1. What is involved in setting up a basic call center?
A basic call center requires the following :
a) Telephone lines.
b) Phone instruments.
c) Computer with database.
d) Printer.
2. What are the different technical components involved in it (In terms of software and hardware)
A basic call center requires the following :
a) International Private Leased Circuit.
b) Modem.
c) Multiplexer unit for packet comression / decompression.
d) ACD / IVR for auto call distribution and IVR for handling calls in wait and interactive voice response based call routing
e) Predictive Dialer (with dialing software and dialer management modules) for making automated bulk dials for the agents , and forward only voice response calls and thus manage the calling intelligently.
f) Telephone Headsets with dialpads / consoles.
g) Lead server for lead management (with Reporting software).
h) Call barge-in equipment.
3. Why is it that everybody keeps talking about setting up call centers outside US is cheaper (like Canada/Ireland/India etc..) I understand, it could be cheaper in terms of setting up infrastructure or personnel but how would you handle the costs of calls?
Setting up a call center in India is economic is but just a myth as on date when we see it in comparison with a foreign end setup. The advantage lies in the fact that Indian executives are extremely productive and that generates a high level revenue in the company.
4. Make it transparent to the user that they would call a number is US but it would get transferred to an offsite location in a different country and viceversa? Wouldn't the cost of calls get very high?
The cost of calls would not be high coz the calling would happen on a IPL voice circuit. The voice circuit can be 1 MB / 2 MB , each voice channel on the circuit takes 8KB so 1 MB of bandwidth would give 128 Voice channels (128 simultaneous agents) and 2 MBPS the double 256 voice channels. The IPL high bandwidth voice circuit is far cheaper than individual 128 / 256 PNT lines.
For any further queries you can contact me at
manojkrpatel@hotmail.com
Regards
Manoj Patel.