The Hindu Business Line : Sixteen BPOs in fray for Air India’s contact centre

New Delhi, Sept. 26 IBM Daksh, Aditya Birla, Wipro, First Source and Interglobe Technologies are among the 16 BPO companies that have shown an interest in participating in the maiden contract by Air India to provide round-the-clock contact services for domestic and international callers.

Other companies that have thrown their hat into the ring for the mega contract include Spanco, Quatrro BPO, Infovision, VCustomer. All these companies attended a pre-bid meeting held earlier this week in Mumbai and are learnt to be gearing for submission of the bids by October 6, the last date set by the airline.

The airline, which plans to offer the contract initially for three years, which is further extendable by another two years, has projected a requirement of 500 seats for domestic operations and 100 seats for international operations at the contact centre.

Eligibility

The eligibility criteria laid down in the RFP stipulates a minimum annual turnover of Rs 50 crore in the last two consecutive financial (2005-06 and 2006-07) from contact centre business.

The move to have an integrated contact centre comes as the newly merged airline looks to expand its wings both globally and domestically. Air India, the new name given to the airline created by merging Indian and Air India, operates to 120 destinations in India and abroad with an annual passenger carriage of more than 14 millio. It plans to increase operations within India, UK, Europe, Canada, and Gulf apart from expanding its flights to new routes in Australia, South Africa and South America.

Overseas focus

A new hub in Europe and trans-Atlantic operations is also under consideration. Premium non-stop international flights will be Air India’s focus overseas.

The pre-qualification criteria requires the vendor to have existing contact centre in Mumbai or Delhi for providing various services to the airline customers. For out-bound services, the service provider would look at pre-flight and post-flight checks, initiate calls for flight delays through multiple channels (SMS, IVRS and calls), and provide tele and direct marketing of NACIL products.

Other requirements include payment gateway for revenue collection and disaster recovery solutions. “The service providers have been asked to give details of existing and new solutions for revenue collection towards the sale of tickets through these call centres,” sources said.

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