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CALL CENTRE

BPO BOOM The infrastructure depends upon voice based or back end operation

Employer branding

I am a student of MBA (Marketing). I want to know whether BPOs go for branding or does branding play any role in reducing attrition rate in BPOs? If yes, what important branding strategies are adopted by them?

Namit Khetarpal

Employer branding has become very common amongst BPOs. They are trying to project an image of being `best in class' and attract talent. BPOs are taking care of their employees by investing in their `personal brand building' activities as well and this is most visible in the `recruitment advertising' spaceBrand building revolves around the following - increased responsibilities and duties within the organisation, exposure to global work practices and standards, recognition and a culture that rewards performance, a nice job designation, opportunities to become a thought leader within the organisation.

Legal process outsourcing

I am a practicing lawyer in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh. Of late, I am hearing about lot of LPO (legal process outsourcing) in which few of my colleagues are interested. Two of them have a good experience in doing LPO work, having joined a company in Gurgaon a year back. They say we can execute the work. We have good contacts in the USA who are eager to help us, but unfortunately they are not in the legal field. Could you please tell me how to get work from there, are there any leads that can help us to make a start in this direction?

Shashi Dhar

According to a study by the US-based Forester Research, the current annual value of legal outsourcing, which is worth $80 million, can rise up to $4 billion and can fetch 79,000 jobs in India by 2015.

As per Bar Council Rules, a lawyer cannot take another job while he is on the roll. He would have to get his license suspended as a pre-condition. Lawyers would not be able to take employment in legal outsourcing outfits without having to give up their right to be called 'lawyers'. For leads you can post your profiles on www.elance.com - which is an online platform for service professionals.

Technical infrastructure

What is the basic technical infrastructure required to set up a BPO as I am keen on starting something on those lines ?

Bhoumik

The infrastructure required depends upon if you are setting up a voice based or back end operation but some important components of setting up a call centre are: ACD (Automatic call distribution) - the calls are automatically transferred to the agents who are idle.

This may be skill-based distribution, performance based or general transfer of calls. IVR (Interactive Voice Response) - this enables customers calling a contact centre to use voice commands to retrieve the information they require without ever speaking to an agent. This basically helps to reduce the manpower cost.

Voice logger - This logs the conversation of all agents, which can be used to check the quality of all agents.

IPLC (International private leased circuit) line

MUX - Used to connect the IPLC at both the ends. Most of the BPOs are migrating to IP network. Call Centre Management Software - Software to manage the calls and reporting

Predictive Dialler: This processes potential contacts and identifies disconnected numbers, busy signals and unanswered calls and detects answering machines.

Such calls can be avoided, scheduled for later contact or pre-recorded messages can be left, allowing live agents to only deal with established connections that are directed to them.

Securing BPO projects

What are some of the options of getting reliable BPO projects?

Nagesh Rao

There are some Business-2-Business portals through which you can get projects like www.itmatchonline.com, www.outsource360.com, www.openoutsource.com, www.mtindia.com

SUNDER RAMACHANDRAN

(If you have any questions, write in to - sunder.ramachandran

@gmail.com)

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