“Client’s trust is of Utmost Importance”

“Client’s trust is of Utmost Importance”

(Corporate Voice: Mr. Surajit Bose, General Manager, First Source Solutions Limited, Bangalore)

Q: First Source Solutions is primarily known for its financial sector clientele. Other than the financial sector who are the major contributors to your business?

A: The revenues are pretty much split between the financial sector, telecom and healthcare. But just to give you a flavour – the telecom sector contributes to nearly 33% of the revenue and same the percentage split between the financial and healthcare services. So the portfolio of the company is healthy and balanced.

Q:  What kind of services does First Source provide?

A: If you look at the choice of sectors we have taken, it allows us to cut across various services offered. Hence it is not any particular service or any particular industry.It cuts across the entire customer life cycle; like customer acquisition, customer service and customer retention. We also handle a lot of transactional work, related to back office. The data-intensive work that we do primarily allows cutting across all three verticals.

Q:  In a BPO service what do you generally do to retain your customers?

A: In a BPO it is absolutely important for us to retain our customers because the lead time required to get a new customer is approximately anywhere between 6 – 9 months. So you really need to work with the customers you have. And what we have done as a company is that we try and work with only strategic partners. And the reason I say ‘partner’ is because we partner with them to solve their business problems and that is how we see the whole engagement and partnership model to retain customers.

Q: Is there any strategy that you follow in First Source to enhance customer service?

A: At the end of the day, our customer’s or client’s trust is of utmost importance. So the strategy is pretty simple – take care of your customers. Give him insights into what his customer is thinking, what is happening in the industry in which he is operating. And those are essentially additional values that we provide to our customers, in terms of their end-customers. It enables them to improve processes and products; and hence they stick with us.

Q: How has the recession affected the service industry?

A: There are various ways of looking at recession. As a company we have always looked at it from an opportunistic angle. When customers are pinched to take calls and yet deliver great customer experience, that is when they come to people who have done it over the years and know how to do it in the most efficient and economic manner. And for us it’s really an opportunity. Having said that, one can’t that the downturn in the US has had an impact on all industries.  Even we have been affected; but as I said we see it as an area of opportunity.

Q: What are your opinions on Obama’s view about outsourcing?

A: These are very macro-level statements that are made and people try and read so much into it, since it comes from the president of the United States. Just to give you an example, in 1991 when we went liberal, the new government came but the policies remained the same. At the end of the day, United States as a country has been very business-focused. So eventually, it is the business that is going to drive the decisions. Yes, unemployment has risen drastically. So outsourcing is bound to slow down; but there are other emerging markets and there are opportunities that we all have to look forward to.

Q. What are your views on the relevance of this conference on ‘Service Excellence’?

A: I’m happy that your institute is organising something like this. This is a great start, because earlier investment marketing was the most targeted segment There was a time when everyone wanted to become an investment banker. Then you had brand management being the glamorous field to choose. Now having said that, I would say, today we’ve reached the stage where everybody has to tune himself to customer needs, customer centricity and customer service and that cuts across whichever function you are performing. And it is both for your internal as well as external customer.

For example, if you are in HR your customers are essentially your employees. But if you are in marketing, it is your client. What happens traditionally is the pre-sales service; and you have a great customer service experience. But it is the post-sales customer service that one really needs to focus on. And as managers, when we are framing strategies and framing policies, that’s what we are supposed to keep in mind.

Interview by:

Aparna Prakashkutty

Ist Year PGDM