Dear All,

We have bagged an outbound campign from the UK and would like to execute it ourselves. It is a 20 seator campaign on a pilot basis for three months. If the campaign is sucessful, we have the assurance from the client that it will be ramped to 100 seats for the next one year.

We are looking out for any call center located in Bangalore who could provide us with the infrastructure to execute this three month campaign.

The call center should have outbound dialling to UK and should be readily available for 20 seats.

If interested, please contact me in my email id or give me a call at 9886048894.

We have to go live within the next two weeks.

Regards,

Joydeep

My best advice (free of the usual consultancy fees) is next time you bid for a contract, wait until you actually have some form of operational set-up. How can you commit to providing a service when you are completely unable to deliver?
You are 2 weeks from campaign launch and don't have a contact centre?!? How clear was that to the client when they placed business with you? Are they aware that their campaign is in serious jeopardy? That whether or not you wish to run the campaign, you are in no way set up to do so? Do you give a **** that you will significantly let down a client? That you may have denied the business to an actual contact centre?
Do you have ANY idea about running contact centres? Have you considered training and resourcing implications - Two weeks and no contact centre so presumably you are intending to deliver about 5 minutes training to whoever is available. Clearly there is no handoff involved, or if there is it must be very basic and robust - when are you going to test things? And on...
I realise this is verging on being a rant, but I cannot understand how this can be considered acceptable business practice! The India bubble will soon burst if this is the standard approach to doing business - IT IS NOT ENOUGH TO DELIVER A CHEAP QUOTE YOU MUST DELIVER AN EFFECTIVE AND COMPETITIVE SERVICE!

No Dylan,

That's definately a rant!

But under the circumstances very well deserved.

My 2p worth.

There's a thread going on about consultants and middlemen at the moment
and I think this sums up all the negative aspects.

You're going to have a Pi**ed off Client and a Pi**ed off Centre.

In this tight deadline who's writing / testing the scripts? Who's setting up the back end Database? It's a UK dial! Who's TPSing the data. Who's supplying the leads?

Anyone who may think of taking this is going to be sorely disappointed that it'll never get the ramp up as the first 8 weeks of the trial are going to be snagging, re-training and replacing disillusioned staf. That'll give you a couple of weeks of intro level calling that'll never hit service targets.

If and it's a big IF. The UK company stick with you that long. I'd pull it after 3 if it wasn't working.

I take it you're prepared for the financial consequences of failing to deliver?

DaveA

Joydeep

You might want to try ICICI Onesource. They might have suitable office space and infrastructure available at short notice. They may also be able to help with the staffing of the campaign

http://www.icicionesource.com/

Good Luck, hope everything works out well

Eamon

Perhaps not the advice you were looking for Joydeep, but hopefully food for thought nevertheless...

Zoe

I am absolutely GOBSMACKED. As a consultant specailsing in the Outbound aspect of call centres, I fail to see how you can possibly deliver this to the expectations of the customer (unless these have been set so low as to be meaningless). TPS has been mentioned, import / export data maps, Data Protection under EU regulations, reporting, the list is endless. This smacks of making a fast buck at the exepense of the customer's revenue stream. My gut feeling hopes you FAIL miserably, your cavalier attitude to this customer is appauling, but I hope, for the sake of the UK company involved, you manage to pull a rabbit out of the hat somehow. As a final note, I would actually consider this boarding on fraud i.e. "obtaining goods, monies or services by deception"

I have had a look at this guys web site, then using multimap it looks like the headoffice is in a house in Bradford. They also say thay they allready have a 200 hundred seat call centre in Bangalore. So what is that they are after. IS it just stirring up trouble ....

Humm,
It's now pointing at a
"Get paid to do Surveys" site that tries to paypal you
out of £20.00 odd dollars.

Smells a funny colour folks.............

I just hope the UK company haven't up fronted any money.

Interesting that the original domain name
Synergence global (.co.uk)
is registered to as Paul said an address
(mis-spelt) in "Brandford" "westyeoshire"

Registered: 2nd June this year and bought through Tucows

However that domain is now pointing to:

Paysforsurveys (.com)
which is registered to:
World Wide Marketing
PO Box 13577
South Lake Tahoe, California 96151
United States
on the 17th of september this year.

Far be it from me to say it looks like a scam site



DaveA

Hi all,

I am overwelmed at your responces. I am sure the market comprises of all sorts of people, negative and positive. But what I definately see is the fact that there are a lot of frustrated folks who have burned thier fingers dealing with so called consultants making a quick buck. Hence their eyes are absolutely closed any genuine help that someone might require. At the same time I am happy to have positive replies from folks willing to help. To tell you a fact, we are also victims of such dealings.

At the outset I wish to inform you ALL that we have found and finalized an excellent call center on a dry lease basis and my customers' representatives are on their way from to Bangalore for a one month long training and startup of the project.

I wish to finally add a few of my thoughts here that :

1. Before making your assumptions, and drawing conclusions you ought to check with me as to what I have and what I dont have. I am publisizing in a DF which means I am quite willing to share information about me and our company with you all.

2. One of our folks here have been doing detective work about our offices in Bradford, and hence I also suggest to him that instead of doing R & D on the Web and creating so called "scam" assumptions, you ought to have checked with the "Companies House" in the UK about Synergence Global.

Yes we do have an office located in a house at the moment? It is purely for marketing. Now with an order in our hands, we have now finalized a commercial place in Bradford and looking for a suitable place in London as well. When we grow we will surely take a swank building and you could be our guest of honor !!! You have a problem with that, then its your prerogative not ours.

3. Thanks for such great analysis about startup etc etc...I have learnt quite a bit and will implement and approach our client and make sure that they are happy. Hence I have ensured that a representative from the client come down and spend one month with us. Can the client as for more ????? Let me know..!!!

4. This is our campaign; we are executing it and WE are paying...we are paying the call center and have made a months billing in advance as their security. So keep all your "consultant" frustration to people who have cheated you.

Finally,

All the best to you all. I shall continue to contribute to this forum as we grow and "bag" more orders. Cause you see, we wish to spend our time in doing business, and not making assumptions !!!!!!

Wish us luck in a sucessful completion of our campaign.

Cheers,

Joydeep Paul.

Ok,
We'll give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe.

Just a few things don't add up.

The websites down with a DNS error at the moment.

Who are Pays for Surveys?

A re-direct isn't something that happens by accident.

DaveA

If I have jumped unfairly to conclusions, then of course I apologise, but please look back to your original posting, and think what part you yourself played in that.

You stated that you had secured a campaign, which was going live in two weeks and were now looking for the means to deliver....On that basis I don't think too many assumptions needed to be made to generate the response you got.

It helps if the queries give clear and necessary information. Like with a computer, rubbish in, rubbish out.

If you browse the forum, you will see that members generously and freely share professional assistance and support with colleagues, many giving far more than they take, despite a number of people who see this merely as an opportunity to promote their own products, or acquire knowledge and assistance and never repay the contribution.

I hope you do stay with the forum. You obviously feel you have a lot to offer, and I look forward to seeing others having the opportunity to share the benefit of your knowledge and experience.

Best wishes with your enterprise. I hope it is succesful.

Zoe

Joydeep,

I concur with Zoe. Given your initial posting, surely you can understand my and others sceptesism. Subsequent investigation then produced anomolies that caused alarm bells to ring. Given your response, it appears that you have taken on board some of the points raised, if that is so, then the forum has served it's purpose. I hope all goes well and that your customer is happy and receives the efficiency gains their are seeking.

Peter

Joydeep, appologies if my post sparked any inferances however - you missed the point... makes no difference as to your motives, your approach is still way off the mark for running a sucessful campaign. I still object to the fact that this type of campaign mismanagement continues to damage our industry and the general perception of contact centre professionals.

>>> what more could the client ask...?
I would suggest that a well thought out and managed campaign bringing added value to the business while enhancing the customer experience. That is what we should be trying to acheive. That is the value of contact centres.

Next time I would recommend approaching a contact centre prior to setting up a campaign. Build your supplier relationship, agree campaign implementation plans including the available possibilities for technical set up & testing, data management, script writing / testing, training, fulfilment, reporting, etc.
Work with the client & the contact centre together, ensuring the best operational fit for your campaign. Manage client expectations and steer them towards the best solution; that is the value a middle man can add to the client - expertise and guidance to help them broker the deal best fit for purpose, and to translate the clients requirements into the contact centre operation. Otherwise you are purely acting as a telephone directory, in which case I would recommend Thomsons as free!

>>>my customers' representatives are on their way from to Bangalore for a one month long training and startup of the project...
I hope this means that you will not be calling out in 2 weeks time as per your original post? Surely you can see that training and start up must occur prior to Go Live. You still have not mentioned any data management. Be sure to involve your client closely in the scripting / training process - it is their campaign.

Anyway, that was a bit of free advice in the hope you might head out on a better track than the one you have begun. One more - hire yourself some industry professionals who know what they are doing, will not want to be directors, and listen to them!

Dear All,

Thank you for your replies once again. I do appreciate the fact that among our brick bats, we may have build a relationhip here.

I think you are right by mentioning that my post must have be inadequete and I will elaborate further next time ...but frankly, I didnt expect that folks would jump the wagon this way..but in any case i do accept your critisims positively as they form a knowledge process.

Now when you grow, you really dont expect what might fall into your plate all of a sudden. This has been our case, and we take it as an oppurtuinity to build our company into the ITES business.

Incidentally we are experts in the software side of the business and are IBM consultants, and also specialize in the financial services. But we have been trying to enter the ITES space, as there is plenty happening there.

Our initial experiences with the "consultants" have been disastraous, and therefore we decided that will do things on our own and as a result, we have this campaign.

I will keep the forum posted about the development that happens with my campaign, and surely would appreciate your views. The database, calling list is provided by the client, and the call center that we have taken on drylease will help in the software development part.

Yes you are right about the fact that there will be a training period, but Yes we do have a pressure from the client to start dialling at the earliest. Hence we will depend on the folks who are coming down and would take over the process.

Please do let me know as to what else should we keep in our minds before the actual run of the process.

Finally I would ask you ALL....that sooner or later we wish to have our own setup, and in order to do so, what are the main criterias, that we need to keep in our minds ? Will it be a good idea to lease out and existing plug - n - play setup or build from scratch ?

Any thoughts ?

Thanks again and we will surely be in touch.

You folks can also write to me at joy@synergenceglobal.co.uk

We also do have a 100% subsidiary company in India called Synergence Soft Solultions. We are in the process of changing the name to have an uniform indentity as Synergence Global Solutions.

Cheers,

Joy

Joydeep

Once again can I wish you luck in your new venture. No doubt everyone here will be more than happy to help in the future, without the need to check whether you are wearing a highwayman's mask!

Eamon

I really don't have much to comment on as to Joydeep's initial posting, but even though things got a little rough it is still great to have the opportunity to feel the diversity of passion based on so much exp and knowledge base....GOOD STUFF...I will get in on the next one.

Joydeep....stay on this forum...trust me, based on the comments below...it can only make you think harder and smarter....nothing wrong with that...I personally appreciate as many "HARD" to the point constructive feedback opportunities as possible....BRING IT ON......

Hi Joydeep,
It was really interesting going through all those comments against/for the middle man, rather FOR is a rare sight on this site.
We have faced the same sorta brunt from people but then cant help it, the trade we are in, is full of Scums ( I mean consultants). NO doubts the Call Centers and the End clients have burnt their fingers with consultants previously.
But i am experiencing another fact which id like to share, while I practice an upfront approach with Customers looking forward to open up a call center or looking for Campaigns, and tell them about the risks, prons n cons involved, believe me, they are the ones who give us a feeling that they want to be fooled. All they want to know is that the picture on the other side is flowery and fruitful which is not a fact, so instead of appreciating the honesty they do business with consultants who actually show them a Rose but when it comes to hand holding, all thorns. Anyways this wont change our way of working but yes If there is anyway we can help you do let us know. We are based in Delhi.
nitin at the rate conceptualedge dot org.

regards
nitin

Hi Nithin,
I agree with you as to why folks fall prey to consultants. But if you look at from the executing companies point of view, then you will see that a lot of people have invested an immence amount of money in setting up their infrastructure. It costs a minimum of around INR 50 million to setup up a call center and once you have set, the clock starts ticking on the overheads. If one cannot get a campaign on time, they truly burn as it is very costly to keep a call center running empty. That is the main reason, people fall prey to consultants and middlemen, cause at that time, anything will do.
They do not look at profits etc, they look to keep their outfit running in some way as they think that one campaign would take them off to procure a direct campaign. Unfortunately, once the upfronts are paid, off goes the consultant creating a further frustrated and angry call center owner. This is what is happening to the industry, but now I could see that so many scam projects, have happened, folks are really turning around and changing their principles, which is a good sign. We have been a victim ourselves. In fact you will laugh by the fact that our banker jokes with us, when we go to raise a BG or an LC...!!!

Sure would like to meet up with you when I am in Delhi next, as I can see that this forum definately makes good connections.

CHeers,

Joydeep.

Hey Folks,

I have reading through all through the comments and I DisAgree with Dylan O'Sullivan, Peter Wilson, Dave Appleby and many other friends of mine out there.

1. I think the topic was some 1 needing for a help.

2. Instead of helping wht we are doing in trying to authenticate,where in Mr. joy has clearly menioned that he has bagged the project. And dont you understnd a simple thing that, if a X client be it in UK r Iserail , wouldnt they would have done their part of investigation before awarding the project.

Common guys i think the right approach would have been to tell Joy whether anyone could help him or not or the MAx give him some guideline or u rexpert opininon that it would have been better if he would have arranged for a execuion center. Also further Dont you think any Business man or any profesional co. would have thought of the excuation aspect as well before getting into the business at the first place. May be we dont know his problems what happend becos of which he has to llook out for a new place.

Now if i sound too confident its bcos i had faced similar problem, by virtue of we being a Interactive partners to some of the US, Middle East companies, we happend to strike the right rapoort with iur client where in they wanted us to execute a project and we were in a similar situation like Mr.JOYdeep Paul.

But finally what we did as we didnt have a execution capacity was we had to further outsource it to a local co. in india. So now that address the topic of middle man also. I understand that these days lotta conning do happen, but let me remind u it doesnt happen always.

if u closely read the mkt there are so much of outsourcing option in the middle east, entire of Europe and US also to a very gr8 extent. BASICALLY ALL those SME's (Small N Medium Enterprise). Am sure u guys wud agree to it.

Anyway iam happy Synergence is doing itself instead of further outsourcing and getting started soem where. ALL THE BEST TO SYNERGENCE GLOBAL n i understand that u also have a co. in Bangalore india. we are a bombay based co. and we would definitely itersted to talk to you. You can reach me at 9819072831.

I worry that in all the accusation and counter accusation, my original point has long since been lost... AND I STAND BY IT AND ITS IMPORTANCE!

I have no doubt that My Paul is a genuine member of a growing breed of entrepreneurs who see the contact centre industry as easy money, and whose lack of knowledge (and/or lack of basic business ethics) is likely to cause this already fragile industry to implode.

Let us ignore the issue of Mr Paul personally - this is a very visible trend and cannot be blamed on one individual - and look at what the original post represents. Who cares about the detail of motivation? The bottom line is always money (there is nothing wrong with this).

The fact is that over and over posts are raised asking for support in the most basic principles of CC management, procedure, infrastructure, and best practice. These posts are raised by people claiming to be "major players" although transparently many are MD of a company of 1.
The approach indicated by Mr Paul, i.e. committing to a campaign with 2 week lead time with no infrastructure in place and no consideration for the realities of running a campaign, is clearly not built at furthering the industry, or establishing a reputation in a quality/expert environment. This is about the fast buck!
Posts on this site frequently bemoan the number of contracts going overseas, I say "get over it!" There is still enough to go around, and at the end of the day quality will count. Look at the public reaction to the inadequate service provided by 118118. The reason for the current decline is that uk call centres often do not provide enough quality to compete in this area, where they obviously cannot compete on base cost. If you provide true quality service then the true cost will be less than that of a cheaper operation doing everything twice, generating poor leads, raising countless ex-gratias etc.

The real issue (IMHO (yeah right!)) is that the continued failure of contact centres regardless of location will result in the industry being sidelined. The continued development of web based solutions, together with more and more automated tele-processes (e.g. banking, utility payments, etc) is already a significant threat kept at bay by a public who prefer the feel of human intervention... but how long will people feel that way if the humans and service they provide is as inadequate as that produced by the approach outlined above?

enough! i don't really care... i'd rather be diving ;O)