CRM and ERP News

2007 has set in but to move towards to this year, we will stop and look back on what companies have made it in Doug Brown and Scott Wilson’s list.  The Black Book of Outsourcing is a best seller and has listed the 50 best managed global outsourcing vendors.

A survey was distributed electronically to customers, employees, buyers, contractors and users worldwide in early 2006 and closed in June last year.  What caught my interest is not only there was a list out there to use as a reference when picking a company to outsource your services to (or choose to work for), but was more of the number of employee respondents and its segregation.  It states, “Of employee respondents, 18.3% were management or supervisory level, 81.7% were non-management.”  A big chunk was not from management.

I read a post by Dr Catriona Wallace speaking of her experience when she visited a call center in Changi Women’s Prison, Singapore.  Having to learn of a nation called Bhutan was something to rejoice about; realizing that we expanded to other countries, but this is a first for me. It was to much my surprise that there was even one that existed.

I admit that negativity set in as soon as I finished reading.  This explains the questions that lingered in my thoughts.  How is it being managed?  What are the precautions?  What calls are they handling?  What type of recruitment or assessment does each candidate go through?  Are they being monitored like any other center?  How are they being trained?

Call volumes are expected to be high this week but not on Christmas Day.  Most centers would be staffed, incentives and food have been offered and little gift tokens were given.

I remember when I was an agent years ago, when I had to sacrifice personal time for work.   My family was not at all happy and they tried convincing me to skip work and even asked me if being an agent in a call center was the right job for me.  I explained and told them it wasn’t going to be permanent and wouldn’t miss Christmas the next time.  I also told them that customer service was my passion and love the fact that I’m helping people prepare their Christmas and I was there to make their lives easier on this holiday.  They smiled and let me go to work.

Yes, it is a sacrifice not a lot of people are willing to take.  But, there are agents, trainers, team leaders, quality personnel and management who are working today, not because of the bonuses.  It’s the same reason I was once at the office manning the phones.

To all of those working in the centers tonight – THANK YOU!  The gift of your time and effort is truly appreciated, from all of us in the world.  I believe a toast is in order. *clink*

A Merry Christmas to all of you!

It seems like there is a trend for call centers to hold office in malls lately.  Locally, I know about 5 outsourced contact centers that decided to rent space in a popular mall.  There are some that would rather rent in buildings near a mall instead.  Same problem though – high rent.

Why are they deciding to move there when rent is higher?

For TeleServices Direct, they opened their call center to bring life to a mall, which helped their business.  It has now increased its population.  Because of the number of people being employed in every center, a market is born!  You could say, it’s good for the real estate business as well.

This is one more reason why malls would accommodate these centers, sometimes offering a discount on their rent or a deal on purchases being made by call center personnel.  It then attracts centers to build, more savings, and good for the bottom line.