In recent years, there has been an explosion of call centres in traditionally less-well-off areas, which has been great for stabilising local economy and providing jobs in areas of above-average unemployment.

Other reasons given have been thingslike 'clarity of accent', infrastructure (e.g. reliable power provision), proximity to other business and so on.

What were your organisations reasons for locating where they did? Has the strategy paid off, or is your organisation considering a move? Has your organisations priorities changed?

Some discussion, please... :-)

John

Hi, here is a list in no particular order of the things that I would look for when choosing a site [academic interest : we don't get involved in this]:

- Infrastructure : access to reliable and reasonably inexpensive communication and electric supplies
- Workforce : a ready market of reasonably skilled workers
- Accessibility : I have read reports linking productivity to accessibilty and subscribe to that idea. I'd expect a call centre to be relatively accessible
- Existing market : I wouldn't want to be the first into a new area, as I think it is better to follow and see where the good sites are
- Financial : I would expect some sorts of tax incentives to invest in a new area, or grants of some kind

There are of course many more things that could be added to this list, but I think that these would cover the main bases. I am assuming that the site would be located in a site where people speak the relevant language.

W.

Hi folks.

Is there any member out there who'd like to help us write a guide to locating call centres? In a few days we will relaunch 'Voice and one of the things we'd like to add is an article about the issues and considerations required for locating call centres.

Anyone interested? A chance to see your name in lights...

John

John,

I have been off line for the past 10 days setting up a new Call Centre down in Tasmania, Australia. I would be happy to share with you several of the documents we have produced for international clients looking at locating in Australia. I have a generic report covering the key requirements when looking at choosing a location. I always get a great (argument) feedback from my peers when this material has been presented at national seminars.

The material has been written from an Australian perspective (it mentions specific locations as examples) but I am sure the core ideas are the same globally.

If you would like copies of this material to contribute towards providing some reference material then drop me a short email at WYATTJM@bigpond.com

Look forward to other points of view on this subject.

Jim Wyatt
Optimi Direct
Australia