Could you give us a brief overview on the industry outlook for Contact Centers in the Asia region today?
David Toh (DT): The Asian region is experiencing sustained growth as the infrastructure is more developed. More Asian based operations are realizing the need for contact center services combined with MNC’s which have turned to Asia as an operations hub for these services.
More Asian countries are adopting broadband and Internet services and this has actively improved quality of call center technologies, more attention is given to training and development of manpower for contact centers combined with Asia’s unique language capabilities.
Our multi lingual society is a big attraction, even more so with the strength of our English language skills. As is known widely, Asia also offers large corporations lower operating costs and quality services. The operating expenses can be kept at a low on this side as the base salary for agents are lower compared to developed countries and the population base allows for more contact center seats to be filled at a lower cost. Most active countries are India, China and Phillippines in terms of client base and call center seats available.
More so, the trend is moving from the traditional FSI and Telco clients to other industries which are grasping the importance of CRM services, like governments, automobile service providers and even healthcare as a way to send reminders and display transparency as well as reach and service clients in a more efficient way.
The contact center industry will experience more growth in the outbound sector and as an overall view, I would expect at least 18.7% growth year on year until 2010.
What are the emerging market/technology trends you have noticed in the Asia region with regards to Enterprise Business Communications(EBC)?
DT: EBC carries a different set of requirements compared to contact centers. This is purely for operational needs of enterprises. The development of mobile workforce is rapid and the need for business communications tools that go across the board has increased. There is more acceptance to IP technology, mainly for two reasons- reduction of costs and increase in productivity. Costs reduction will be witnessed through lower international call costs and low or free inter site call costs.
The IP technology allows for conversion of email/ fax/ sms under one unified messaging platform. With the consolidated system, users will be able to respond to more enquiries even if they are on the move and receive important documents and messages no matter where they are.
The adoption rate will grow at least at 20% year on year. Its also encouraging to see that besides MNC’s, local conglomerates are taking up IP communications quite seriously and applying the multiple site, single system advantage of EBC.
As internet and mobile penetrations sky rocket in the Asian markets, customers today prefer to communicate using various mediums besides phone calls i.e. text messaging, emails, instant messaging. How can contact centers use these multimedia applications effectively to increase customer satisfaction?
DT: The general landscape is moving towards multimedia. Even on an individual basis, we use mobile phones, emails, instant messengers and so on. The idea of multimedia services is to ensure that productivity by the staff is increased through various communication modes and monitoring is made easy for the management.
As an example, response level to inquiries by customers received via any medium can be monitored by supervisors. If the enquiry does not receive the necessary attention by the stipulated time, the system allows re-routing of request to available agent and records the inactivity of the first agent for the supervisor’s knowledge. This allows for faster problem shooting and allows management to identify areas of problem. More so, multimedia applications will ensure consistency of experience for customers, e.g. if a customer were to call in/ email/fax or sms an enquiry, the respond time for it is the same as the contact center is well equipped to handle all these mediums.
What are the growing challenges and issues that plague Unified Communications(UC)?
DT: The main challenge is that the UC package does not have a fixed set of services which is common to all solution providers. Each provider either software based, hardware based or individual providers like Interactive Intelligence will offer different definitions which can confuse the customers.
Also there is the matter of disparate platforms within an organization which needs integration through UC. Most companies would not realize that all their departments will cross paths at some point and therefore they generally apply UC to only their major areas of operations.
Another growing challenge would be the customer’s view of UC services itself; this is due to the general perception that UC is merely a convergence of different communication tools of messaging. The truth is, UC exceeds the simple process of convergance and should translate to deliver real business value to customers. The customers should see it as a contributing factor to reduced costs, effective CRM services and increased productivity.
How is Interactive Intelligence (ININ) addressing these problems?
DT: ININ is a stand alone UC provider; we build our packages from scratch with Business Process Automation in mind. BPA is basically a system used to tie up all processes in an administration, we at ININ ensure that when a UC system is installed, it ties up all the existing disparate platforms, individual platforms, open platforms to ensure that all systems within the organization is tied in to one another. ININ’s system allows flexibility and ease of use.
Hosted Contact Center (HCC) solutions, which were once targeted towards Small and Medium Businesses, are now becoming a point of interest for organisations of all sizes. What do you think is driving the market for hosted applications in Asia?
DT: The key element is OPEX rather than CAPEX. HCC solutions are currently going through the normal product phase from awareness-leaders adoption- wait and see- and mass adoption.
Currently, most of the industry players are in the awareness stage. I have to say that HCC is here to stay. The driving force behind adoption would be the simple reason that a hosted system will eliminate the need for maintenance of physical systems in the premise, lesser management need and reporting services provided by Host Company. The need to develop contact center peripherals and hiring of IT personnel to manage it is nil. The system provided by the hosts takes care of all these needs and the systems are ready to use via the Internet. These kind of services is attractive to SMB as it is cost effective and easy to implement without the need for maintenance resources, for organizations of bigger capacity and size, the added benefit of the flexible agent staffing and idea of no hardware taking up space is a big attraction.
What are the benefits that a virtual contact center presents to (a) the business and (b) to the customers?
DT: IPCC offers businesses the capability of deploying a single management, multiple location structure that will ensure maximized use of agent resources. Calls for a particular location can be answered from agents in a separate location if the lines are busy, as IPCC allows for such transfer services to ensure efficient and timely service. The IPCC system also offers lower infrastructure and maintenance cost.
What are the key challenges that come with deploying and maintaining a hosted contact center infrastructure in Asia?
DT: Key challenges for deployment would most certainly be the ongoing implementation of broadband services in Asian countries. This would take a period of time for full implementation and stabilization of services.
The HCC would develop alongside this. And of course, the HCC services as well is in the awareness stage, once users are more aware and see results from early adopters, the service will gain momentum and be accepted widely. The Asian region has tremendous potential for Contact Center and Hosted Centers.
Which countries in the Asian region do you as early adopters of hosted contact center services? Why is this so?
DT: Similar to the biggest contributor of call center seats, China, India and Philippines will be the early adopters of this technology. This is simply because the volume of business that they do encourages simplification of processes and fast implementation. HCC will provide that for them.
Moving forward, what are the future challenges you see with a hosted contact center environment?
DT: When adoption of this technology is high, prices by providers will be forced down by mass market demand. There will be an influx of providers as the system becomes more affordable and easier to deploy. Another challenge would be the rising request for pricing on demand by customers. Currently a call center environment is set up for a fixed number of seats as it involves software and hardware installations.
However in the case of HCC, since there is no need for the peripherals, the system is deemed flexible to accommodate active agents at the time only. E.g. if the day shift requires 100 agents, the provider will bill for 100 seats, however the same customer might only need 30 seats for the night shift, therefore due to its virtual element, the client would request for a 30 seat billing for the second session. This would probably be the challenge rising in the future when the system is widely adopted. |
