Committed workers key to telemarketing success
-says Berbice entrepreneur
Stabroek News
July 2, 2004
A Berbice telemarketing centre is making connections, but officials note that they will need a committed labour force to expand further.
Nand Persaud Inter-national Communications (NPIC) of Tain Village, Corentyne opened for business in January 2003 and currently has two telemarketing contracts, one selling sales programmes and the other with a magazine firm.
Nand Persaud Jr., manager of NPIC, explained that once they can secure a committed labour force then expanding their operations would not be a problem.
An official opening of the centre is likely by the year's end.
"Once that is in place [the work force] everything else is ok," says Persaud, adding that recently they laid off 18 workers due to non-performance.
Training for current workers is ongoing and constant evaluation of the workers is undertaken.
As the company makes attempts to secure other contracts they are willing to employ at least 120 more persons before the year's end.
The company has 136 employees, 121 of whom are telemarketers.
Nevertheless Persaud noted that the company prefers to take it slow until they develop the capacity for bigger contracts adding that they should have been much larger by now.
He says the working conditions at the telemarketing centre are excellent with air conditioning, transportation allowances and overtime compensation.
Although the company is able to make a profit, it is a big centre with a lot of fixed costs, says Persaud, and fully using its capacity is vital.
He told Stabroek Business that the 'do not call registry' recently instituted in the US does not directly affect their operations since the US company which contracts them provides the 'leads' (customers) to be called. Most importantly Persaud notes that his US contractors are satisfied with the service provided by NPIC.
Persaud says the outsourcing market is big as US companies look to cut costs.
Prime Minister Samuel Hinds, in a recent visit to the facility, suggested that with the good example set by other telemarketing companies in Guyana, the country could attract more telemarketing contracts.