Daksh first call center to be benchmarked in India

NEW DELHI: Daksh e-Services Pvt. Ltd. has

become the first Indian company to be benchmarked based on certain performance

parameters. The certification, which is valid for a year, has been awarded by

John Anton, renowned certifier from Benchmarking Portal. Benchmarking portal has

a database of 25,000 call centers and is by far the largest certifier of call

centers globally with its largest concentration being in the US and

Canada. 

Chiranjiv Singh, Chief Quality Officer at Daksh said, "We are the first Indian call center to be benchmarked. The initiative was aimed at arriving at an understanding of our performance levels. Winning clients on the basis of this certification is only incidental to the process." The company is happy that the exercise has brought about insights into its ways of working.



Nonetheless, the significance of having a certified call center has huge implications in the international markets.

For a client who would outsource its customer-care to a third party, there is no way to evaluate the quality of service unless there are some certifications. "Most Americans have little idea about India since it is so far away. Unless they come here, there is little way of finding out what kind of services would be available. Benchmarking, in such cases, help make the first positive impression in a potential client's mind," said Anton.

Indian call centers have woken up to the reality and have started looking at certification seriously now. Many call centers are evaluating the possibilities of taking the COPC certification, which is a competitive quality certification standard. Spectramind has recently become the first Indian call center to be COPC certified.

The certification process in benchmarking included evaluating aspects of performance like revenue per agent, error rate in system per 1000 calls and customer satisfaction surveys. Benchmarking is typically done by comparing the performance levels of the certified company against other call centers in the industry. In this case Anton had a tricky task since this was the first Indian call center to be benchmarked and hence there were no comparatives.

However, the exercise was based on experience and other laid-down parameters. Said Singh, "We did face problems in the process since some parameters were not tailor-made for Indian call centers like salary structure but it was overcome with a little effort."