The Hindu Business Line : Will DoT sops trigger better call centre services?

WITH the Department of Telecommunications recently allowing the use of common infrastructure for both domestic as well as international business processing outfits, it is hoped that this will improve the standard of domestic call centre services.

``We are hoping that DoT's permission for sharing of infrastructure will have some spill-over effect on the domestic call centre industry whose services are very, very bad and nowhere near the standards followed by the international ones here,'' said Mr Kiran Karnik, President, National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), at the sidelines of a recent function in the city.

Nasscom, had apparently, taken a lot of effort persuading DoT to allow infrastructure sharing.

Domestic call centre promoters and management, of course, would not like to admit that their services are bad, whereas international call centres do not want to make any adverse comment either, on their poor cousins.

``Domestic call centre quality standards are a bit of a joke,'' said Mr Darshan Shah, Chairman with BPO training company Karrox Technologies. ``I would not like to name anyone but any mobile telephone subscriber or credit card user can tell you that.''

One of the first indications is the time it takes for your call to be answered, he said. International call centres follow the norm of a maximum 30-second hold which is roughly 12 rings; whereas it is not uncommon for a domestic mobile phone or credit card user to hold on for even up to 10 minutes when he calls his customer help line. Sometimes his call is never answered, or the call cuts off automatically after a certain number of rings. ``And once the call is answered it does not take too long to discover that the employees are not trained either.''

One of the reasons is that domestic companies only get what they pay for. The difference could be as wide as Rs 5 for an answered call and $5 of $10 for a serviced international call. ``The call centre workers, their managers and everyone involved are ill-trained,'' said Mr Shah.

This differential also makes it unlikely that the recent DoT announcement will quickly make any difference. ``It would mean much lower margins to the BPO who is unlikely to be interested in domestic work,'' said Mr Shah.

Still, the industry, as Mr Karnik pointed out, is hoping that there will be a spill over effect from the DoT announcement.

Until now, the premises as well as telecommunication facilities used by international call centres could not be used for domestic purposes. One was that there were some concessions for what was considered an "export" activity. The other, and what the industry holds to be the more important reason was the fear that the telecommunication facilities could be used to make international calls bypassing licensed ILD operators such as Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd.

DoT now allows infrastructure sharing to "reputed" companies, with annual turnover of over Rs 500 crore, or promoter-group turnover of over Rs 1,000 crore. These companies have to submit a bank guarantee of Rs 1 crore, and a certificate from their software vendor that the EPABX/server in use shall bifurcate into two separate and independent environments for domestic and international call centres, ensuring that traffic shall not flow from PSTN (regular telephone connection) to International Private Leased circuits and vice-versa.

Domestic call centres are also allowed to use Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) for back-up of leased lines, but without any outgoing call facility, Outgoing calls however would be allowed from the domestic call centres using the local PSTN connections through the PABX of the domestic call centre. Leased lines will not be used for making outgoing calls.

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