Features

Asian Contact Centers Achieve Reasonable Performance Rating

By Sophia Mayengbam

The Asia Pacific contact center market catering to telecoms, Banks, Credit Card & Insurance Companies, Airlines & Hotels and IT companies has seen a remarkable growth. Developed just recently, the performance rate of sector is reasonably good and has a long to go to equal or outpace the U.S. and the European market.

According to a recent study by callcenter.net for Aspect Software, Asian contact center industry is averaging at a score of 67 on a scale of 100, placing it in the reasonable performance rating compared to the U.S. and Europe. The index conducted by, assesses the performance of Asia Pacific contact centers across categories including customer service, sales, revenue, operations, technology and human resources.

"We created the Aspect Contact Center Index Asia to provide the insight, backed by hard data, to really understand the Asian contact center industry and to address the challenges that come along with its growth," said Pramod Ratwani, Vice President, Asia Pacific & Middle East at Aspect Software.

The contact centers in Asia gives a stiff competition to the U.S. and the European market, helped by low cost operations. However, the Index shows Asia is hampered by Human Resource (HR) challenges and lacks advanced technologies like customer relationship management (CRM), Voice over IP (VoIP), computer telephony integration (CTI) and workforce management.

The survey covers six key countries in Asia namely - India, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, The Philippines and Thailand and specific countries in the survey ranked differently. Topping the charts are Korea and Singapore, who rank in the achievers category, which is from 71 to 85 on the overall scale.

"Asian contact centers have shown tremendous potential in delivering on customer service, revenue generation and profitability, however inadequate focus on human resources which includes remuneration, career options and flexible work conditions leaves much to be desired," said Dr. Catriona Wallace, Director and Co-owner of callcentres.net.

Wallace added, "By effectively addressing the challenges and industry issues the Aspect Contact Center Index Asia raises, the Asian contact center industry should continue its strong growth and performance."

Using a combination of telephone and online methods, the Aspect Contact Center Index Asia surveyed about 200 contact center managers operating a minimum of 20 contact center seats from across all industry segments.

The overall scores of the countries are reflective of the maturity of the contact center industry in each country. While Korea (75) and Singapore (71) are more mature markets, Malaysia (65) and Thailand (59) are relatively new entrants in the market. India (64) and The Philippines (66) have higher levels of outsourced contact centers.

Key findings of the research are:

Most Asian contact centers are focusing on customer service and HR
Two in five contact centers in Asia are using quality monitoring systems, workforce management and analytics applications
Three in five contact centers will invest in technology over the next 12 months, with key areas of focus being CRM, VoIP, CTI and workforce management
Almost half the market is currently using or would consider using an Application Service Provider (ASP) for its contact center technology requirements
Larger contact centers are significantly more likely than smaller centers to use an ASP

Findings by country include:

India, The Philippines, Malaysia and other markets with outsourced contact centers reported the highest percentage of centers with an increase in profitability this year
The high rank for Korea can be attributed to its strong focus on customer service, sales, HR and operations
Thailand’s performance in the overall Index was lower than average on customer service, HR and revenue, resulting in Thailand having the largest opportunity for improvement of the measured countries
India’s primary area of opportunity is in customer service, its challenges are with lower than average HR performance, particularly agent turnover
India and Korea are the countries least likely to invest in new technology in the next 12 months
India is most likely to use as an ASP with 32% of centers currently using and a further 32% considering an ASP, however The Philippines is not far behind with 25% currently using and a further 41% considering an ASP
Usage of VoIP in India and The Philippines is high and expected to reach 78% and 65% penetration rates respectively over the next two years

The APAC contact center landscape has changed drastically over the past few years. The number of contact centers in 2003 were about 8,600 in Asia and is expected to reach nearly one million by 2008.

Another important aspect of this market is that countries like India and other emerging markets would see an increase in domestic contact centers demand.


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