The Indian Call Center Journey
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Details
Themes: HR Problems
Period : 1999-2001
Organization :-
Pub Date : 2002
Countries : India
Industry : IT Enabled Services, BPO
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Case Code : HROB005
Case Length : 08 Pages
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The industry did not offer any creative work or growth opportunities to keep the workers motivated. The scope for growth was very limited. For instance, in a 426-seat center, there were 400 agents, 20 team leaders, four service delivery leaders, one head of department and one head of business. Thus, going up the hierarchy was almost impossible for the agents. Analysts remarked that the fault was mainly in the recruitment, training, and career progression policies of the call centers. Organizations that first set up call centers in India were able to pick and choose the best talent available. The entry norms established at this point were - a maximum age limit of 25 years, a minimum qualification of a university degree, English medium school basic education and a preference to candidates belonging to westernized and well-off upper middle class families. The companies hence did not have to spend too much time and effort in training the new recruits on the two important aspects of a good level of spoken and written English and a good exposure to western culture and traditions. However, companies soon realized that people with such backgrounds generally had much higher aspirations in life. While they were initially excited to work in the excellent working environment of a multinational company for a few months, they were not willing to make a career in the call center industry. They generally got fed up and left within a few months when the excitement waned. |
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A consistently high attrition rate affected not only a center's profits but also customer service and satisfaction. This was because a new agent normally took a few months before becoming as proficient as an experienced one. This meant that opportunities for providing higher levels of customer service were lost on account of high staff turnover.8
Future Prospects
The Indian call center majors were trying to handle the labor exodus through various measures. Foremost amongst these was the move to employ people from social and academic backgrounds different from the norms set earlier. Young people passing out of English medium high schools and universities and housewives and back-to-work mothers looking for suitable opportunities were identified as two of the biggest possible recruitment pools for the industry. Such students with a good basic level of English could be trained easily to improve their accents, pronunciation, grammar, spelling and diction. They could be trained to become familiar with western culture and traditions. The housewives and back-to-work mothers' pool could also be developed into excellent resources. This had been successfully tried out in the US and European markets, where call centers employed a large number of housewives and back-to-work mothers. Another solution being thought about was to recruit people from non-metros, as people from these places were deemed to be more likely to stay with the organization, though being more difficult to recruit and expensive to train.
Even as the people and infrastructure problems were being tackled, a host of other issues had cropped up, posing threats for the Indian call centers. The promise of cheap, English speaking and technically aware labor from India was suddenly not as lucrative in the international markets. A survey of Fortune 1,000 companies on their outsourcing concerns showed that cost-reduction was not the most important criterion for selecting an outsourcing partner. This did not augur well for a country banking on its cost competitiveness. Also, China was fast emerging as a major threat to India, as it had embarked on a massive plan to train people in English to overcome its handicap in the language.
8] Some sources claimed that a high turnover at a call center was actually not that bad. In his report, John Carver, Call center manager, Bank of Montreal, MasterCard Division, mentioned that in the call center business, turnover is 'celebrated'. He said, "The higher, the better. It's part of our Culture. When we hire into our call center we hire people looking for a career, not just in the call center, but anywhere in our bank. We recognize that many have higher ambitions, and that they are applying for a call center agent position because they see it as a door opener. I talk with each new hire class and let them know we are OK with that, and that we are here to give them a start, an entry into the Bank of Montreal. We give them a fantastic grounding in sales and service in the card business, where they master negotiation and communication skills, and then send them on their way." He added that new agents brought positive attitudes to the center and posed fresh challenges for the training group.