Asian Contact Center Opportunities and Challenges
By Gregory Smyth
Asian contact centers were once made fun of, then lamented for the poor business image they presented. Nowadays, they are accepted by businesses as a valuable addition to a company’’s customer service tools, and by consumers as both a natural part of life in a globalized world, and a way to cut the impact on their own wallets.
The continuing rise of India and China as Asian economic giants is creating huge opportunities in several areas: for global businesses to set up low cost customer contact alternatives in the regions; for Asian businesses to do the same; and for businesses in Asia and elsewhere to market their goods to growing middle classes in both countries.
However, it will all need to be supported by good information technology infrastructure, network performance managers that can respond to changing needs, and excellent data security. We look at the technical challenges that come along with the Asian contact center opportunities.
As the middle class in countries like India and China grows exponentially, expectations of customer service by customers in these countries also grows. Where slow or substandard customer service may have once been the norm, Asian businesses now must embrace contact centers as a low cost option for increasing service standards.
These contact centers must be supported by good information technology infrastructure - customers that have to wait as long on the phone as the time it would take to physically go to a store will quickly take their business somewhere more efficient. This makes network performance management in these contact centers a key issue, and gives information technology consultants a prime place in the customer service cycle - odd as that seems.
Asian IT services that specialize in network performance management will be in hot demand.
Along with the need for good information technology infrastructure and network speed is the realization that all of the customer data that Asian contact centers will hold must be secured.
Computer network security will be a paramount concern, and network security experts will have their plates full ensuring that Asian contact centers are not only speedy, but have good data security.
It is estimated that the market for Asia-Pacific contact center applications will grow at an annual compound growth rate of 9.1 percent until 2013. The prime customers for this new market will be the banking, mobile service and insurance providers.
Growing middle classes in Asian economies will mean that in countries like India, there is a wealth of new customer opportunities in insurance sales. However, an enormous shift in technological capacity and information technology infrastructure must occur.
Current systems would give extremely poor network performance analysis results, yet provided that business managers stay ahead of new developments in both network performance management and computer network security, they can make huge profits.
About The Author
Datacraft is the leading independent IT services and solutions company in Asia Pacific. Datacraft combines an expertise in networking, security, Microsoft solutions, storage and contact centre technologies, with advanced skills in consulting, integration and managed services, to craft IT solutions for businesses.
