Jasim Uddin Haroon

The local call centres see a bright prospect for their business as they have already roped in a number of big names from abraod as their clients.

Major companies in developed and developing countries use call centres to interact with their customers and offer different services like healthline to them.

Bell Canada, a telecommunication company, Microsoft, OneBill which is the largest telecom service provider for the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the United Kingdom, the NKL and SKL responsible for conducting the state-level lottery in Germany, and the Continental Telecommunication of the UK are among the big names.

They are at this moment using the call centres for outbound telecommunication services, financial services and surveys.

"They are just a few of the internationally-reputed companies. We've more than 100 such customers using our services," said Ahmadul Hoq, president of Bangladesh Call Centre Forum (BCCF).

The BCCF chief said the local call centres were offering their services at comparatively lower prices than in the Phillipines, India and Sri Lanka.

Utility companies, banking institutions, non-government organisations, shopping malls and telecom companies are the major clients of the call centres.

A total of 41 call centres have so far been set up in the country over the last one year involving a total investment worth around Tk 300 million.

The call centres have employed more than 15,000 youths, most of them graduates. The average wages of the call centre employees are over Tk 15,000 a month.

Mr Hoq said the banks, financial institutions and telcommunications service providers operating in Bangladesh were turning to them because of their cheaper and faster services.

However, the number of domestic clients of the call centres is around 10.

Dr Sikder M Zakir, managing director of the Telemedicine Reference Centre Limited, who pioneered in providing health and medicine-related customer services on mobile phone, said he would also introduce services for diabetic patients next month.