Possible Offshore Solutions

[Athomas]

My firm is looking at possible offshore solutions to handle some of our call volume.

Does anyone have any experience dealing with offshore centers?
Are some areas better than others?
Is cost consistent across the board?
How are your customers reacting to the offshore agents?

[Clint]

Athomas,
I work for an outsourced vendor that provides domestic, near shore and offshore solutions. A few points of advice if you explore offshore (actually any outsourced arrangement):
1. I would recommend dealing direct. While joint ventures can work, I've heard many horror stories.
2. Due your homework - evaluate carefully; talk to multiple references; listen to live calls and not just the "hand picked agents" supplied by the outsourcer
3. Like anything, cost can vary significantly. Watch for "hidden costs". When comparing price, look at ALL cost elements involved ... not just a per minute, per contact or hourly labor rate ... training, set-up, reporting, programming, telecom, hardware/software, travel, etc. Many businesses consider outsourced work a "commodity", but be careful about jumping on the lowest bid ... you get what you pay for
4. Customer reaction to offshore ... I can share positive and negative stories ... several case studies/articles exist.

If you want to talk, please contact me:
Clint Sesow
402-486-4608
csesow@calltech.com

[Steve Turton]

Hello:

Also consider a Virtual Call Center. Tie this in with your own part time home based agents..... or maybe overflow your existing busy queues to other departments or branch offices during peak periods.

East to use, Easy to deploy.... and you remain in control.

Steve@telax.com

[sunnyC]

Hi thomas,
Have been an offshore consultant for a while now and my experience has been good. talking about the Indian market and the Phillipines, they seem to be the most cost efficient and talent is enormous.
All that one need to take care off is do the proper due diligence. You have good centers and bad ones.
The cost is very less, you can easily get a center to handle extra calls i.e ( that is Inbound 24/7 if required) at 10 to 12$/hr. Training should be onsight and a manager from your side is all that is required to minitor them which is essential.
What i believe is that any businesss we talk about there are risks involved and one can never eliminate them all we can do is reduce them.
Offshoring is good and beneficial and essential as of today.
nitpo@softhome.net

[mmacneilly]

There are many facets to exploring this question. There are communities in the US that can be very cost competitive and at the same time avoid the stigma of taking jobs out of the country. I would be very happy to share detailed information on localities and facilities in the US. Please contact me.

[michaelk]

I would like the opportunity to discuss DecisionOne with you. We have domestic, near shor and off shore centers that are available.

I can be contacted at 636-978-6238.

Thanks,

Mike

[Raj Sharma]

Hi ! Mr Thomas
I represent one of the Major Call Center in India. We are into this business from past 5 years and we have similar experience.

Regards
Raj Sharma
0091-9899874666

[Hello Tech]

Hello there!


We have an offshore call center in Pakistand and are currently doing projects for inbound and telemarkeeting. We are even generating leads for a client based in Uk from all over Europe. Please let me know if we can help you out. We definatly can save you money as compare to local call centers.

My USA numbers are 1 305 728 6448 and 1 404 795 2512. Hope to hear from you soon. Take care and thank you


Regards,

Zulfi

Director

[telebridge]

We are a Call center in PAKISTAN with two small locations, in Twincities capital Islamabad and Rawalpindi, each have around 35 seats. We have another setup of 25 agents under the stage of development.

The address of our Head is:

TELEBRIDGE Communications
The National Plaza
601-A, Lane-5
Peshawar Road
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
46000
Phone: +92 51 5460756
FAX: +92 51 5565002

Contact Persons

Mr. Muhammad Safder
Director
Phone: +92 51 5460756 CELL: +92 300 5123202
E-mail: safder@telebridgecomm.com

Javed Iqbal
Manager Operations
Phone: +92 51 5460756 CELL: +92 300 5223207
E-mail: javed@telebridgecomm.com

We have got collective experience of 6 years of Call center business. We have got expertise for both B2C and B2B, currently we are only doing B2B and B2C for US clients. The campaigns we are working on are, American Benefits Association B2B/B2C (Health discount card) On Demand electronics B2C (Free Give-away of different products when the customer join as a member), Access Integration Networks B2B (Almost same as CPS), we have also done Appointment settings for a janitorial services. Currently we are not doing any UK campaign. We have done a CPS for a UK telecom company called TRUE Communications B2B and we just had our contract finished with a UK ISP called GEO internet (Inbound) with a relation of almost 6 months. Currently we are doing mortgage lead Generation (USA, EQUIHOME Mortgage).
.

Seats Available : 35 for inbound/outbound

Currently we are on VoIP. With 2 standby routes to a main route. One of our route is A-Z.

We also have a standby Bandwidth in case of its breakdown.

We have in-house recording facility.

We also offer a remote call monitoring which is in Data format, even provides the details of the call quality.

For any further information please feel free to contact us.

Hope to have a fruitful relationship between us.

Kind Regards
Javed Iqbal
TELEBRIDGE Communications

[romsourcing]

if it may seem an opportunity for you to enter a partnership with a romanian outsourcing firm please do not hesitate to contact us:

www.romsourcing.com
e-mail: romsourcingap@yahoo.com
tel/fax: +40213148627

Thank you for your attention.

[Surabhi Nayyar]

Let me first introduce myself. I am Surabhi Nayyar and I am taking care of the business development activities at Paras Calltec Ltd.

Paras Calltec Ltd. is a well established Call Centre located in Gurgaon, the fastest growing suburb of New Delhi, India. It is a 100% internally funded operation with no dependance on external finance agencies. Our current capacity is 200 seats in a single shift ie. 600 seats in 3 shifts. We have had experience in running various campaigns like outbound telesales (both B2B and B2C), lead generation, appointment setting, inbound sales, surveys, inbound customer services and debt collections etc for clients in the US, UK and Canada.

You can visit our website at www.parascalltec.com.

You can contact me at the following numbers 91-124-2573592, 91-124-2573593 or alternatively also at 91-9899286000.

Best regards,
Surabhi Nayyar
Paras Calltec Ltd.

[shreya]

I represent an offshore call center, so perhaps my views will seem biased, but I would like to address your questions.

Dealing with offshore call centers can be a challenging process, since it involves a long-distance partnership between the firm looking to offshore and the offshore call center. It will not be like the flick of a switch. It involves continous interaction with the call center team firstly to make sure requirements are clearly understood, expectations are set and secondly to make sure the campaigns are proceeding smoothly and you are meeting your targets and receiving all the correct reports.

Some offshore centers may not have professional staff who are well versed with the business practices and expectations of the western world. In that case, it may prove not to be a fun experience.

However, assuming you have found the right offshore partner, the benefits are tremendous (including cost savings anywhere between 40%-70%).

To evaluate how customers react to the offshore agents, one must consider the success stories of some of the finest Fortune 500 companies like Citibank, American Express, GE, Microsoft and so on. If these companies can stay in business after offshoring, there must be something right about it.

Anyhow, it will be my pleasure to assist you and explore possible areas in which we can be of assistance to you and perhaps address some of your concerns. Please email me shreya@supersight.net and let me know. Thanks.