It isn't really an issue of getting clients, imo.

It is keeping them.

The industry is massively transactional. WM2 has clearly been around and seen it, he wouldn't work with 2 dozen different companies out of choice. The reality is like in any business relationship, once the honeymoon period is over, the relationship loses a lot of its appeal and interest. Emails don't get responded to right away anymore, the client is taken for granted. Around the same time another company reaches out to you that is cheaper and will bust ass the same way the other company did at first.

Rinse, repeat.

There is massive demand, and if you are any good, clients will quite literally find you. However, it is very very difficult to many this happen successfully, as has been said.

I am a bit confused at the exact business solution that you are trying to fulfill. Are you trying to be the outsourced support for an application company?

No. Not processing applications. Just going to try and build up a customer service base and then when the right structure and verbal skills are in place shift into a specific sector. And stay one step ahead of leaches.

Although I'm really open regarding my venture itt... theres just some aspects of my circumstances/goals that I won't divulge. Even if it means I have to piss in the wind a little in thread.

Just being honest given that you've given me the deceny of some excellent insight.

I'm not sure if this applies as much from a contact centre perspective?? But I envisage your 99% correct from a product development standpoint !!

Clearly the demographic of BFI is heavily weighted towards the technical specialities of outsourcing. I spose I'll have to find a another forum for CC steering/advise/experiences.

So what does "customer service base" mean? What customers are you going to be servicing?

And specifically what is your contact centre for?

Is this just general level-1 customer service for anything? If I call my bank because I can't use their website, I get you? If I am having trouble with a garden hose attachment, I call and get you?

No offense, but I think you are hearing things you didn't want to hear, so you are being defensive and trying to say it is us and not you.

It is like saying you want to build an electric lawnmower with a lithium-ion battery and after hearing people from Tesla's engineering team say it is a dumb idea for X and Y reason, "Well, I appreciate it, but you don't know what I am doing, I need to speak to the companies that built electric lawnmowers for the last 10 years using AAA batteries."

The experience we have with enterprise software development is more difficult to pull off than what you are trying to do by an order of magnitude.

It seems like you have moved the goal posts and are now only interested in training soft skills and communication and none of the technical aspects of it. While this is supremely easier, you are now working with an incredibly different type of company, and the rates you are going to be forced to pay people to not lose $ hands over fist are incredibly low.

If you are interested in starting a charity where you lose money on each employee, this might work, but companies do not use outsourced call centers to pay for quality of life of the employees. They do it to get around US and EU minimum wage laws, simple as that. For application development, the rates are considerably higher and sometimes are very comparable to the states, and there are other reasons it is a good way to get it done (timezone, scalability, etc.)

Pretty much yeah, that's the perfect call centre training ground imo to get staff up to the calibre I want. I'll take whatever I can get in this respect, be happy to breakeven and just increase the overall skillset/headcount in prep for the sector I want to penetrate.

Edit: when I said "No, not processing applications" this was in a call centre context. i.e. the call centre sector I want to penetrate is not "banking applications processing" over the phone etc.

No offence taken at all !!

It's actually the opposite; I'm not hearing the call centre jargon I want to hear in addition to what is being said. I wasn't saying I need to stop posting or stop taking notes on what's being said in this thread.

I was clearly just stating the obvious, which is pretty apparent from the responses in thread soo far. i.e. You guys clearly have significant expertise in enterprise software development -as you say- and I appreciate your comments and take on board every word that's being detailed and will continue to do so.

However, it does seems as though, for me to obtain the same calibre of insight regarding contact centre business development.... I currently have no reason to believe I'll gain it from BFI, as that demographic/audience obviously isn't here or isn't posting in the thread (yet).

I wasn't slurring anyone's credentials to post. I honestly think this is a fair and realistic comment on my part. I could have bubblewrapped my wording slightly. I'm just thirsty for as much information as possible in both segments of the services I am trying to supply.

My goals are the same and the posts have not moved even though I'm attempting to play a couple of games at once.

Your viability as a provider rests squarely on the shoulders of the last man to look at the code before its delivered. Whoever that 'last man' is is your entire business.

Arbitraging Indian code is like mining oil sands. Delivery is easy. Refining it is the entire game. There's an economic disequilibrium in project cost between what India can provide versus what it would cost to pay Westerners to do the same thing entirely versus the clever third option of having Indians do the bulk stuff cheap while being monitored daily by the much higher cost man who knows precisely what he's looking at. His nationality doesn't matter but you have to understand that you're not going to find him for $4 an hour in Tamil Nadu.

You have to understand what you're going to get from Indian call-center-turned-coders and what you need to turn it into prior to delivery to your client, presuming you're looking to be considered a viable provider for enterprise class stuff.

Shed your idealism now, or be prepared to have it pounded out of you.

You are never making general call center employees into higher level employees for you. There is absolutely no loyalty and the fact yout are outside a major city will mean they automatically assume better opportunities away from where you are.

Once they get these soft skills and become great communicators, they are already gone. On your dime. If you feel like doing this, start a non profit communications program with a university in India.

If you are trying to train people to go from generic call center to higher level support jobs like you are planning, be prepared to wait for 5-10+ years. The people that are willing to relocate to east bum**** to work at a call center are not the cream of the crop.

I'm not even saying making them into coders. You will make less than 10% into good communicators for you. You will make 90% into slightly better communicators for other people.

Thanks for the input chaps.

I'm just gonna roll up my sleeves up and get my hands dirty with a tonne of class and a smile on my face. Thats the only guarantee I can outline here at this stage given the challenges your emphasizing. And.... experience this 1st hand.

Fly out in a fortnight.. gonna do some sightseeing and then proceed. I have some simple retention controls that I'd like to put in play with this....which im not interested in divulging. WTIAWTIAW.

Regards,
Tops