For most of the clients sitting far away in the US and UK; call centers in India still represent seedy, "kind of weird", jagged out rooms filled with young "wannabes" who are getting paid to attend to calls in American accents inside a dingy call center. Like most notions about India, this one too is a bit cliched and to an extent, untrue.

So let me give you a lowdown on how call centers actually function in India.

With state-of-the-art equipment and multimedia centers that are capable of handling multi-channel interaction; most Indian call centers are absolutely technologically savvy and can handle a vast range of services. Call centers offer extremely dedicated customer support programs catering to outsourcing customers 24 X 7 throughout the year.

The Call Center Employees

Indian call centers employ proficient undergraduates who are English educated and adept in computers. India with its huge educational base and emphasis on educational qualification is not found wanting in the number of professionals available.

There is a careful effort on creating a stimulating environment for employees in the call centers to retain the best talent in the industry, encourage innovation, teamwork, and maintain high standards of quality performance.

The Training

All employees undergo comprehensive training that ensures the high output from the call center executives. Most outsourcing companies are spending a sizeable amount on the training and development of their employees. Call centers even have alliances with foreign universities to offer accredited programs and further enhance their professional qualifications. They also have strategic partnerships with countries like USA and Australia to provide technical training.

The Indian inbound call centers' infrastructure

There is a considerable amount invested in high quality technological infrastructure that makes use of state-of-the-art equipment to maintain continuity of service and increase the speed of transactions.

This greatly impacts the reliability and security factor in Indian call centers which is extremely high. Redundancy and fall over are reduced to the minimum with seamless growth opportunities for existing facilities.

The Security Issue

A few delinquent executives have maligned the call center industry by cracking customer codes and misappropriating funds but that has been just an instance or two. Most Indian call centers are ISO certified and have very stringent security and quality measures in place to thwart any such attempt. Through a decade and a half of outsourcing in India such cases have been far and few and can be counted on the fingers! This means that it is more an aberration than a rule and that most call centers are equipped to work with classified and sensitive personal data without security breaches.

All call centers in India comply with international standards and are totally committed to quality in processes and delivery standards and parameters.

Almost all call center service providers ensure trusted backups in case of system failures and there has never been a case of complete technical breakdown, this means that the customers can be assured of the services even in times of emergencies and under all conditions.

This is not an exhaustive list of call center functions and features, but greatly depicts the quality and standards maintained in all call centers across India.