The domestic contact center services industry is slowly beginning to gain ground and level of awareness and perceived benefit among the Indian enterprises and MNCs besides telecom service providers about outsourcing is increasing. But the domestic call center market is far from reaching a level attained by some of the players servicing international users. More and more companies are realizing this and are outsourcing the job of handling customers to outside centers. Companies like Microsoft, HP, Bose, Satyam Infoway, Living Media, AirTel, among others, have gone for outsourcing their customer care and tech-support services. Similarly, Indian and foreign banks and financial institutions have set up their own customer care interaction centers. Indian private banks like ICICI have gone for the captive ones, on the lines of multinational banks like Citibank, HSBC etc. Sensitivity of data is a great inhibitor that is stopping companies from outsourcing their customer-care activities. Mostly telemarketing jobs are outsourced, as the database is not so crucial and no value-added services are provided

The ongoing rate for call center services varies from the type of services that are being offered. Rate is based on the nature of contract. Generally speaking, an eight-hour shift costs about 18,000 per agent per month. On the basis of calls, it range between Rs 3 to 4 per call. For campaign-related services, companies usually charge a bulk rate.

The billing per seat in domestic contact centers, as compared to their international counterparts, is not so attractive. But still, the margins are good enough to sustain on the basis of generating volume and by offering a range of value-added services.

Investment per seat costs about Rs 50,000 initially, with just a PC and a phone to answer simple queries. This can be upgraded to IVR and other services, and the cost increases, depending on the requirement of the client. Billing, on an average is 10,000 per agent per shift for a month, for basic services. It can go up to 30,000 to 35,000 per seat in a center that provides technical and value-added services. Needless to say, it will be the volume which will drive the business.

Paging companies have taken the lead in utilizing their paging infrastructure and human resources for answering queries for other companies. With the number of paging subscribers decreasing everyday, this has become a new opportunity for these operators. DSS eContact, a Dalmia company which offers services under the name Caretel is a leading player in the domestic segment with operations in 11 cities employing about 1500 people. Telecom, IT, Consumer Durables, Consumer goods and Automobiles are some of the verticals being serviced by the company. Some of its prominent clients include Samsung, Nokia, Dominos, Stanchart, HP, Videocon and Zee TV. Sometime back, the company expanded its operation in to North East of the country. Microwave Communications of the HFCL group, another paging company is also a leading player which has diversified into the call center services business to supplement its paging business. Then there are another set of companies who are pure 3rd party players catering to customer care needs of corporates. There are several players in this segment which include players like Solutions, Orion Dialog, and Magus.

To have an idea of the size, let us take an example of telecom service providers. Inquiry services have been a part of the incumbent operators long before the concept of contact center became popular. BSNL and MTNL are beginning to realize the importance of setting up such centers but are preferring to set up their own captive centers rather than outsourcing their needs. This is mainly because these companies have sufficient surplus staff, which can be utilized to man the centers. However, given the fact that the number of subscribers in basic and cellular has risen to about 50 million, opportunities are likely to arise for domestic contact center operators.