In the early nineties, BPOs seemed to be a good business case for Indian Geography. However, the then existent high call rates killed the cost advantage of the cheap labor available in the country. Not to forego this opportunity, the government gave permission to operate with leased lines, which helped Indian businesses to compete at a level playing field.

Thereafter came the opportunity of having employees work from home. The provision of leased lines and VPN together presented a dangerous opportunity for toll fraud. So, DoT brought in multiple barriers like

• Rs. 1 Crore per office to enable VPN
• Service Provider provided VPN should be used.

The above restrictions were not affordable to many of the smaller BPOs and they continued to not use the work from home (WFH) policy.

The Corona situation turned over the table for everybody. The government wanted the Economic activity to continue, as much as possible. DoT was forced to ease the norms, as follows (No. 18-5/2015-CS-I, dated 13.03.2020):

• No security deposit is required.
• Service Provider Provided VPN is not required.
• DoT should be intimated about the agents and the static IPs used for the setup.

A further notification has extended these facilities till 31-12-2020.

What are the new scenarios possible?

1. Outbound Call Center:

The agent can sit in his house connect to his dialer in the Office or Cloud over VPN and softphone and dial his customer. The dialer could work in Predictive, Progressive, or Manual mode.

      2. Inbound Call Center:

The central system will receive calls and filter it through a possible IVR. Thereafter, the call will be routed to a specific agent, who is sitting at home with his softphone or mobile phones.

The DoT announcement was a big relief to many smaller call centers.

To know more on how to set up a call center with work from home option, contact us at sales@asttecs.com