Dispelling The Misconceptions In The Call Center Business

The Philippines is currently the next hottest destination for business process outsourcing after India. There are several call centers and other business process outsourcing ventures operating in the country right now. A proof of this is when you look at the classified ads section of every Philippine newspaper, you can notice that more than half of the available jobs pertain to business process outsourcing. Another proof of this is the growth of our export sector despite the dwindling dollar. With these in mind, it looks like getting into the call center business will be very lucrative.

Due to this development, we thought of putting up a call center. However as we studied the call center business more extensively, we learned a lot of things that dispelled our misconceptions about call centers. These are as follows:

1.) A Call Center business still follows the traditional business processes - A misconception about putting up a call center business is that it spells instant big bucks in a short period of time. This is definitely not true. While it is true that the demand in the market for call center is so huge, however it does not necessarily translate to instant profits.

According to the study presented to us, it is only in the second year that the call center starts to profit. In the first year, losses or a break even has to be incurred first. This is similar to any kind of business. You can't expect to profit immediately. There is a window of time where sacrifices have to be made. Just like any traditional business you have to have a good management team. A lot of small time call center operations have been shutdown due to bad management. Most importantly your Human resource has to be very good as this is one of the most important departments of the call center operations.

2.) Operating a Call center requires intensive Capitalization - Most people believe that putting up a call center requires very much little capitalization. After all you just rent a small space, put up a bunch of computers hook it up to internet connection and viola !!! You can now begin operating right ? Wrong !!! Operating a call center requires intensive capitalization. The dialing software alone cost more than a million pesos. Add to that the computers, plus you have to get licensed copies of Windows XP. You have to set up a server, a good stable and fast internet connection, hook up the wires, buy i.p telephones that call center agents will use.

3.) Intensive marketing is required in call center operations- "Build it and they will come" is the attitude of some who starts to get build a call center. They think that because there is so much demand for call centers then if they simply build it, clients will come. This is absolutely wrong. The demand is not just for call centers but for "reputable call centers." Being reputable means you can deliever what your clients expects you to deliever. However since you are still new in the call center business, you have to market yourself extensively that you are indeed "reputable."

Big players in the industry have no problem with that. Clients immediately sign up to them because the have already established a name. But what about small players ? They usually only get the outbound. (Outbound refers to call center agents calling persons abroad trying to sell something or offering a service while inbound refers to catering to the needs of already existing clients of big companies who are outsourcing their services) There is money to be made in outbound but the problem is most outbound agreements are usually performance basis. So if your agents are good at selling or convincing people to buy your client's products or services than you make money. If not, then you loose. It may take some time for small players to establish themselves as reputable and trustworthy with the outbound before clients entrust them with the inbound.

With all these in mind, before you jump into the bandwagon of the business process outsourcing industry especially call center operations, think before you leap !

Article Source: http://www.search4allinfo.com

Zigfred Diaz may not blog about business process outsourcing all the time, but he blogs on business and entrepreneurship from time to time. He also blogs about investments, money management and How to invest in the Philippine stock market.

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