and Web-based end-customer call control and reporting.

Advanced Services can be deployed on top of TDM infrastructure as well as with IP networks, using the Cisco Internet Service Node (ISN) or a third part IVR systems as prompting and queuing platform. Advanced Services facilitates rapid end-customer provisioning, since it requires no changes to existing customer infrastructure and can use the Internet for the call control and reporting functions. As a result, the costs and efforts associated with provisioning these customers is dramatically reduced, making them cost effective for small and medium-sized businesses.

With Advanced Call Center Routing Services, Service Providers can directly address the following market segments:

* Customers with small to medium contact centers for whom high-end hosted call center services like Cisco Intelligent Contact Management (ICM) or IP Contact Center (IPCC) may not be cost effective but who still require dynamic call distribution capabilities.
* Contact centers with low-end PBX equipment that can not be readily incorporated into real-time virtual call centers using Cisco ICM software
* Cisco ICM users who require dynamic call routing to small branch offices with low-end equipment.
* Cisco ICM users who require dynamic call routing to small branch offices with low-end equipment.
* Businesses ‘informal’ contact centers.

All customers requiring integrated prompting, queuing and IVR services.


By: Vcare Call Center