The Fastest Growing Teleservices Companies — The Fifth-Annual Survey And Ranking Of Rising Stars

A C@LL CENTER Solutions^™ Exclusive

As we have been reporting for the last several years, the outsourcing of teleservices functions to service agencies has been growing at a rapid clip, and this year’s ranking again reflects this. To provide you a gauge of teleservices companies’ growth, and to provide them with the recognition they deserve for their accomplishments, C@LL CENTER Solutions^™ magazine developed "The Fastest-Growing Teleservices Companies — The Annual Survey and Ranking of Rising Stars." This fifth-annual ranking looks at the companies’ growth in long-distance telephone usage, as this provides a verifiable measure of the companies’ amount of telesales/teleservices.

Data was obtained from questionnaires that asked the teleservices companies to document the total amount of transport minutes (phone line usage) for which they were billed for long-distance telephone service for the one-year period between April 1996 and March 1997 and the one-year period between April 1997 and March 1998. Since we would base our ranking on this information, we required the data to be verified through original documentation from the phone companies that serviced the teleservices companies during that two-year period. We also required the signature of a management-level employee of the phone companies. Teleservices companies that were unable to provide third-party verification for a small portion of their transport minutes because a foreign country telecommunications service provider could not meet the deadline or because a client was billed directly for telecommunications service and verification could not be obtained were allowed to have the president/CEO of their company verify that portion of the submission. (Companies in this category are indicated with an asterisk next to the company name in the charts.)

Once qualification was established for the applicants, the companies were divided into three categories — large, intermediate and developing — based on their number of transport minutes. They were then ranked by two methods — by their percentage of growth from the first year to the second (obtained by finding the difference [increase] in minutes between the ’96 -’97 minutes and the ’97 - ’98 minutes and dividing that amount by the ’96 -’97 minutes), and by the number of net minutes gained from the first year to the second. We have listed the figures for the percentage of growth, but have not listed the figures for the number of net minutes gained due to the confidentiality of the number of transport minutes each company produced. In addition, you will find in the six charts information on the type of teleservices the companies do.

Our congratulations are extended to all of the 1998 Rising Stars for their great accomplishments.