Hello Everyone,

I am contemplating,like many other visitors to this forum,to set up a small-medium sized call centre in Bangalore.Though i have worked in this industry for a while as a telemarekter myself,i would like some clarification on some technical issues.

What is the difference in performance and cost between the VOIP & IPLC approaches.Which is more stable,,reliable,scalable and cost effective.

Also based on what parameters should one form be chosen over the other???

Looking forward for some concrete information
regards,
mayur

Foremost difference - govt of india acknowledges and issues liceses to call centres operating under the iplc principal and discourages and refuses to officially acknowledge the existance of a web based call centre.
RAVI from new delhi

Hi ravi,

Thank you for pointing our the futility in going any deeper into this angle.Wonder why our govt is refusing.

anyways,thanx again.
regards,
mayur

Hi,

It seems like Govt. Of India, has no idea that call centers can also work using VOIP. They know only about IPLC.



thanks,

Vasu
www.datasoftnet.com

Hi,

These are my points for VOIP based callc enter. Any comments welcome.

For good voice quality the round trip delay in the voice conversation should be below 400 ms. Any thing above 500 ms delay is not at all acceptable. A normal voice conversation needs around 87 kbps bandwidth.

Now think about how a normal VoIP system works. Between USA and INDIA, there will be a round trip delay of around 350 ms for Internet. Normally VoIP IP phones will either utilize SIP or H323 based systems. SIP or H323 will add an additional delay of 75 ms on each end. Additionally H323 and SIP will utilize some compression technique to save bandwidth from 87 kbps to 32 kbps with G711 or to 20 kbps with G723. So this compression and decompression will add another 75 ms delay in each end.

Now the total delay comes to around 650 ms, which makes the quality of the VoIP IP phone unacceptable. Also the central signaling server should handle all the voice traffic. Therefor during high call volume this delay will increase. In addition to affecting delay compression and decompression degrade the voice quality.

So the for an effective VOIP callcente setup, we have to avoid these delays. A better VOIP system will be the one which is not using the gateways and compression techniques. The IP PBX should be only used for finding the IP address of the IP phone and after that the communication between IP phone and the US POTS port should be direct.

Thanks,

Vasu
www.datasoftnet.com

Hi Guys :

Vasu has given an interesting picture of IPLC and VoIP.

Basically, all of them who have used and received VoIP calls, will definitely agree that if they are on the other end in USA or UK or anywhere and receive a call from India or Phillipines or Malaysia on VoIP they will surely say:
COME ON MAN HOW CAN THEY SURVIVE WITH SUCH VOICE QUALITY, when they have to talk to customers...... This is the level of feeling, I have come across in more than 200 surveyed calls in the last 60 days to establish the fact whether for Predictive Dialers we should recommend VoIP or not.

Ultimately our conclusion, is that we do not recommend VoIP, inspite of all the facts and figures promoted by the VoIP providers that it works, it works, OK OK, nothing much of a difference is there, then why should a customer pay so much more on IPLC etc etc.

But here are the fact that a call center should look at , when they decide for IPLC or VoIP:

a) What is the ultimate goal in Call Center business:
:::: Is it to earn more satisfactorily or to keep on struggling with Voice Quality and ultimately be there where they were in the first three months even after 18 or 24 months...... BECAUSE IT IS BASICALLY THE VOICE QUALITY THAT BUILDS UP THE BASIC PRESUMED IMAGE OF QUALITY OF YOUR CALL CENTER

b) If you do not have basic voice quality at its best, how do you visulize to serve the customers in the best manner possible when:
i) The cultures are different and agents struggle to meet those ends

ii) In most of the centers because of the misunderstanding of the competetion and not being able to keep pace with the competetion, the rates are being undercutted drastically and ultimately the calling agents are being paid approxmiately between Rs. 8000 to Rs. 11,000 in India and in the morning the agent has the same tension to go back to his home by bus and be haggering with all those usual worries ...... then how do they give best results, on TOP OF IT IS THE VOICE QUALITY PRETTY UNDERMINED BECAUSE OF VoIP.... combined result...
A PITCHING THAT NEVER RESULTS IN EFFECTIVE APPEAL TO THE CUSTOMER.

iii) When 75% of the present calling agents still struggle for catching up with the pitch, tone, confident calling matters, I FEEL ATLEAST THE VOICE QUALITY SHOULD BE THE BEST.

iv) Everybody will agree that tele-marketing response is between 2 to 4% on an average, which means 96% donot respond encouragingly due to various reasons, on top of that if VoIP has to play its own role, the ratios will reduce and WHO IS THE ULTIMATE LOOSER ?? obvioulsy the call center owner, who at times realizes this after 24 to 30 months, by the time the interest burden on capital mounts up to be extremely high, so why not go for BEST VOICE QUALITY, WHEN BASIC CLARITY IS SO IMPORTANT ALL THROUGH THE WAY.

iv) The difference in IPLC and VoIP some times sounds to me like :
IT IS FINE TO HAVE GRAPES WITH SEEDS................BUT BUT
when you have premium relatives or guests at home, you buy Seedless Grapes
EVERYTHING IS THE SAME IT IS THE ABOVE DIFFERENCE THAT MATTERS, when you want to have the best and in CUSTOMER RELATIONS "THESE BESTS" ARE THE BASICS especially for a call center operating from overseas.

We are not operating or promoting IPLC providers association, but expressing our feelings that results from having recieved lots of VoIP based calls and helping C.C. to have the best through the best Predictive Dialers.

Visit us on :
www.collaborateglobally.com/odpgroup.com

Kam Patel

HI,

I am agreeing to Kam Patel to many points, but not all.

The delay is same for IPLC and VOIP for the voice transpotation from US to India.

If we can avoid the gateways and compression, VOIP will have the same quality as IPLC.

In this case VOIP is much more attractive than IPLC. 1. Low recurring cost 2. Easiness in maintenaining. 3. Low initial cost. 4. Redundancy (For IPLC there is no redundancy by itself).

We are using such a VOIP system, which is not using the gateways and no compression. Anybody wants to test it try 1 877 776 5505, it will be answered from India. If you need any more details contact me at vasu@datasoftnet.com .

The central IP PBX is only used to find out the IP address of the IP phone in Inida. After that voice communication is direct from IP phone to US PSTN port, no gateways are invloved. We can even switch off the IP PBX, it won't affect anything.

Thanks,

Vasu
www.datasoftnet.com