24/7 Customer plans new multilingual overseas centre

NEW DELHI: 24/7 Customer, a supplier of integrated customer lifecycle management services, is considering setting up a new overseas facility in Eastern Europe or the African region, for offering multilingual capabilities to its clients.

“We are scouting for a new overseas location which will enable us to tap multilingual capabilities. The plans will be fructified in the next 6 months,” S Nagarajan, co-founder and COO of 24/7 Customer, said.

The proposed facility is expected to start with 50-100 seats. The company currently has delivery centres India, Philippines and Gautemala, and sales and marketing offices in US, UK, Canada. It employs about 7,000 professionals, of which 90-95% are based in India in centres spread across Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai.

“Our facility in Gautemala, has a proximity to US market and also has bilingual capabilities in English and Spanish languages. The Gautemala facility had started with 50 seats and has been ramped up to a 300-seater facility now. The next centre would give us capabilities in European languages as well as English,” he said.

With the investment per seat at $10,000, the cost of such a facility could work out to at least $3m. “We are undertake work in customer lifecycle management where we need to serve both American and European customers. The new facility will strengthen our ability to service European customers,” he said.

The company, which clocked revenues of $70m in the year ended March ’06, has build its services on an integrated Customer Lifecycle Management (CLM) model.

Its offerings include customer interaction services such as voice, chat and e-mail services; customer intelligence using customer analytical models; and back office services that impact end customers such as applications processing and accounts receivables.