When England play, BPO staff have ball

Rati Chaudhary / TNN / Jun 25, 2006, 01:00 IST

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Every time David Beckham's boys take the field, England comes to a halt. So does work at these BPOs dealing with UK-based clients.

NEW DELHI: As England play their first knockout match of the FIFA World Cup against Ecuador on Sunday, many call centre employees in Bangalore, Gurgoan and elsewhere in India will be hoping the team continues winning.
The reason: Every time David Beckham's boys take the field, England comes to a halt. So does work at these BPOs dealing with UK-based clients — phones go silent and it's fun time for the staff.
"Call flow is reduced by 60-70% every time there is an England soccer match," says Siddharth Chaudhary, of an Okhla call centre. He says the centre has set expectations on call flow for each day. On days when England are scheduled to play, the call estimations are kept very low. But actual call flow is even less.
"Like during the match between England and Sweden, the expected flow was 54 calls in that hour (usually it is over 100), but we got less than 20. I myself did not get a call for 40 minutes."

However, for outbound call centres — who sell products and service in the UK — England's progress in the tournament is bad news. Abhishek Gadi, process trainer at a Gurgaon call centre, said: "Everytime we make a process call to a client in Britain during match hours, the phone is generally on answering mode or we are told the client is unavailable. Since calling abroad isn't cheap, we avoid calling when the match is on. We aim low for that hour. Productivity goes down 60%."

Says Syed Razi, senior consultant, Baxy Infosol, "In our outbound centre, we call people in the UK and sell our product.We close 4-5 sales in a usual hour, but when there is an England soccer match, sale is zero."
But it's business as usual for USA-based call centres in India. Razi says, "The call flow in the US process is not disturbed even if there is a US match." Call centre employees aren't complaining.
"There is a simple rule in call centres — they chill we chill, they work we work. So during the time when an England match is on, we also stick to the tube," says Vinayak of a Bangalore-based call centre.

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