Please help me!

[Thomas]

Dear All,

I am new here and this is my first thread. So I hope some kind soul out there will answer my query.

I am working as a Call Centre Manager in a MNC. Currently, my company has call centre around Asia Pacific. Each and every individual country has a call centre.
However, during a recent management meeting, the top management has requested us to look at centralizing the call centre either in China or Singapore. This would mean we will eradicate all call centres in each and every country and set up a regional call centre as a HUB in ONE country. The top management think by doing so, we will be able to cut down costs and increase revenue.

My questions are how can this be cost effective? Having oversea customers calling in is definitely more costly right? If I am a customer calling from Australia, wouldn’t it be cheaper if the call centre is in Australia? Setting up a regional call centre in Singapore would mean a Australia customer will now have to make a long distance call to Singapore and the hotline is toll free meaning we have to pay for all telco charges.

Can someone advise me why it is more cost effective to have a centralized regional call centre?

[n_meghanath]

The idea of centralizing any unit is to get a good grip on the unit and has a high chances of deducting the upper Middle Management Manpower cost significantly. Secondly the technological market competition is such that, you can no longer assume "long distance as high cost". depending on the volume of business I have seen bandwidth and mins cost as low as the best local rates. Third, there could be many intangible business advantages that may reflect on the oppurtunity areas.

Very less knowledge, common sense I would say.

[gkern]

I think the telco costs are going to get offset by the increase in utilization related to consolidating the operation. As an alternative, you could gain similar efficiencies by managing your call routing and staffing by handling the call routing as if you had one virtual center. You need the appropriate technology to do that, but that will buy you operational efficiency.

You may still have outstanding liabilities with the facilities related to the lease and employee termination that could offset your gains. There is also a potential quality issue with replacing tenured agents with new ones.

On a side note, we might be interested in the facilities should you shut them down, depending on what countries they are in.

You can reach me at gregory.kern@capgemini.com if you would like to discuss this in more detail.

[acaron1989]

One centralized call centre is very effective. Especially in a country where labor is cheaper. Not only does it cut back on staff. One building with everyone means less management salaries to pay and also less bills to keep each call centre running.

I am pretty sure savings in staffing and being able to keep one centralized policy in a single call centre would much outweigh the phone bill charges.

[ian.westley]

Hi Thomas

I would think that the costs of the incoming calls would be far cheaper than the infustructure of the various centres in different countries.

A couple of issues you will find is possible negative customer feedback when/if they realise they are not dealing with a person in their own country. However, with many companies based overseas, this can now be overcome. Also, the need to cover all timezones if your centres are not currently working 24/7.

Hope this helps.