13 years ago on 7th August, the call center of Iran Standard and Quality Inspection Company was prepared with intensive planning in 75 days and was launched with the presence of the CEO and managers. During these years, this center has played the role of the country’s largest outbound call center on the one hand, and the role of the largest opinion polling and private sector survey center in the country on the other hand.
Now this center, as an independent company and a subsidiary of ISQI Holding under the name of ” Quality Benchmarkers Engineering Services Co ” company, is engaged in providing services and developing activities. Accordingly, on the occasion of the 13th anniversary of the establishment of the call center, we had an interview with Babak Esmailian, who has been witnessing his strong presence in the growth line of this center for a long time and now he plays a role in the performance of this center as the CEO of Quality Benchmarkers Engineering Services Co. We invite you to join us in this conversation.
- Please tell us briefly about the formation and development process of the call center and in which fields and cities it is currently operating?
The first contact center of the company was formed in 2008 with 20 counters by the contracting team. Before that, the telephone inquiry team used to take the list of samples home manually and call the customers from personal phones. The questionnaires were completed on paper and after entering the information in the Excel file, the resulting data were used.
The current center was formed in the following years (2010) with 202 counters, and in recent years, the capacity of 44 counters was added to the previous capacity with the establishment of Hashtgerd and Bandar Abbas centers and by using CATI software, about 150 people were added to the team remotely.
- So far, in what trades has this center played a role and what challenges has it faced?
In a way, many types of customers have been call centers over the years. In addition to the automobile industry, which has been a regular customer of this collection, other companies such as insurance, banks, internet providers, home appliance manufacturers, educational institutions, internet taxi companies, etc. have also been our regular customers.
Usually, creating confidence in clients at the beginning of CATI projects and being able to make them believe that the collected data is valid and reliable is a constant challenge for market research companies.
- Now that the call center is operating as an independent company and a subsidiary of ISQI Holding, considering its high capacity, what other programs and areas do you have in mind to expand activities?
The fact is that the scope of activities of market research companies is very wide and we do a limited part of “quantitative research” both in the ISQI group and in the Quality Benchmarkers Engineering Services Co. Quality Benchmarkers Engineering Services Co has the capacity among market research companies to become the largest and leading market research company in Iran within a five-year horizon.
- Has there ever been a gap in the society for the implementation of research projects during the company’s activity? What solutions have been implemented in this regard?
In both quantitative and qualitative research, Iranian people have a very good attitude towards researchers. We interview almost 6 million compatriots every year, and this is while less than 1% of them have had inappropriate treatment with colleagues. Of course, in recent years, new methods have been developed by our colleagues, such as web-based interviews or the creation of specialized interview applications, which, in addition to receiving information, bring ease of responding to contacts.
- What other needs do you think can be found that the quality optimization company has the ability to solve?
In fact, our mission in Quality Benchmarkers Engineering Services Co is to receive real data and solve the problem based on them. Therefore, any company that faces problems in the field of business can be considered the target community of this company. Besides, in the future, in addition to strengthening the market research line, in order to solve the problems of customers in the framework of business, the consulting and software development unit of the company will also have a more active presence.
- In the end, considering the increasing importance of business development, do you have any suggestions for the efficiency of the call center capacity in this regard?
Data science and data mining will shape the future of our world’s call centers. In the coming years, we will witness the prediction of consumer behavior, and accordingly, the prediction of market behavior will be the output of call centers. We have the data of more than 6 million customers per year and we will start planning and investing for the upcoming developments.
