At the end of January 2006, Hewlett Packard (HP) decided to invest in creating a call centre in Bulgaria from which HP will handle all calls with clients on three continents. Two US international companies, Ajilon and SITEL, are partners with HP in opening the call centre.
Although call centres have yet to gain ground in Bulgaria, they are very popular in both the US and Western Europe. In the US, more than 80 per cent of companies have call centres, reports InfoServ.bg. As a result of tough competition, many companies resort to a strategy of setting up call centres where a client can get relevant information about products and services in the shortest time possible. In this way, companies and institutions try to stimulate their client’s loyalty.
At the moment, few people can say precisely what a call centre involves. The concept of the call centre appeared in Bulgaria only five or six years ago. At the beginning of this year, analysts expected a surge of initiatives to set up call centres. The development of technology and telecommunications has boosted the phenomenon on the Bulgarian market. In recent years, there has been a tendency for large companies involved in every aspect of the market, from finance to media to telecoms, to move to or set up call centres throughout Bulgaria.
A week after HP announced its future plans for investment; it immediately began the recruiting process. Recruitment for, and establishment of, the call centre was supported and helped by Ajilon and SITEL. Bulgaria was chosen amid severe competition from a list of 14 countries including Russia, Romania and Ukraine. HP took into account several advantages of the Bulgarian market - economic and financial stability, a high number of well-educated young specialists, potential support from the branch office and the existence of organisations like the Invest Bulgaria agency and the Bulgarian International Business Association, reports Dnevnik newspaper.
Partner company Ajilon specialises in management services, consulting activities and recruitment. SITEL, on the other hand, is a typical outsourcing company that provides customer service from its numerous call centres across the world, according to the higher education portal in Bulgaria.
The HP call centre officially opened on June 6 2006, to assist clients from across Europe, Asia and Africa. HP chose Sofia as a base for the contact centre in order to invest in the creation of their own Global Delivery Centre. The branch will offer high quality at reasonable prices.
Currently, there are more than 250 specialists on the newest projects of HP employed at the centre. Hewlett Packard Global Delivery Bulgaria’s investment plan for the next two years is to create a further 1000 jobs. By end of 2006, they will fill half of these vacancies.
Earlier this year, Microsoft opened a call centre in Romania. The call centre, that will provide services throughout Europe, Near Asia and Africa, is in Bucharest. The other potential destination for investment was Bulgaria, because Microsoft was doing research in both countries at the time. It is to be expected that in coming years the company will open more call centres, Microsoft Bulgaria director Teodor Milev told Dnevnik newspaper.
Banks and call centres
Call centres have also become popular with banks in Bulgaria because of the convenience for both customer and institution. Setting up a call centre for a bank covering all its branches, is more convenient for clients and less costly for the banks.
Some of the banks that have incorporated call centres into their systems are HVB Bank Biochim, BulBank, DSK Bank, Post Bank and many others. In some of the institutions, a client can get information about just about every product or service while other places specialise in a particular area like mortgage financing.
In March this year, United Bulgarian Bank (OBB) opened a call centre, offering the most services and information in the country today. A client can find out the status of a given request for credit, the amount of the monthly payment as well as the outstanding balance. A client can also block a credit or debit card if it has been lost. Besides the standard information service, there is information about deposit products.
One of the biggest pluses of these centres is that there is a place where a client can get all required information. Visiting a bank branch may mean that a client is forced to make stops at several offices and desks before getting the information needed. Besides, the cost of such services, when using a call centre, is lower because it costs the bank less, explained Elena Nasalevska, manager of the UBB Call Centre.
In order to connect to a call centre, the given phone number must be dialled, at the price of a city call. UBB has ensured the security and protection of client’s personal information by asking clients to dial their ID number after which the operator asks several questions in order to verify the identity of the client.
Call centre technology
Educated specialists and the availability of high technology such as VoIP make the maintenance of call centres possible. The use of VoIP, a technology that carries voice over the internet, enables the forwarding of telephone calls and the making of direct connections between the consumer and the operator in a matter of seconds. The call centre also has access to a database of detailed information about clients. VoIP technologies allows the merging of telephone and computer activities into one virtual operating centre. One of the leading companies in the area of VoIP technologies is Teletronic, Ltd., in Bulgaria. Their solutions are used in international call centres and to provide services to clients in BTK.
Another important technology in call centres is automatic call distribution (ACD), which organises and distributes calls to operators and ensures an even allocation of calls. In simple words, this means that callers do not have to wait on hold for hours. ACD groups operators according to categories depending on the type of call, their qualifications, and knowledge of languages.
Callers are remembered by the system so that when and if the client calls again, the operator will be able to answer them by name and to see previous problems or questions of the clients. The best systems require trained people to work. Usually operators go through different levels of training, learning products, languages and other soft skills. Poorly trained operators stand in the way of Bulgarians’ acceptance of call centres.
