Survey shows drivers of Asian contact centers

MANILA, Philippines – The growth of value of existing clients, the improvement of efficiency and the acquisition of new clients are key commercial drivers of Asian-based contact centers.

These are the findings, among others, of the first online benchmarking survey for the contact center industry spearheaded by Data-craft, the leading independent IT services and solutions company in the Asia-Pacific.

The 2009 survey of more than 500 companies around the world, including Asia, studied current industry benchmarks such as staffing and training, performance metrics, technology usage, budgets and development plans.

It also focused on three integral aspects of a call center: the technical, the operational, and the commercial.

Whereas Datacraft’s 2008 survey was produced in print format, the online format was utilized for the 2009 survey in response to participants’ remarks that their main reason for participating in the study was to compare their performance to peer group businesses; another motive was to identify opportunities for cost reduction and performance improvement.

“The survey gives you a flavor of how the other contact centers look at things,” said Nagi Kasinadhuni, general manager for converged communications and customer interactive solutions of Datacraft Asia Pte. Ltd.

“It can also give you a measure of how your organization compares to others. All of the material is available online. The survey was done for the people who own contact centers or give business to them, and not conducted by a vendor for another vendor. The focus is on technology, operations, and agent training,” Kasinadhuni said.

Kasinadhuni added: “The survey also shows how Asia looks at call centers. We run it as a business and thus have a lot of best practices because we aim to satisfy our clients.”

To start, Asian call centers have more agents who are full-time employees while their Western counterparts tend to utilize part-time employees. The ratio also has one supervisor looking after 11 agents.

Salaries in Asian-based sites make up 54.4 percent of overall operational cost, in comparison to Australia and New Zealand’s 69 percent.

However, they also spend a lot more: two percent of overall operational cost on motivational and social events to keep their current staff engaged.

Another 3.3 percent of the overall budget is then used to train agents and staff. Classroom method is still regarded as the most effective method of trainin, with mentorship as second.

Call center managers also have a realistic expectation of their employees’ tenure. “Our respondents gave 29 months as their answer when we asked them their expected length of time for an agent to stay within their company after the recruitment,” Kasinadhuni said.

“Europe is about half a year behind. Contact centers in Asia look at the optimum period that they want the agent to be in their operation; their optimum and actual gap is not high. The current attrition rate of 23 percent is acceptable to most contact centers and have already factored in the cost,” Kasinadhuni said.

A wholly owned subsidiary of Dimension Data, Datacraft is headquartered in Singapore, and operates in more than 50 major offices and has over 1,450 employees across the Asia-Pacific market.

The company helps clients plan, build, support, manage, improve, and innovate their IT infrastructure. –(The Philippine Star)