Call centers can be of two kinds, an outbound call center or an inbound call center. When working for an outbound call center calls are made to customers to either try to make sales or for any other purpose whereas in an inbound call center, you receive calls from the customers and are supposed to answer their concerns or queries.
Working in a call center does not necessarily mean taking calls. There are diversified work profiles that you can choose from – such as a Quality Analyst, who monitors and evaluates the quality of the calls, a Customer Service Executive or Customer Care Executive, who mainly handles the queries of the customers, or a Voice and Accent Trainer, who tracks voice and accent clarity.
There are no specific qualifications required to start a career in a Call Center. Any graduate can try to get a job there. Some also accept 10+2 pass outs as well as graduates awaiting their final year results. The key skill that the employers look for in a call center executive is fluency in the English Language. Candidates with absence of MTI, mother tongue influence or RTI or regional tongue influence in their spoken English are preferred over the others. If you are looking to work in a domestic call center which caters to local customers, then knowledge of the local language can definitely prove to be an added advantage.
When joining a call center as a customer service executive or CSR, there is a dedicated training program for every process. This proves to be a very big advantage when you compare the career in a Call Center to other careers. In other careers, when you join a job, you are required to deliver from the first day, whereas in a call center, they first train you for several weeks before putting you, ‘on the floor' as they call it or putting you ‘on the job'. So, even if you are an experienced CSR, each new organization will first train you in their process or project to familiarize you with their computer interface, their customers and services or products offered.
Pay package wise, choosing a career in a Call Center is also a wise decision. A fresh graduate with no prior experience earns somewhere around $5000 per annum. Moreover, many organizations have half yearly as well as yearly appraisals and also various kinds of incentive schemes to help motivate their employees and make their pay package thicker.
With the increase in globalization, call centers have moved from the second world to the third world countries like China and Spain also. MNC's are looking for better and cheaper options to open their call centers and serve their customers. Thus, making a career in a Call Center is a wise decision as it is one of the global careers, an experience in which will reap benefits for you wherever you go.
