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Sumeet Kaul

`Technology advances threaten call centres.' - Listen to what was said for and against this line at the recent Nasscom meet.

ADVANCES in technology can kill a company's hold on a marketplace.

Even if that sounds like old hat, the call centre industry may have a thing or two to watch out for. N.R. Narayana Murthy, Chairman and Chief Mentor of Infosys, caused a flutter at the recent Nasscom 2005 conference by suggesting that call centres would become obsolete due to voice recognition technology gaining credence.

Others don't agree.

"Impossible," said S. Nagarajan, COO of 24/7 Customer, a Bangalore-based call centre.

"Translating voice into text is one thing, but comprehending and putting it into context is completely different. For it to come mainstream will take several years."

According to Raman Roy, Chairman and Managing Director of Wipro Spectramind, human intervention will not be replaced.

N. Ranjit, COO of HCL BPO, draws an interesting parallel with the Indian software industry: A majority of jobs before 2000 were related to Y2K, and later moved on to higher-end skills such as coding and testing. The BPO industry is witnessing a similar maturing, with companies beginning to shift from voice-based to transaction-based processes.

"Finally, the shift will be towards knowledge-based outsourcing," he said.

Shanker Bora, Senior Manager (Marketing) of Global Telesystems, a Mumbai-based call centre, said that voice recognition software is still a `long-term game.'

Possibly, lower-end work at call centres, such as transcribing, may be affected by the change in technology. However, that most contact centres require some kind of human intervention is the general verdict.

"Technical help needs a human voice," said Roy.

However, he admitted, lower-end call centre jobs could be affected by the new technology. Besides, as Ranjit said, call centres are broadly divided into two kinds — inbound and outbound.

Voice recognition software will not affect outbound operations such as telemarketing and collections, which invariably need a person calling out.

"Only certain types of inbound call centres, like bookings, may be affected."

Nagarajan said: "Telemarketing can never be replaced (by voice recognition technology)."

Putting the human voice versus technology issue into perspective, Bora said, "In our interaction with customers calling up inbound call centres, we have seen people prefer the human touch and feel."

Ranjit said that customers calling in call centres are always impatient to get in touch with a human voice, especially when it comes to technical queries.

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