Call centres edge up value-chain, focus on voice-based services

Prachi Verma in New Delhi

Indian call centre industry is moving higher up on the value chain with most call centres increasing focus offering voice-based facilities against pure Web facilities to reap higher revenues.

Nasscom estimates is that of the 100 operational call centres throughout the country, 60 are voice-based. Further, the remaining Web-based call centres are likely to move on to voice-based facilities that can generate almost four times higher revenues, according to experts.

“Web-based call centre will fetch revenue of $2-4 per hour compared to $15-20 per hour of revenue generated on in-bound calls by voice-based facility. Definitely, most of new projects are opting for voice-based facilities that can generate almost four times higher revenues against to Web-based facility,” Sapphire, managing director, Mahender Saxena, said.

Sapphire is a call centre consultancy firm based in Delhi, handling mostly voice-based call centre projects.

Web-based centres are viable business propositions for those players who want to put in low investments in call centre business as Web-based centre needs almost 80 per cent less investments than a voice-based facility, added Saxena.

On an average, a 100-seater call centre will require an investment of Rs 10 crore, while a Web-based centre with same capacity will require almost Rs 5 crore, according to experts.

Citi Corp-funded ATS Services, with a capacity of 100 seats, is doing voice and transaction processing for financial and insurance companies.

ATS Services is working for three multinationals in the area of banking and insurance. “Our present clientele have never been too keen on Web-based services, but are keen on voice services, which offers higher valued services” ATS Services, managing director, Tushar Chopra, said, adding that by month-end the company will be adding another 100 seats for voice-based services.

Flex, which has a 650-seater call centre, of which only 250 seats are operational, is also working to rope in new clients for its voice-based facility.

The company currently has two US-based clients and is in talks with companies from UK and Canada. It is undergoing product training projects for voice-based services and in the first week of October, Flex will go live with its call centre.

“To begin with, we will concentrate only on two shifts of voice-based services and not Web-based services as voice services earn more revenue than Web-based services,” Flex Group, vice president, Atul Mehrotra said.

Flex contact centre is negotiating for a billing rate of $50 per hour per seat from its client. The company intends to accomodate Web services targeting the lower end companies in future in its spare time in the form of offering e-mail sorting services and help desk facility.