UNIT- II
Contact centre BPO, Types of
call centre-Technology-Case
study-Intel Net Global.
B-Business
P-Processing
O-Outsourcing
Business processing outsourcing
is the contracting of a specific
business task such as payroll,
human resources or accounting,
to the third service provider.
CALL CENTRE:
Introduction
Meaning
components
Types
A call centre is a centralized office used
for receiving or transmitting a large
volume of requests by telephone. The
majority of large companies use contact
centers as a means of managing their
customer interaction. The earliest call
centers were created during the 1960’s,
and were known as “Private Automated
Business Exchanges”(PABX). The earliest
example of a call centre was in the UK is
at the Birmingham Press and Mail. It was
installed in 1965.
A call centre refers to a centre that
specifically handles ‘calls’ i.e. telephone
based traffic. It is the kind of back up of
a business solution to receive and process
a call for another organization. A call
centre is just a form of BPO wherein
agents take calls or make calls in order to
produce sales, to answer queries in
customers services and telemarketing.
In brief we can say that………
 Call
centre is a place where service is
provided to clients via phone calls or
electronic telecommunication devices.
 Services offered by many call centers,
companies increase business’s efficiency as
well as help with marketing leads.
 Call centre performs that part of a client’s
business which involves handling telephone
calls.
Components which should be integrated into
the call centre operations:
 Location, building and facilities
 Customers
 Technology
 Process
 People
 Finance and business management
A change in any one of the above
components will have a direct or indirect
impact on every other part.

LOCATION, BUILDING ANDFACILITIES:
Where a center is located is critical in terms of
the cost of the building but more importantly
the ability to recruit and retain employees to
work in the center. The ease and cost to get to
a centre is important for those employed in
centre but also in the integration with the head
office functions that the centre need to work
with.

CUSTOMER:
Customers can be anyone and the agent needs to
have the skills to be able to adapt their style and
vocabulary to suit different customer type. The
agent talks to more customers in any one day
that any other person in the organization.
 PROCESS:
Every centre has a multitude of processes,
but the biggest challenge that it faces is to
understand the end to end process from the
customer perspective. One very easy but
critical way of looking at the customer
journey is to mystery shop the centre and to
see what it really feels like to be customer.
 TECHNOLOGY:
There are significant amounts of technology
available and it is very easy to be
bamboozled by it all.
 PEOPLE:
People are the most critical asset in a call
centre as it is they who really deliver the
business performance.
Unfortunately the
investment and perception of staff may be
rather poor. The people (agents) often have
to deal with difficult situations when things
have gone wrong in the organization.
 FINANCE
AND BUSINESS MANAGEMENT:
There will be more management information
statistics in a call centre than in any other
part of organization.
One of the very
challenging roles are the planning, measuring
and reviewing of performance, so it plays a
significant role.
TYPES
Inbound call centers
Outbound call centers
International call centers
Domestic call centers
Classification based on
who owns call centers
Classification based on
method of
communication
Classification based on size
and magnitude of
operations
Here is a complete list of the different types
of call centers ………




Inbound call centers
Outbound call centers
Domestic call centers
International call centers
Apart from all these there are some call
centers which are based on different
categories.
……………cont.
1. Classification based on who owns call
centre:


In-house call centers
Outsourced call centers
Classification based on size and magnitude
of operations:
2.


Home based call centers
Small, medium and large call centers
Classification based on method of
communication:
3.


Web enabled call centers
Telephonic call centers
A type of call centers that is designed to
receive a large volume of requests or
inbound calls from customers by telephone.
These types of call centers have agents who
receives incoming calls from people. The
number of calls, that inbound call center
agents receive is not fixed. The number can
vary a lot and it depends on the inflow of
calls i.e. how many customers are calling up
the call center. On certain days the inflow of
calls can be very high and on other days it
could be less. Inbound call center is the
place where clients will call and agents need
to provide support to them.
POINTS TO PONDER:
 An inbound call center deals with a majority of
incoming calls.
 Most of inbound call center are customer service
focused.
 Customers calls these types of call centers when
they need assistance with the product or service
they specialize in.
EXAMPLES:
Calls related to customer service, technical
support(services), network support(services),
telephone requests for products, accounts
assistance, bills and other inquiries from
customers.

AUTOMATIC CALL DISTRIBUTOR:
Automatic call distribution or ACD, is a tool
commonly used in the telephony industry. ACD
systems are commonly found in any office that
handles a large volume of inbound calls.
Automatic call distributor is to disperse incoming
calls to contact center agents or employees with
specific skills.

INTERACTIVE VOICE RESPONSE :
Interactive voice response or IVR software is a
technology that allows computers to interact
with humans through voice commands and key
inputs. IVR systems give customers a self service
option to complete steps on their own instead of
waiting for an agent. IVR is especially important
when call volumes are high or when agents are
unable to field calls for some reason.
An outbound call center is a business activity
where a collection of call center agents
make outgoing calls to prospective or
existing customers on behalf of a business or
client. Most of the outbound call centers are
sales focused. When agents are making
phone calls out of the call center they’re
focused on a list of customers that they’d
like to get in touch with. Most of the time
this means that they’re targeting them for a
sale.
POINTS TO PONDER:
 The job of call center agents in outbound call center
is to make outgoing calls to a list of people.
 Calls
made from the center can include
telemarketing, sales or fund rising calls, as well as
calls for contact list updating, surveys or verification
services.
THE MOST COMMON USES OF OUTBOUND CALL CENTER:
 Proactive customer service(e.g. informing of delay)
 Sales call to new customer
 Renewals
 Cross selling or up selling sales calls(to existing cust.)
 Debt collection
 Customer satisfaction surveys
 Market research
(These are also called types of outbound dialing)
 PREVIEW DIALER:
once an agent has indicated that they are ready for a
call, information about the call is presented to them.
The number is then automatically dialed after a pre
defined period; the agent is given time to preview
the customer details before the call is launched.

PROGRESSIVE DIALER:
once an agent has indicated that they are ready for a
call, information about the call is presented to them.
Then the number is dialed immediately. Call progress
is monitored by the dialer technology. Software call
control minimizes agent involvement in the dialing
process and improves call-handling efficiency.

PREDICTIVE DIALER:
A predictive dialer is a telephone control system
that automatically calls a list of telephone
numbers in sequence, screening out no
answering machines and disconnected numbers
while predicting at what point a human caller
will be able to handle the next call.

MANUAL DIALER:
In call centers operator have to call a bunch of
people. When agents dial numbers manually,
they spend considerable time on receiving paper
records, selecting the person to be called,
finding the phone numbers, dialing the number,
listening to rings, updating the records after
each call etc. With manual dialing agents spend
more time trying to find a prospect than talking.
These types of call centers make and receive
calls from people from within the same
country. This means that at a domestic call
center in India, the agents will make or
receive calls from people in India only. In a
diverse country such as India, there is always
a need for agents who can speak varied
languages, based in states and regions. So,
even people who don’t know English very
well, can find jobs at domestic call centers,
and can make and receive calls in their
mother-tongues, be it any language such as
Hindi, Marathi, Tamil or Bengali.
These call centers have international
companies as their clients. So, if a call
center is based in India, makes or receives
international calls on behalf of an overseas
client, then it is known as international call
center.
Apart from the usual process
training, these kind of international call
centers also usually provide accent and
culture training to their agents, so that they
can understand and speak effectively with
people from other countries.
Classification of
call centers based
on who owns them
In-house call
centers
Outsourced call
centers
There are two main types in this.

IN-HOUSE CALL CENTER:
these are owned and operated by the company. The
purpose can be to provide service to existing
customers, or for making telemarketing calls to
acquire new customers.

OUTSOURCED CALL CENTERS:
this is the cheapest option used by many companies,
who do not want to run their call center in-house. So,
they outsource the calling activities to a professional
call center companies. The outsourced call centers
can be located within the same country or it can be
situated overseas.
Classification based on
size and magnitude of
operations
Home based or
virtual call centers
Small, medium and
large call centers
There are two main types in this:
 HOME
BASED OR VIRTUAL CALL CENTERS:
this type of call center is typically operated
by a single person who works from home. It
usually involves making outgoing calls to a
list of people provided by the company, for
the purpose of making service related calls
on behalf of the company or for making
telemarketing calls with the intention of
selling products and services.
 SMALL,
MEDIUM AND LARGE CALL CENTERS:
call centers are also categorized as small,
medium or large based on the number of call
center agents that it has for making or
receiving calls. The size is typically measured
and judged based on the number of seats,
which is how many agents can make
simultaneous calls at a single point in time.
SMALL:- which have just about 5-10 agents.
MEDIUM:- around 30-50 seats.
LARGE:- more than 500 agents working in
day and night shifts.
Classification
based on
method of
communication
Web-enabled
call centers
Telephonic call
centers

WEB-ENABLED CALLS:
A call center usually means a place where agents
make or receive telephonic calls. But in these
days of the internet, not all communications on
the calls. It can also happen online. Call
centers that are equipped with providing support
over the internet are known as “web-enabled
call centers”.

TELEPHONIC CALL CENTERS:
the call centers which are not equipped with
such a things while only speak on telephone lines
are known as “telephonic call centers”.
Call center technology is constantly
evolving, here are 10 call center technologies……
 Automatic Call Distributor
 Predictive dialer
 Issue tracking system
 Knowledge base
 Text analytics
 Session initiation protocol
 Rich presence
 Email response management software
 Computer telephony integration
 Speech analytics

AUTOMATIC CALL DISTRIBUTOR:
An automatic call distributor(ACD) manages
incoming calls to a call center and routes them
to the appropriate party based on preestablished handling instructions. Many ACDs
feature skill based routing technology that
routes calls to the appropriate call center agent
based on skill set.

PREDICTIVE DIALER:
A predictive dialer automatically calls a list of
telephone numbers in sequence, screening out
busy signal, no answers and answering machines
while at the same time predicting when a call
agent will be available to handle a call.
 ISSUE
TRACKING SYSTEM:
An issue tracking system is commonly used in
the call centre to record and follow the
progress of a customer-related issue. The
system captures all pertinent information
relating to the issue and allows managers to
see who is responsible for resolving it.
 TEXT
ANALYTICS:
Text analytics applications are used to
analyze text from customer service
interactions.
Text analytics applications
mine data from test, helping organizations
extract value from a large number of textbased customer interaction.

SESSION INITIATION PROTOCOL:
A Session Initiation Protocol(SIP) application is
often used in call centers in conjunction with
Internet Protocol(IP) technology. SIP determines
the end system to be used for the session, the
communication media and media parameters
and the called party’s desire to engage in the
communication. Once these are assumed, SIP
establishes call parameters at either end of the
communication, and handles call transfer and
termination.

RICH PRESENCE:
Rich presence is an application that locates and
identifies a computing device regardless of its
location as soon as the user connects to the
network. It is an enhanced form of presence
technology in that it allows users to not only
know that another user is connected but also
observe to some extent what they are doing.
 KNOWLEDGE
BASE:
A Knowledge base is a centralized repository
of dynamic information and an important
part of a knowledge management system.
Knowledge bases are used in call center
agents and customers easy access to a
wealth of information.
 EMAIL
RESPONSE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE:
It automatically handles email according to
user defined rules. The software is used by
many call centers to manage large volumes
of email messages and can track and record
the status of each message and follow up
message.

COMPUTER TELEPHONY INTEGRATION:
CTI is the use of computers to manage telephone
calls. Call center agents using CTI applications
receive a “screen pop” on their computer screen
when a customer calls in, providing detailed
information about the customer on the line.

SPEECH ANALYTICS:
Speech Analytics applications are used to screen
customers interactions for the purpose of
identifying customer needs. Speech analytics
have the potential to detect cost saving and cost
avoidance opportunities, identify ideas for new
and improved products, pinpoint cross sell/upsell
opportunities
and
determine
the
effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
A contact center is a centralized office used
for the purpose of selling and receiving large
volumes of requests by telephone. A contact
center is operated by a company to
administer incoming product support or
information inquiries from consumers.
Outgoing calls for telemarketing, debt
collection are also made. In addition to a
call center, collective handling of letters,
faxes, and e-mails at one location is known
as contact center.
POINTS TO PONDER: A contact center(also referred to as a
customer interaction center or e-contact
center) is a central point in an enterprise
from which all customer contacts are
managed.
 A contact center is generally part of an
enterprise’s overall customer relationship
management (CRM).
 The contact centers typically includes one or
more online call centers but may include
other types of customer contact as well,
including e-mail newsletters, postal mail
catalogs, website inquiries and chats, and
the collection of information from customers
during in store purchasing.
The main difference between a
call center and a contact center is that while
a call center is focused on incoming and
outgoing voice calls, a contact center is able
to manage customers with both voice calls
and data applications like e-mail, web based
chat/instant massaging, and in some case
will include the capability to share web
pages sent to and from the customer. The
fully functional contact center takes
advantage of customer needs for text and
visual communications in addition to phone
calls; typically a contact center also uses a
“blended agent” who can manage multiple
forms of voice and data-centric customers
communications.
There are some criticisms related to contact
centers:
criticisms
From
callers
From
staff
 Incompetent
or untrained operators
incapable of processing customers requests
effectively.
 Overseas location, with language and accent
problems.
 Automated queuing system. This sometimes
results in excessively long hold times.
 Complaints that departments of companies
do not engage in communication with one
another.
 Low
compensation(pay and bonuses)
 Repetitive job task
 Poor working conditions(e.g. poor facilities,
poor maintenance and cleaning, cramped
working conditions, management
interference etc.)
 Restrictive working practices( some operators
are required to follow a pre written script).
 High stress: a common problem associated
with front-end jobs where employees deal
directly with customers.
 IVR(Interactive
Voice Response)
 CTI(Computer Telephony Integration)
 ACD(Automatic Call Dialer)
 CSR(Customer Satisfaction Research)