September 2003

' Inbound technical support and customer care teleservices,

' Business process management, and

' Supply chain management services.

StarTek has 17 facilities, including six in Colorado, four in Canada and one each in Illinois, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming. International services are performed from two facilities in the United Kingdom, and we expect to launch international service platforms in Chile and the Philippines this year.

StarTek's clients are in the software, telecommunications, consumer products, cable, Internet, e-commerce, financial services, healthcare and technology industries.

Our mission is to challenge existing business processes and develop value-added services that drive client profitability and customer loyalty and create an environment for our employees that offers career growth and a family-friendly culture. This strategy encompasses two critical components of the services value chain: the delivery of services excellence to our clients and the creation of a supportive, stimulating environment for our associates in which to meet and exceed client expectations.

If we can build relationships by serving clients with excellence, not just selling to them, we can establish customer franchises and structural relationships in which StarTek becomes a strategic partner and an integral part of the client's management process. This is a consultative approach which is anticipatory and preemptive and focuses attention not just on the present, but the future needs of our clients' businesses. In this way, StarTek adds incremental value beyond that of a typical business outsourcer.

CIS: What makes your services unique and how can users benefit by using them?

Meade: There are two factors which differentiate StarTek from its competition:

' Dedicated client management team,

' Operational excellence.

While most of our competition claims to provide both, we really do it.

Dedicated client management team. StarTek is different because of its passionate commitment to client success. We are customer-centric and unusually flexible in responding to client market opportunities. We continuously seek to understand the marketplace and the voices of our clients and their customers by focusing on meeting their expectations and by being easy to do business with. In a highly customized approach to account management, the company's resources and operational expertise are matched to client needs by providing long-term, cost-effective solutions.

We earn the trust of clients. Each account has a dedicated team of experienced business professionals with many years of relationship management training and industry knowledge in the verticals in which they are involved. Client service executives act as client advocates and are committed to active listening to make certain that client communications are open, constructive and ongoing. Our client feedback systems include frequent performance and business reviews and constitute easy-to-use communications platforms to measure goal achievement. Together, clients and StarTek define the precise criteria for the delivery of performance excellence. Continual monitoring of performance against a quantified standard is without guesswork.

Operational excellence. Every company claims it provides operational excellence, but just as with dedicated client team management, StarTek actually does it. For example, following is our track record for managing volumes:

' Wireline: 840,000 business orders annually,

' Wireless: 3 million consumer activations annually,

' Receivables management: over $400 million collected annually, and

' Customer center contacts: 80 million annually.

In the past two years, we have opened four facilities and have demonstrated our ability to quickly ramp up large projects. These have included:

' Kingston, Ontario: over 900 employees in 90 days,

' Cornwall, Ontario: over 400 employees in 90 days,

' Decatur, Illinois: over 200 employees in 90 days, and

' Regina, Saskatchewan: over 650 employees in 90 days.

Our bottom line is, StarTek gets the job done faster, better and at a competitive price.

CIS: What is your vision of the future of the CRM/contact center/teleservices industry?

Meade: The future for the teleservices industry is robust. We believe that the secular trend toward outsourcing teleservices will strengthen. Demand for outsourcing services has been driven by several factors including the need to focus on core competencies, reallocate internal resources, reduce or stabilize costs and improve operating efficiencies.

CIS: What, in your opinion, is the most pressing issue facing our industry today?

Meade: Client service is the most important issue facing our industry. The pressure to rationalize cost structures globally and improve service quality will increase. Services providers, such as StarTek, will need to find solutions to alleviate client pain points in such a way as to remain transparent to the customer and yet enhance existing service quality.

We need to be more innovative and focused on achieving long-term results and superior customer satisfaction metrics. While price is always the presenting issue, what clients are really saying is that they want services excellence at the most competitive price and with the least amount of transactional risk.

In the final analysis, customer satisfaction is paramount. Without it, customer churn increases and the net present value of customers decreases. The object is to be able to hold on to customers for a long time, cross-sell and upsell, and turn a transactional customer into a committed, long-term, loyal account.

When everything is said and done, it is all about customer service and retention.

CIS: What are your recommendations to alleviate such problems?

Meade: StarTek provides a blended services offering which encompasses the entire customer lifecycle. We ask the question, 'How can StarTek help you, the client, meet your customers' needs based on where they are in the customer lifecycle?' Our strategy is to approach the clients' needs as our own. This forces us to align ourselves with clients and understand their challenges from their perspectives.

A blended services offering positions our outsourcing services along the six stages of the lifecycle continuum (awareness, acquisition, service, support, retention and loyalty) and allows StarTek to meet many coincident and pressing client needs. This is a distinctly different approach from a menu of service offerings which may or may not speak to customer needs and which certainly does not address the ultimate goal, which is client retention and loyalty. Customer loyalty is only achieved when the service provider meets and exceeds perceived and articulated needs.

CIS: What is your vision for future trends for the contact center/CRM/teleservices outsourcing market regarding profitability and international competition?

Meade: The teleservices industry is marching inexorably to a global service delivery platform. Profitability will be increasingly difficult to attain unless value-added services are provided. The challenge is to meet client requirements and not cannibalize existing relationships with a sub-standard or riskier service.

In the attempt to meet customer price requirements, the industry must differentiate offshore services from onshore and mitigate the perceived operational and security risks of these solutions. In addition, cultural expectations must be met without compromising client satisfaction. We believe that these challenges can be overcome and offshore solutions tailored to meet specific client requirements. In the long-term, this is a positive trend since it opens world markets to creative solutions.

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