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Call Center for Airline Industry

  • This topic has 11 replies, 1 voice, and was last updated 20 years ago by Ansar Iqbal.
Viewing 12 posts - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
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  • #15913
    Arshad Mughal
    Guest

    Hello,

    It was interesting to see discussions in this forum about Call Centers in pakistan.

    I am heading the IT department of an international Airline Management company with more than 40 clients (Airlines) in 35 countries around the world. We have our headquarter in Munich Germany. Being as a head of IT, I am responsible to design and initiate new projects in IT Sector for Airline industry in order to sale these to our existing clients and other Airlines around the world.

    I reached this forum when I started thinking to open a small entity of our company in Pakistan that can handle some specific IT tasks. This is my wish to establish something in my country.

    After getting review to this forum, I started to think if there is any scope to open a Call center just for the Airline industry! Is someone interesting to brainstorm this idea via this forum, like which specific services can be offered to Airline industry via a call center? There is a possibility of a joint venture as well.

    Allah Hafiz

    #15914
    Saeed Qadri
    Guest

    Dear Mr. Arshad Mughal,

    My name is Saeed Qadri and I own and operate an international customer contact center in Islamabad, Pakistan. Previously I helped establish one of the first international call center in Islamabad. We have experience of setting up and executing call center projects. In fact we have done telemarketing for LD products, supported directTV, cable and wireless etc quiet successfully. Currently we provide services to some leading store chains and retail outlets.

    Recently we have been approached by a local Air line to setup and execute their call center.

    Some ideas that I can throw are as follows:

    1) Obviously inbound support for air line. Resolving ticketing issues by tapping into the IATA databases. There are a lot of people who are trained in airline ticketing and this can be helpful.

    2) A support desk for IT tasks for the Air line. They can issue problem tickets, escalate it to engineers. Primarily providing level-1 tech support.

    3) Running loyalty programs. Customer win back programs and announcing new rates/incentives/ routes etc can be out bound services. Air line industry desperately needs to increase/attract new travelers and this can be something they can be really interested in. Plus they already have comprehensive information on their customers and at times their competitor’s customers.

    I hope that you are successful in your venture and may ALLAH help us all.

    Please let me know if you need more information.

    Best Regards
    Saeed Qadri

    #15915
    Numan
    Guest

    Hi Mr Arshad

    Thanks for giving Pakistan the oppurtunity for a Customer Call Center.

    Can you please post some more information about the Airline Industry and how we can contact you. The only problem I see for Airline Industry Call Center is the Language Barrier. We can easily get English speaking agents but there could be a major problem if we were to offer our services to Europeans ( French, German)

    Thanks looking forward to hear from you soon.

    Wassllam

    #15916
    Arshad Mughal
    Guest

    Dear Saeed Qadri,

    Thanks for your detailed reply. I would like to contact you for some more details and iptions. How can I reach you? Please let me know.

    regards,
    Arshad Mughal

    [Moderator’s note: Postings where contact detailed need to be exchanged are considered commercial, and the person posting is required to pay a small fee towards our marketing costs. Messages that accepted free of charge on this forum will have contact details removed.]

    #15918
    Ansar Iqbal
    Guest

    I think you are right.

    Pakistan has the potential for offshoring provided that call rates to Pakistan can be brought to the same level as India. I am in the situation where I would like to open a call centre in Pakistan but the call charges are sometimes 5 times thoase of India. I would rather not open a call centre in India. Was Paktels’s monopoly supposed to expire in Dec 2003?

    #15919
    Saeed Qadri
    Guest

    We are confusing so many things in here. Call center rates in Pakistan are already lower than India, and two the IPLC rates are actually a bit lower than India again.

    If you are puting trunks!! then you should rethink the whole technology architecture.

    PTCL’s monoply should go; but I have setup three centers with the same infrastructure provided by PTCL ; and it is actually not that bad.

    I would suggest to all who are puting up centers in Pakistan to do their homework right.

    Government is blessing the outsourcing business in numerous ways…

    Let me know if you need info…

    Regards

    Saeed Qadri

    #15921
    Ansar Iqbal
    Guest

    If your company are experts at setting up call centres why have you only got a Pakistani number on your web site? which is clearly aimed at the UK/US yet it has not got, a UK or US number?

    I would expect a expert in their field to at least display what they claim to be able to offer.

    I am worried about dealing with people who promise the earth but when it comes to delivery they were all sizzle and no sausage.

    I have come across this all too often in Pakistan.

    I have to have reliability before I can start making promises to our customers.

    #15922
    malik@softsourceinc.com
    Guest

    ansar iqbal

    well said, i was last three weeks in pakistan, have met every entreprenure individually, can share some information, if you like. Overall I can say, yes there are very serious entreprenures in Pakistan anxious to enter this market, no question about potential there, but we have to weave through to get to reality.

    Met government officials at highest level, for the first time i got the impression that they are equally keen to bless this industry. People like you, need to make a committed move to make a difference now, we have only 18 month window of opportunity for pakistan, significant buisness can move to pakistan, other wise it will find another destination if we expats remain on the side lines just watching like last 6-8 years. I must say here that i have met more resistance from pakistani expats to move an operation to pakistan than any american or an indian expat.

    My suggestion is to make a trip, see every one, look at their positives first, try to mitigate the negatives, which is all possible and tehre you have what you need.

    thanks

    malik

    #15923
    Tariq Jamil
    Guest

    Dear Mr. Malik,

    I live and work in Miami, FL. I am planning to go down to Pakistan and see for myself a few call centers. Who do you recommend ? I have exchanged emails with a few of them like netone and voxel. I don’t want to waste time ; can you help in making a shopping list ?

    Cheers

    #15924
    Mohamamd Malik
    Guest

    Thank you for the note. sure we can share some information that we have, i shall be back in US on 3/25 and ccan communicate further.

    thanks

    malik

    #15925
    Asad Baig
    Guest

    Hi Guys,

    The problem I have is finding competent and reliable organisation, who employ a high calibre of individuals. It seems the 20% culture very much still exists, to give access to the right contacts.

    I was recently in Pakistan, specifically for the purpose of seeking companies who would be able to handle our customer queries from the UK.

    Firstly locals seems to get so tied up into BULLS*** that they don’t seem to understand what you want. When they do it’s seems to be all rosey pictures and wonderful amateur dramatics.

    I got back to the UK and 3 months on, I’m still waiting for an email back from the unprofessional company..

    I’m sure there competent and professional companies out there who would be willing to have a slice of our business. We would much rather channel our business towards Pakistan and see people benefiting there.

    I hope to hear from call centre operators who are able to stick to their guns…

    Good Luck to you all and lets hope this industry prospers…

    #15926
    Ansar Iqbal
    Guest

    You got that right Asad.

    We also want to invest in our parent’s country, but unlike the numerous stories we hear of every uncle who invested in Pak being ripped off by the locals we do not want to suffer the same fate.

    Hence us working on the assummption that we will have to rely on ourselves for everything to importing the routers, pc hardware to having muliple connections for connectivity.

    Not to mention the issue of bribery.

    We do not want to become a fresh generation who are seen as a new source to rip off.

    This short sighted view by many Pakistanis adversley hinders the economy in the long term as people become very relectant to invest.

    I am sure we have all witnessed this short sightedness which exists every where but more so in countries like Pakistan/india etc

    There are some good people there you just got to find them from all the timewasters that you get also.

    I would suggest that all the top layer of management is British, with locals being promoted when they have proven themselves.

    I apologise in advance if this view is not very digestable but my interest is in the longterm, minimising risks where possible.

    Wish you the best of luck. Hope we can make it work and play a part in making the country prosper in a sustainable way, and competing effectivly with neighbouring countries such as india

Viewing 12 posts - 1 through 12 (of 12 total)
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