The answer is Yes. In fact, that is precisely what is happening these days. Customer inquiry calls to US companies are redirected to centres in India where trained staff give the appropriate answers. The caller all the while believes someone of the company staff in the USA answered his call, never realising the reality.

Big industrial houses, financial institutions and other service industries in the USA and other countries are targeting India and making it their call centre base. This is primarily because India has a huge pool of English-speaking, computer-literate manpower. Apart from that the cost of qualified personnel in India is the lowest in the world.

A call centre provides customer-care service using computers and telephones. Call centres have clearly emerged as one of the most favoured of all IT-enabled services. This service requires adequate telecom facilities, trained consultants, access to relevant database, Internet and other online information support infrastructure to provide support to clients’ customers.

Calls to such centres are of two types. One kind is wherein the customers call up the centre with a query or complaint and the other are those that the representatives of business companies make to customers. Offshore outsourcing means that a company situated abroad (say in the USA) transfers calls to another country (like India). Agents positioned in this country (India) process the query received and redirect the response to the country from where the call initiates (the USA).

Companies like GE Capital have set up an outsourcing centre in Gurgaon. Such centres for British Airways and American Express are also running successfully in India. For a company more customers mean more business and revenue. It also means a lot of minds to be convinced. Companies thus create a separate unit or authorise a call centre to handle all queries in a professional manner.

This business is fast emerging as the most sought-after proposition for Indian IT entrepreneurs. The Government of India offers special incentives and infrastructure for setting up IT-enabled services. Minister of Communications Ram Bilas Paswan had said a few months ago that approvals had been granted to 34 call centres and the demand for providing interconnectivity to international call centres had been permitted via leased lines. A conservative projection is that India’s share could be anywhere around $ 4 billion by 2008.

The business in India is growing because of the low costs and high quality. A virtual 12-hour time zone difference between India and the USA offers cost and time saving. Call centres and training companies have started looking northwards as North India has educated persons who pick up the American accent easily.

Atul Gupta, CEO, e3R Infosystems, agrees: "At least three call centres, if not more, are going to come up soon in this region. We chose Chandigarh’s vicinity to run our call centre training and certification programme because the younger generation here is IT savvy, intelligent, outgoing, broadminded in general and has decent family backgrounds. Above all, they are Americanised." His company, that has its office in Panchkula, hopes to take live calls by the next month. "We have already applied to the VSNL to get an international private leased circuit commissioned and plan to expand our operations by March."

"Punjab is emerging as the target location as there is availability of educated young work force, power and telecom infrastructure, real estate and above all, a positive government attitude. Some of the cities in Punjab meet many of these criteria," says Mahesh Nair, Vice-President, Spectramind, a company that is services outsourcing and remote services provider.

As per a Nasscom survey, this IT-enabled service is projected to grow by 66 per cent from Rs 2400 crore in 1999-2000 to Rs 4000 crore in 2000-01 in India. Call centres in our country employ nearly 10,000 persons, generating annual revenue of Rs 450 crore.

Such is the demand that a 1000-seat capacity is not being filled in New Delhi itself due to paucity of trained staff. One seat translates into three persons with three eight-hour shifts a day. To set up a 100-seater call centre means an investment of nearly Rs 8 crore. A trend has emerged, of late, wherein rich investors are pumping in money in a phased manner to start a call centre without actually having any concrete idea or professional expertise.

"Outsourcing business has got a lot of media hype because of a few successes. Putting up a building and infrastructure is easy. The difficult part is to convince a foreign client to provide the centre with business," says Amitabh Chandra, CEO, Aragon Outsourcing, a company that provides call centre services in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal region besides targeting business from North America, Europe and Australia.

Gurpreet Singh Bajwa, a business-planning manager, puts it this way: "The customer support bug is yet to catch up. This field like other fields has its challenges. A lot of people are planning to start their operations in Chandigarh primarily because this city has a lot of facilities. The traffic is low, travel time is less and its geographical composition is a bliss," he says. "But I do not agree that US outsourcers are looking at India because of costs. Three per cent of the US working population works at call centres and there are not enough people to work at 70,000 odd call centres. Manpower is not available and that is why they are looking towards this country. India already has taken the Silicon Valley by storm and Indians have developed a sort of credibility in this arena," Bajwa adds.

Call centres are of three types: 1) A voice call centre with just one phone and a computer, 2) an e-mail call centre, which requires a leased line, computer set-up and manpower and 3) Web-based call centres where company representatives chat with their customers online. "Each of them requires a different kind of investment. Remember, this business grows exponentially and is seasonal as well. Calls increase during Christmas and festival season," Bajwa says.

Call centres provide career opportunities to anyone and everyone. A good command over spoken English and, of course, training at special institutes to get the basics of the art of telephonic conversation, customer care and computers is required. The most significant part of the training schedule is to tell the new professionals how to handle the customers who are upset. Most of the trainees in this field are 10+2 pass outs. The number of girls far exceeds the number of boys in this field.

"This IT-enabled service would probably be the single largest employer in India in the next 5 years. However, if the government does not recognize our competitive advantage and take appropriate steps to keep the momentum, we may lose to China and Philippines.

China as an example has taken steps to have English compulsory at school levels. The Indian government needs to recognise this time lag and make the future of this industry bright. If our government wakes up and removes the current hurdles and implement plans to sharpen our competitive advantage, there is no reason to believe that we in India cannot capture a larger chunk of this global market," Nair points out.

"Those who have had an exposure to medical transcription are the ideal raw material. We train the selected candidates for two months and Workforce Management Inc. of the USA certifies them online after taking a test. They are then absorbed at Rs 7,000 a month," Gupta says, and points out that the two-month course fee is Rs 20,000. "Peanuts as compared to the opportunities afterwards," according to him.

"It’s all a matter of demand and supply," says Dharvesh, senior manager, Connect. "With the coming in of more international call centres, training institutes will also multiply. Though the endeavour is to improve the service level and give customer satisfaction, yet the job is stressful. Imagine manning a line eight hours a day, trying to be cheerful, while answering complaints. This can be taxing," he points out, but is quick to add that they in their company take care of such personnel problems.

A senior official in HDFC says that in near future it would even be possible to pay telephone bills through their bank call centre as they have tied up with BSNL.

"In-house voice call centres have become a necessity now, at least in the banking sector," sums up Navtej Singh, a manager with a private bank. "On an average our in-house centres get 150 to 200 calls a day. Not all of them are complaints. Most of these are account inquiries and related to financial transactions. That way it is an added channel facility. We provide technical training to all those behind the phone lines. In the end the customer feels satisfied, and that is what matters," he says.

The future is bright. Uncle Sam is casting his eyes eastwards for alliances. With Indian e-successes abroad, no one needs to sell India to Yankees. They know Indians are good with the keyboard. Now they want them to dial as well. And talk too.

FACTFILE