Oracle Marketing - Reverses outsource trend

A Birmingham-based telemarketing firm is reversing the trend and expanding its call centre business rather than offshoring to the Far East.

Oracle Marketing has been assisted by Business Link Birmingham and Solihull to develop its services so it can cope with the growing number of firms that require help both making calls and responding
to them.

The business was set up four-and-a-half-years ago and specialises in making appointments for clients with key decision makers.

It has a number of blue chip clients but is now expanding to cope with the growing call centre market.

At present it has 20 staff but is now recruiting another five.Oracle realised that to compete with the cheap labour in India and the Far East it needs to offer added value and a highly trained workforce.

This means its staff not only can speak knowledgably on any client's products and services, but also make it appear seamless, so the callers believe they are speaking to the company directly, not an
outsourced call centre.

Business Link and the diversification programme contributed towards the cost of a new intelligent phone system.

This will detect the number dialled and produce a script and relevant comments for that client, meaning all the information needed is produced immediately on screen for the operator to use.Louise Adam, director at Oracle Marketing, said: "Call centres get a bad name because they don't have product knowledge and there is a high turnover of staff.

"We can't compete with the big call centres and we don't want to. We like to give a return on investment." We provide a tailor-made service for each client. We do a pilot campaign for ten days to work out what needs to be done for the clients, then move on from there by setting targets and levels of performance."

Keith Dunton, diversification programme manager at Birmingham Chamber, said: "At a time when seemingly all call centre work is heading east, here is one company that is reversing the trend and capitalising on what the public are saying - that if they do have to talk to a call centre, they want someone on the end of the phone who knows what they are talking about.