Tips for Reducing The Cost in Call Centers


It is a continuous thought priority to all call centers to know how they can save money in their contact centers and throughout their operations.

Few tips which is step by step to go for the cost reducing

Make a Team: Make a team which will do the review. Because call centers efforts are heading for at customer service, process improvement and potential cost reduction, form a team that can bring different disciplines to the process. Also include general training and quality training, human resources, center scheduling, telecom traffic, IT, marketing, and returns and replacement if all of these areas are within responsibilities.

Take the opinions and input of all of team members. Challenge them to assess how things could be done differently, and make them answer the question, “How can costs are reduced without lowering the standard of customer service?” These meeting we can keep in the starting of the year to set up the target.

Marks the Achievements: By marking your achievement, it will be indicator to know the performance measures up against set standards and plans. The major achievements include contacts per hour; service level; abandon rate; attrition/turnover rate; call-handle time; talk time; after-call work time; contact-to-order ratio; transaction volumes for Internet, phone and mail; non-phone volumes and others.

Review: Labor’s cost, quality and availability is becoming an issue for many call centers, particularly in seasonal businesses where the selling curve is more compressed. Review advertising media costs and results, and exchange information with other human resource departments. Review pre-hiring testing, employee selection criteria and practices. By review process we can know the possible improvements and cost reductions for the process. It will help us to know more about a place for temporary agencies rather than relying completely on in-house hiring.

Revenue Generation: As part of their mission, many contact centers are charged with becoming revenue centers in addition to taking orders and providing customer service. By revenue generation reports we can show about success with cross-selling, up-selling, outbound selling and increasing the company’s average orders. It will be really help full for the cost saving in call centers.

Labels: call center, call centers

- posted by Maria Richards @ 11:10 PM

 
ERP gets easier for SMB
Good news for the small medium business (SMB) for which you must be waiting from long time. Now the ERP gets easier for the SMB. A few years back the Enterprise resource planning (ERP) was a self-important expression with expensive software to match. ERP is helpful for the managers to do their responsibilities more efficiently, boost sales and reduce costs. ERP is business management system that gives a support to the mangers of the companies to command of data and workflows to get the clear report of each factors of the business.

The essential part of the business like planning, manufacturing, sales and marketing are also cover with ERP. It also covers activities like inventory control, order tracking, customer service, finance and human resources. For example, ERP software can automatically indicate to the managers when it notices that stocks have gone down in a sales depot. Dealing with the suppliers is sometimes very difficult for the managers but with ERP it will be easier for a company manager to deal with suppliers.

ERP software is now available in much cheaper rate for small business also because now a day’s number of computer users is increasing day by day. A large group of people are using various kind of software to manage all the official details. ERP software, once a privilege for the global multinational, is available on much cheaper rates.

SaaS (Software as a Service) – It is refer to renting of software over the Internet, much like Web based e-mail. SaaS is also contributing to software becoming cheaper and easier to use. Industry officials say the emergence of SaaS and cheaper ERP software has dramatically lowered the barrier for users. Top ERP solution providers are now targeting just about every company, size no bar Consider the case of SAP, the global leader in ERP software, which once was associated largely with multinational giants.

On November 21, 2007 SAP India announced record-breaking quarterly growth for the third quarter of 2007 with the addition of more than 714 new customers till September 2007, translating to more than two new customers per work day in 2007. "A growing SMB (small and medium business) market, opportunistic investors, and middleware technologies converge to make the SMB market for ERP applications one of the most competitive environments for market growth and product innovation within enterprise applications," ---- Says Gopakumar Sivanandan of SAP India.

A spokeswoman for rival Oracle India spokesperson agrees. "Mid-sized companies are driving India's GDP growth today," she says. Microsoft recently launched Microsoft Dynamics NAV designed specifically for medium sized companies.

“Dynamics NAV delivers integrated functionality to support solutions for financial management, supply chain management, CRM and E-Business." According to Sushant Dwivedy from Microsoft India,

For small and medium enterprises sometimes it was very hard to pay the cost at one time.
Earlier it was required Rs 10 to 15 lakhs can be done at a fraction of the price for ERP software. Though it must be that renting out software involves a recurring cost every month. The onetime cost of an ERP package needs returning costs in training and support and to that extent, renting the ERP software over the Web could be a lot better Consider.

The cost of the ERP for SMB is available for three users at Rs 25,000 a month, for five users at Rs 35,000 a month and 10 users at Rs 60,000 a month. No hardware, no personnel, no software cost is required in addition to this. Oracle and SAP have attractive pricing that make affordability a huge attraction. Oracle starts at as low as Rs 2,800 per user license, though it calls for implementation and support cost Much cheaper versions are also available from the Open Source movement, which uses operating systems based on free, modifiable platforms like Linux. Source – HT Times

According to market researcher Gartner, revenues from business platforms in India grow from $12.1 million in 2005 to $16.4 million in 2006, with all leading vendors posting double-digit growth. The Indian ERP market is expected to see a CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of 25.2 per cent over the next five years. The market was $83 million in 2004, and is projected to be over $250 million in 2009.

Labels: call center, call centers

- posted by Maria Richards @ 12:17 AM

 
Is your turnover rate unacceptably high?


Some companies are realizing that their call center staffing processes are not only inefficient, they are also very costly. Many are seeking an alternative and are turning to RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing) as an option. Recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) is a growing trend in which companies outsource all or part of their hiring functions to find better-quality people to staff your call center. RPO can be used successfully to fulfill a range of hiring needs for organizations; and is particularly well suited to call centers. Specifically, RPO delivers benefits for call center operations that include sourcing higher-quality candidates, improving fill ratios and “show rates”, decreasing turn-over, and reducing hiring costs.

Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) is a form of business process outsourcing (BPO) when an employer outsourcers or transfers all or part of the staffing process to an external service provider.

An RPO engagement can be structured in one of three ways depending on the needs of the company: Enterprise, Selective or Project RPO.

In Enterprise RPO, the partner manages the entire process across all skill categories and all locations. Selective RPO involves managing a subset of locations or a subset of recruiting processes, such as sourcing, screening, interview scheduling or offer letters.
In Project RPO, the RPO provider delivers hires for a one-time hiring project.

In all three scenarios, a dedicated RPO team works directly with the hiring manager to create a tailored program to meet the call center’s specific needs. The team can work on-site at the client’s locations, off-site in its own facility or a combination of the RPO Benefits

Organisations that partner with RPO specialists can realize a range of significant and sustained business benefits, all of which can be measured.

These benefits include--

Securing the best talent: Competition for the most talented individuals is increasing. Organizations need to secure the best people quickly and efficiently to help them build competitive capability.

Cutting recruitment costs: By transforming processes, utilizing best practice, and replacing a fixed cost base with a variable charging structure, RPO can significantly reduce the cost of recruitment.

Removing the administrative burden:RPO providers take on the burden of operational recruitment activities, making organizations free to focus on value-creating and strategic activities.

Delivering higher quality services:There are many stakeholders in a recruitment process; through improving processes and measuring experience and outcome, RPO providers can demonstrate highest quality services.

Mitigating operational risks:Risks come in many forms, and the expert knowledge of an RPO specialist can help organizations mitigate the risks associated with an inability to scale their business operationally to meet changing market demands, and the risks of non-compliance to legislative and regulatory change.

The more sophisticated and experienced RPO providers will also have a system of “forward-looking” analytics to ensure that hiring goals will be met for each “hiring class.” This predictive process analyzes how many candidates are in the pipeline.

How to hire an RPO provider

If you think an RPO partner could measurably improve the quality of your call center hires while containing costs, research several firms and choose carefully. The field is expanding quickly but there is a wide range of experience, knowledge and track record of success/failure. Specifically, you may want to ask potential providers some key questions, including--

How many RPO clients do you have?
How many hires do you support annually?
What experience do you have with call centers? And what types of call centers?
What percentage of your clients is reference able?
Are your recruiters dedicated to one client or do they work on multiple clients at the same time?
Do you have the flexibility to scale up and down as my needs change?
What is your client renewal rate?

As call center recruiting, hiring and retention remains a challenge for many companies, RPO is emerging as an important option. With turnover down. Significantly decreasing costs -- an increasing number of call center and human resources professionals have embraced RPO as an innovative strategy and a smart business decision.


- posted by Maria Richards @ 3:11 AM