Contact Center Technology Feature Article

Tata Teleservices faced strong opposition from the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) when it became the first company to offer two year validity on its prepaid card. Everyone accused the service provider of committing an act which was equal to predatory pricing. The hue and cry soon took an entirely different color when major operators jumped into the arena for the fear of losing customers.

Now the story has taken a new turn once again with the misuse of lifetime validity schemes by small inbound call centers.

In India, putting up a small ten seat call center with bare minimum infrastructure costs a whopping 45 lakhs, a large sum for small operators who work on a shoe string budget. If they switch to a more economical mobile phones working on the lifetime post paid cards, they can get the same work done at a price as low as Rs 9,990 per month. Small call centers operating for credit card processing, product information, direct TV response, sales lead processing, technical support can have a field day using this scheme as it gets their work done at an unbelievably low price.

Experts feel that a small ten seat call center can only operate smoothly if it is well oiled by a sturdy infrastructure and has funds to feed its monthly $1 lakh operating budget. This center can easily accommodate more work force at no incremental cost what so ever.

In this case the monthly expenditure on each employee will be around $3,000.On the other hand a “mobile” call center with a handset costing a low Rs 5,000 can result in enormous savings. Moreover the players can enjoy the facilities of call forwarding, call divert and call waiting offered by the service providers. Of course they will have to put up computers and connect them through a stable internet connection but then again the costs will always be lower than a regular call center.

To set up a call center in India involves lengthy legal process. One requires an IPLC from an ILD operator and local leased line from any authorized Service provider. The permission to set up is given by the Department of Telecommunication. A 2MBPS 10km leased circuit costs Rs 25,000 per year as rent. In all a call centre telecom infrastructure complete with call recorders will cost $ 1, 50,000 to set up. Interestingly the operators have divided opinions about the matter. Some are wary of the new developments and keep an eye on such activities, while others are happy with the new business it is generating.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has taken the maters into its hands and has begun a study to find out the viability and sustainability of all such offers. They are not denying the obvious misuse of such offers and will soon come up with some answers. TRAI expects the final decision in this regard would be taken by February 2006.

Anuradha Shukla is a contributing writer from India. To see more of her articles visit her columnist page.