A call centre is the infrastructure to provide a range of services to customers over phone or internet. The objective of the centre is to reduce the customer churn by providing better care at reduced costs.

A Nasscom study says that the call centre industry today generates Rs 550 crore in revenues and employs 14,000 people. The sector, however, can offer much more. But call centres have become key customer touch-points and are a vital nexus where companies evolve personalised relationships with their customers.

Customer loyalty is one the critical factors in the success of a telecom company. A study by Harvard Business School indicates that increase in customer loyalty by five per cent will increase theprofitability by more than 25 per cent.

In fact, the customer churn rate is increasing and retaining them has become expensive. Well-integrated call centres will give agents a single view of the customer; better service will help customer retention and also allow cross-selling and up-selling. To maximise on each interaction with the customer, the call centre agents must have instant access to all information about every customer. Each interaction could be an opportunity to up-sell, cross-sell or get to know more about the customer.

SoftPlus Inc of the US, which has set up an Indian subsidiary, is seeking to address these needs of the market. "We are educating the users. The call centre trend is just beginning. The market is definitely in the early stages and hence, a lot of development activities," Vijay Uttarwar of SoftPlus said.

SoftPlus solutions enable call centres to turn into profit centres through systems' integration in two mission-critical areas. "By providing a convergent unified view of allenterprise information on the desktop of the call centre agent and extending this unified enterprise information platform to customers, dealers, suppliers and other agencies to re-engineer business processes," Uttarwar said. SoftPlus is planning to invest more than $1.5 million in its India development centre.

SoftPlus Unity suite of products will help the call centre work more efficiently. The average time to get the customer online is 46 minutes while with SoftPlus solutions this can be done in less than 15 minutes, claims Uttarwar.

Typically, the information regarding the customer is in various systems creating information islands by which the call centre agent does not have a complete picture of the customer.

SoftPlus Unity-ConnectEx product will help bridge these islands and get the single view of the customer. This helps the call centre agent sell additional products and services while helping the customer on some other problem call. By having the right information, a problem solving call can beturned into a revenue earning call.

Research firms like Aberdeen of the US say that call centres play a vital role in most organisations because they serve as the critical link between a company and its customers.

Call centre managers rely on advances in technology (frequently voice/data integration technology) to improve service and increase productivity. It may be some time later that the call centres adopt packet/IP telephony. They will have to adopt Web-based applications such as e-mail management, live chat and joint Web navigation.