“You dare not disturb me over my dinner; just get the heck out of my life”

“Oh son, I’ve got my turkey in the oven, I’ll talk to you later”

“Momento no Englis’, espan’ol, espan’ol”

OUCH…! Not a new sentence, or feeling for an average call center agent. It doesn’t really matter where the calls are being made to or where from, Bangalore to Hyderabad, Karachi to Islamabad, and Melbourne to LA. Distant marketing and customer solutions have been around for quite sometime, and in last half a decade have become something of a Mexican wave with a contagious affect attached to it.

BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) in particular has taken the global business by storm and continues to grow in terms of its international appeal and revenue chunk that it contains within. In India only, Call / Contact Center Industry has earned more Foreign Exchange than any other industry in last 3 years’ time, more than what their much celebrated Software Industry has managed. This is all due to a detailed and intricate planning on part of Indian government which ensured while entering an industry, not to just have stars and question marks, but to convert those into cash cows and milk them in best of manners.

According to Evelyn Iritani from ’Indian Express’, Pakistan would be hard pressed to make anyone’s list of best places to do business. In saying such Iritani ignores the fact that there has been a huge movement towards the BPO sector in Pakistan in recent years, as to boost its appeal as a high tech-hub, the Pakistani government has provided a 15 year tax exemption on software exports, eliminated duties on technology imports and streamlined the investment process, reiterates Iritani.

Though Pakistan has been slow to start off from this BPO revolution, it is vying a spot in the international market with efforts such as mentioned by Iritani, and also as Rafi-Uddin- Shikoh mentioned is his write up regarding PSEB and call center revolution in Pakistan, that Pakistan has already started offering regulatory incentives such as 100% foreign ownership, tex exemption till 2016, 7 years tax holiday for venture capital (VC) funds.

Primarily, purpose of this article is to highlight one of the basic ingredients of the contact / call center industry, which stands on strong grounds provided by a detailed infrastructure, efficient and effective support services including staff and hardware, and the front line customer interaction agents, which in clear and concise manner are called the Customer Services Representatives (CSRs) at least in Pakistan, as I have discovered.

Having worked with one of the very few, established and much celebrated BPO units in Islamabad, Touchstone Communications in both operations and supports functions I enjoy a comfort zone knowledge level regarding the CSRs, and their everyday life.

Life cycle of an average CSR starts from the point of his / her induction program, which I will base upon my experience in the call center industry, as to say when their appears an advertisement in the newspaper “Work in America without leaving your homeland”. Now how tempting would that be?

It all starts with an initial interaction with one of the HR personnel, who would after having a telephonic conversation, deem you fit enough for a personal interview. In doing so, you have actually made an impression of being able to carry out a confident telephonic conversation, a basic criterion for a call center agent. During your initial HR interview, you will management an agent has to undertake at relatively a young age, since average age of the agents varies hovers between 18-25. This also includes the in dependability of being self financed, not to be carried away with the fact that one is making as much as some seasoned government employee would be by the end of 12 years of his service. Within itself, it is a big statement, and enough to make anyone’s mind go on an ego flight.

Second factor as I mentioned a lot of peer pressure in regards to the social profile that an agent has, and alternatively wants to maintain, which normally do not match each other. The amount of peer pressure present in call centers industry is enough to make a raw soul turn into an established smoker, avid night-outer and stuff affiliated to it. But the hard fact of life is that anyone who has made up his mind to stick to work will able to make a profile for him, and will always be known for not succumbing to such force called “Peer Pressure”.

Working at a US based call center in heart of the Federal Capital, it is heartening to see development of agents from mere entry level telemarketers to positions such as Project Managers, Operations Directors, Human Resource Personnel, Training Coordinators, Accent Neutralization Coordinators. These are just the Initial settings of an agent’s strategic plans, if anyone has some, because it is just not a Phone Monkey that I wanted to be when I joined Touchstone Communication. Having a business degree under my belt, I wanted to progress through the ranks of a the front line staff, but after acquiring considerable knowledge about the system and set up, so wanted to be part of strategic marketing, and human resource plans, I had to actually get to know the basics, the tricks of the trade, as they say, “A thief knows what a thief does”.

For that matter I had to start & serve as that thief, before actually managing such or being responsible for such. As the call center industry expands, and takes it’s roots in Pakistan, there will be great emphasis on career building in call centers not just the best ones, but it’ll become a hallmark of call/contact center industry to provide professionals to business media, IT super dudes, Immaculate Sales staff, and extremely talented conversationalists. To see this industry as just a few hundred people sitting within their cubicles, and dialing to remote locations of the world would simply be a fool’s vision, because this is a start, where young professionals get hands on training and grueling working hours to ensure strength in mental and moral grounds.

As much debate as we want to get ourselves into, the hard fact is that Call Center or Contact Center Industry, according to Farukh Aslam, Vice President Touchstone Communications, Islamabad, is a $600 billion mega pie, And Pakistan’s share to this date is not even a meager $10 million. And to make sure we get not just that $10
Million share, but more than that, we will have to Ensure that our grass root strategies are aligned to actually support such ventures where Pakistan without a doubt out classes India in terms of the quality of its Contact Center Agents, and just with the right kind of Human Resources and policies to own such talents, Pakistan could well be in the hunt for this huge $600 billion pie, which currently India, Jamaica, & Sri Lanka are simply having fun with.

As the call center industry expands, and takes it’s roots in Pakistan, there will be great emphasis on career building in call centers not just the best ones, but it’ll become a hallmark of call/contact center industry to provide professionals to business media, IT super dudes, Immaculate Sales staff, and extremely talented conversationalists.

The writer served as HR Assistant in Touchstone Communications at Islamabad and is now completing his M. Phil in Human Resource (HR) from Sydney, Australia.