Part - I

INTRODUCTION

Call centers are comparatively a recent introduction to the world of career options in India. The career avenues provided by call centers are one of the best-suited and growing option which even a fresher can opt for. With the opening up of the Indian economy and the advent of globalization more and more companies from abroad are basing or outsourcing their call centre services to India, a trend started by GE when it established a call centre near New Delhi in 1998.

A call centre is a service centre with adequate telecom facilities, access to Internet and wide database, which provide voice based or web-based information and support to customers in the country or abroad through trained personnel. Call centers exist in all sectors of business including banking, utilities, manufacturing, security, market research, pharmaceuticals, catalogue sales, order desk, customer service, technical queries (help desk), emergency dispatch, credit collections, food service, airline/hotel reservations etc. The wide area of services provided by the call centers makes it a lucrative career with a range of opportunities.

Traditionally, call centers meant only voice-based customer support. But now most call centers are more of a contact centre, offering e-CRM services that include voice based customer support as well as e-mail response, web-based text-chat services and other customer interaction channels. The call centre services can be 'inbound' where in calls are received from customers enquiring about a service or product that an organization provides. The call centre services can be 'outbound' where in calls are made to customers to sell products or collect information/money etc. Call centre services can also 'specialized' say in business processing where in calls are made from one company to another company.

Some call centers stick to only domestic businesses dealing with customers within the country called domestic call centers while others such as an International call centre mainly deal with clients from abroad say from US, Europe etc. There is a great scope for Call centers in India, with a large population of educated English speaking people. The wide range of opportunities, comparatively well paid jobs for the minimum qualification it requires and the facilities the companies provide like to and fro transport, subsidized meals and medical facilities makes Call centers a good option.

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* Contributed by -
Renu Misra,
Masters in Psychology (Univ. of Allahabad),
PGDHRM (Pondicherry Univ.),
Manager Placements-IMT Ghaziabad.