For or against India

Call centres in India have been such an incredible success, it may be worth reflecting on ‘why is this so?’ Interestingly, India was not always considered an outstanding choice.

On 20 February 2001, the world renowned call centre observer and Editor and Publisher of Call Centre Managers Forum, Neils Kjellerup, listed on his website a number of strong factors working against India.

Back then, Kjellerup suggested that for US firms going to India, “the business culture and the mix of Government intervention would be a cultural shock for Western business people with no previous experience of India.”

He stressed that the “lack of a call centre Industry and very few people with call centre experience will make it very hard to recruit call centre managers with proven track records.”

At the time he also listed other major hurdles including:

• The English spoken by Indians is a heavy dialect that is difficult for most Americans to understand;
• Customer service is very weak in India generally; and
• A great deal of the infrastructure in India is poor including electricity (where frequent blackouts happen every day) and generally inadequate telephony.

However, despite all these perceived problems, everyone now knows that over the last five years or so, India has boomed as a global call centre hub.

So what is it that makes call centres in India such an attractive option? Essentially, India has proved that it has a number of intrinsic strengths which make it a major success as an outsource destination for call centre work:

• A booming IT industry and IT strength recognised all over the world;
• The largest English-speaking population outside the USA;
• Western culture, freedom of expression and sound education; and
• A vast workforce of educated, English-speaking, tech-savvy personnel.

Interestingly, in a follow up article entitled, “The growing pains of India’s Call Centre Industry,” that appeared on 12 March 2004, Niels Kjellerup, pointed out that many of his early concerns about India had been overcome. However, where a US or Australian company wants to offer clients and prospects the best possible customer service, many people argue that India is not the place to go.

Today, Kjellerup sees the standout negatives in India as being:

• The poor culture of customer service is still a factor;
• It remains a struggle to actually train people to understand the service culture of the US, Europe or Australia;
• There remains a lack of Call Centre Managers with experience who have a vision of how a good Call Centre can be; and
• The language barrier of speaking English or American with a clearly distinguishable Indian accent is still a difficulty.

It seems the consensus is that for companies that gave poor customer service at home and who want to service clients for the least possible cost, India works out as an option. But with staff turnover sometimes as high as 60% per annum, it can be a continual struggle.

But for companies that place real value in their customer database, they are much better off with their call centre at home. If providing the best possible customer service is the primary goal, and managing the costs, only second in importance, then it is better to stay on shore and be able to keep closer control.

Some of the corporations that tried India, like GE Capital, Dell, American Express and Citibank have already repatriated the most sensitive of their customer service activities. It did not take them long to realise that customer service is not about phone calls, but about creating future revenue streams and retaining customers.