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http://news.co.cr/call-centers-in-costa-rica/6696/
Call Centers in Costa Rica Employ 16,000 People While Developing A Middle Class
Posted by Bill Anderson on May 18, 2012 in Technology
Call Centers in Costa RicaCall centers are often linked to telemarketing, but this is just one of the many business functions performed by call centers. Call centers may focus on one of the following business functions, or operate campaigns that cover many different functions:
Inbound sales, where customers are responding to an advertisement.
Outbound sales using client provided call lists.
Lead generation through qualifying customers calling about a sales promotion.
Market research by conducting surveys.
Processing of product orders from customers.
Customer support through providing help desk functions.
Technical support for particular products.
Appointment setting.
Credit and billing problems, including collections.
Cellphone activation.
Fundraising for charities.
Cause related marketing.
Direct response to TV / Radio marketing.
Sports booking.
Call centers essentially perform any business function that involves person-to-person contact over a voice connection. Costa Rica is the home of a number of corporate call centers, including Bank of America, HP, IBM, Proctor & Gamble, and Western Union. Independent call centers range in size for super call centers, such as Sykes Costa Rica with 3200 employees, to operations run from a home with one or two employees. There are no statistics regarding the number of call centers in Costa Rica. Richard Blank (CEO of Costa Rica’s Call Center) estimates that there may be as many as 300 call centers operating in Costa Rica. With just over a 100 seats (employees actually making the calls), Costa Rica’s Call Center represents a mid-sized call center.
If the number of call centers is hard to estimate, the number of workers employed by call centers is even more difficult to determine. According to the Costa Rican Investment Promotion Agency (CINDE), the offshore service sector employs 1.4% of the Costa Rican labor force, with contact centers employing about 50% of this offshore service sector. With a total work force of 2.3 million in Costa Rica, this results in about 16,000 workers being employed by call centers. The CINDE report “Costa Rica Human Capital Cost – Services Sector” (PDF download) estimates the average wages for call center workers, as follows:
Job Position Monthly
Average Monthly Average +
Mandatory Benefits
Call Center Clerk $533
Contact Center Manager $4323
Contact Center Quality Inspector $1320
Contact Center Team Leader $1623
Intermediate Bilingual Agent $981
Junior Bilingual Agent $952
Spanish Agent $767
Senior Bilingual Agent $1019
Workforce Coordinator $2317
The above table reflects the average salaries for September 2011, when the exchange rate was 510 colones equaled one US Dollar.
The Mandatory Benefits includes the Christmas Bonus, which is equal to one month of pay.
The A.T. Kearney Global Services Location Index for 2011 ranks Costa Rica as #19 in the world for outsourcing, and #4 in Latin America. The GSLI report points out that cost competitiveness is becoming a major challenge for Costa Rica. Nearshore Americas, in their article “Latin America’s Ranking Reflects, ‘Intensifying’ of IT, BPO Skill,” points out that El Salvador and Honduras are leveraging their lower labor costs to attract nearshore business. While price competition presents a serious challenge, Costa Rica still holds an edge according to CR Technology Insight, which points out that Costa Rica is #1 for innovation in Latin America, #3 for network readiness, #3 for property rights index, and #4 for high technology exporter.
The recent article on smartphone growth statistics illustrates the growing importance of smartphones on purchase decisions by consumers. The smartphone shortens the time between seeing a product of interest and acting on the decision to purchase the product. Once the consumer fills out a request, or contacts an 800 number, the call center comes into play. The call center acts either as an order processing center, or qualifies the lead. The qualified lead is then passed to either the client, or another part of the call center operation. Marketing to a potential customer, who has expressed an interest in a product, generates far more sales than attempts at marketing using “cold call” lists.
Internet forums and discussions on social media services, such as Facebook, created a self-help culture. This phenomenon reflects the frustration of many consumers, whose contact at a help desk does not speak good English. Consumers want an answer, and want one that they can understand. In many cases, the self-help groups may solve the problems. Without the presence of an official company representative, these forums may also give misinformation. In these cases, the work for the help desk representative is more complicated, as they must correct the misinformation, and then provide the correct solution. Help desks will remain as a vital operation for call centers, as they are the official company representative, who can also take corrective actions, such as authorizations for return, or corrections to billings. In both quality of English language speakers and understanding of technology, Costa Rica has an advantage over call centers located in the Philippines and India.
In terms of outsourcing, call centers are part of Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). BPO includes many other business process, such as accounting, back office operations, and payroll. BPO, itself, is part of services outsourcing. Other services outsourcing areas are Information Technology Outsourcing (ITO), and the new area of Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO). There are Costa Rica businesses involved in all areas of service outsourcing.
I wish to thank Richard Blank of Costa Rica’s Call Centers for sharing his knowledge of call centers in Costa Rica, and for acting as a soundboard for my ideas on this article.
