24/7 Customer sets benchmark for BPO firms

The beginning was humble around three years ago with just 20 employees and one customer, but the present going is phenomenal—with a large customer base and nearly 2,500 employees. 24/7 Customer, the Bangalore-based business process outsourcing (BPO) company has indeed come a long way and is aiming towards climbing greater heights in the near future. With a rapid increase in manpower, workspace and expansion in areas of operation across multiple locations—with one facility in Hyderabad and two others in Bangalore, the company is planning to expand to other cities as well. The company is hoping to be one of the largest BPO companies in India.

S Nagarajan says that when 24/7 Customer was established there were hardly any Indian BPO firms and they faced a stiff challenge in educating overseas customers about the advantages that India had to offer

24/7 Customer is very brand conscious and is continuously working towards differentiating itself as a specialised qualitative service provider in the fiercely competitive Indian BPO industry. The early entry in the BPO field has of course helped 24/7 Customer in realising the true growth potential of the BPO industry in India. The company was co-founded in February 2000 by P V Kannan, who is now the CEO of the company and S Nagarajan, who is the chief operating officer of the company. The company is aiming to reach annual revenues of $30 million during 2003-04. Early this year 24/7 Customer also received external funding of $22 million from the US-based Sequoia Capital (one of the top VC firms in the world). Out of the company’s total revenue earnings, 60 percent comes from the US market and 40 percent from the European market.

Initial challenges

It is often said that any new venture is bound to encounter many challenges, and so was the case with 24/7 Customer. Says S Nagarajan, founder and chief operating officer, “When we ventured into the BPO space there was hardly any Indian company there. Educating overseas customers about the advantages that India had to offer was the stiffest challenge we faced during the formative years of our growth.” During the initial year 24/7 Customer’s marketing team was always equipped with comprehensive presentations about selling the Indian geography to foreign customers. Why India? Why Bangalore, in particular, were the questions which 24/7 Customer’s sales team had to encounter. “Of course, today the situation has changed and now customer themselves are very keen on outsourcing work to India, particularly to Bangalore,” says Nagarajan.

Specialised service offerings

24/7 Customer’s core expertise is inbound customer services support, outbound telemarketing and tele sales calls and inbound technical support calls. Recently it has added a number of back-office operations of its clients as part of its service offerings. These operations include account management, accounting and finance processing, transactional processing, application processing, document verification, HR processing and order processing. On an average, more than two million outbound and inbound calls are handled by 24/7 Customer annually. The company has specialised service offerings for verticals such as the travel, transportation, logistics, finance and technology verticals. 24/7 Customer is now looking forward to expanding its back-office processing service, which includes complex transactional processing for the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) segment.

Quality initiatives

Undertaking quality initiatives in all departments of the company has remained a top priority in order to distinguish itself from its competitors. V Bharathwaj, assistant vice president-sales and marketing says, “The BPO industry in India has matured very fast and many players have now entered this space. Following world-class quality standards can help us differentiate from the rest of our competitors and can play a major role in attracting more and more customers.” To this end, in December 2000, it become the first Indian BPO company to get an ISO 9002 certification and later in December 2001 was awarded with COPC-2000 certification by COPC (Customer Outsourcing Performance Centre), an authority in contact centre operations.

According to V Bharathwaj, more and more candidates with a good knowledge base will be hired since back-office processing is now one of the major areas of operations

24/7 also initiated the Six Sigma process in 2001 and has invested a lot in adopting this practice. It has one Master Black Belt and 20 Black Belts who are working on continuous improvement throughout the organisation. The company has worked on close to 20 projects on Six Sigma. Six Sigma adoption has changed the employee mindset and has inculcated a sense of discipline amongst them. It has also helped 24/7 Customer in getting better business. 24/7 Customer is also aiming to qualify for competing for the Malcolm Baldrige Recognition, which is the given to a company adhering to the highest quality standards.

Stringent people process

24/7 Customer has nearly 2,500 employees and all of them have been recruited after a stringent recruitment process. Bharathwaj says, “Many people have a perception that getting a BPO job is a cakewalk, but it isn’t. The job requires utmost emotional intelligence plus a good knowledge base to win customer satisfaction.” There are many rounds of interviews before the company selects a candidate. Now that back-office processing is one of the major areas of operations for 24/7 Customer, more and more candidates with a good knowledge base are expected to be hired by the company. After a candidate is selected he has to undergo customer-specific training programs. The company has a young workforce, more than 80 percent of 24/7 Customer employees are in the age group of 20-25 years, and of these more than 80 percent are graduates and 5 percent are post-graduates.

To increase employee satisfaction, 24/7 Customer has taken many initiatives, including budgeting a separate amount for employee welfare, which includes free dinner and breakfast for all, free medical insurance and their family members. Nagarajan says, “These initiatives help employees remain in good spirits and perform better. The attrition rate at 24/7 Customer is less than half of the industry rate, which reconfirms employees’ faith in the company.”

Future roadmap

The roadmap for 24/7 Customer appears to be exciting. The top priority for the company is increasing its current manpower. It will add 300 more employees in its Bangalore facility, which is expected to go live within the next two months. It is also planning to recruit people for its Hyderabad facility as well. 24/7 Customer is expecting a 40-50 percent growth in the number of employees on an annual basis. With an increase in manpower 24/7 Customer is also aiming to expand in terms of its infrastructure. Plus, quality initiatives would continue to be the main focus of the company in the future. “Our future aim would be to attain operational excellence, develop customer intimacy and process innovation. These three measures are being promoted across the company as a culture. All this will in turn lead to more customer acquisitions and customer satisfaction,” adds Bharathwaj.

abhinav@expresscomputeronline.com

Milestones

One of the early entrants in the BPO field in India. 24/7 Customer was co-founded in February, 2000 by P V Kannan, the present CEO of the company and S Nagarajan who is now the chief operating officer of the company. 24/7 Customer became one of the first Indian BPO company to get ISO 9002 certification in December 2000, in its first year of operations. 24/7 Customer got the COPC-2000 certification from COPC (Customer Outsourcing Performance Centre), an authority in contact centre operations, in December 2001. 24/7 initiated the Six Sigma process in 2001. It has one Master Black Belt and 20 Black Belts who are working on continuous improvement throughout the organisation. 24/7 Customer received external funding of $22 million from the US based Sequoia Capital in 2003.