Conference Calls

[As a followup to my previous post, I'm posting a brief tutorial on Conference Call etiquette. This essay was published in mangled and shortened form in the Indian Express a couple of weeks ago.]

Effective Conference Calls

Most software companies in India are service companies with offshore clients. This means that, when one joins the IT industry and is allotted to a project, sooner or later one will be communicating with a US or Europe based customer. Besides E-Mail and Instant Messenger, he will be periodically co-ordinating with the client over the telephone. These are commonly called Conference Calls, because several people from both sides usually join in and resolve all pending matters.

New employees often make mistakes while participating in these Conference Calls. This may have serious consequences. Since the clients usually haven’t met the project members face to face, these calls are the only means they have of judging them. Creating a good impression is a must. Besides this, since the calls are international calls across Time Zones, time needs to be used effectively.

Here is a guide to getting the best results from Conference Calls.

Setting up the call.

1. It is always best to send out an email listing the details of the call well in advance, to prevent misunderstandings. The mail should contain:

- What is the appropriate time and date for the call? Remember that your client is in a different Time Zone. If US-Based, he/she is 9 to 13 hours behind. If Japan or Australia based, he is some hours ahead. Not all the client-side participants need be in the same time zone – they may belong to different offices. So make sure that the timings are convenient to all. When sending out notification for the call, ensure that the local time for each participating office is mentioned explicitly. In the case of the US, remember to take Daylight Savings Time into account.

- Who are the people participating in the call? Make sure that the names of all participating people, from India and all other offices, are mentioned. Also ensure that the email goes to each one of these people.

- What is the number to be called? Different offices have different ways of setting up call numbers. Verify that the correct number is sent to everyone. What is the country/area codes for the numbers? Are any passwords required to connect? Mention these details.

- Agenda for the call. It helps if all participants know the topics to be discussed. They can keep any related data ready if required. It also gives everyone a rough idea of the duration of the call, and whether or not they are really needed for the call.

Keep a printout of the mail handy, to use as a reference during the call.

2. What is the place from where the call will be made? Usually a conference room or a specific cubicle is used. Ensure in advance that the space and the phone instrument will be available.

3. For all agenda items, you can work out in advance the information the client is likely to ask for, and keep it ready.

Making the call

1. Be available online (IM or email) 10 minutes before the call. The client may want to reschedule the call if an emergency comes up.

2. As far as possible, see that all required Indian team members are present in the conference room before the call starts.

3. Designate one person to take the lead in the call. He will

* Make the actual call,
* Introduce himself, and attending team mates.
* When client is ready, start discussion on the points listed in the agenda. The concerned team members can then take over for their own items on the agenda.

4. At any time, if you do not understand what the client is saying, do not interrupt him; wait till he pauses. Then say specifically what it was that you didn’t understand. Request him to repeat the unclear portion.

5. Some new topics, which were not in the agenda, may come up during the call. If not sure about the details of these, do not jump to a hasty decision. Offer to send the details and analysis over email after the call.

6. It is fine for the local team to discuss points that the client has raised, while the call is ongoing. But do not speak in Hindi, Marathi or other languages during the call, even if the listener is Indian. This is very irritating to other participants if they are not familiar with the language. Stick to English. Do not use slang.

7. Designate one person to note down the minutes of the meeting. In particular, action items for team mates as well as clients should be noted, along with the expected time of completion.

8. At the end of the call, read out again the action points, the person responsible for each and the timeframe for them.

Following up

1. Send out the minutes of the meeting by email, to all attending parties as well as any managers who are interested. Most importantly, the minutes should list any decisions taken and all the action item details, as above.

2. When reporting the completion of the action items decided during the call, make a reference to the call itself. Thus in the mail, mention: “As per our discussion in the call of date so-and-so...”

3. Keep the minutes of older calls available on a local web site or newsgroup. This will help new members when they join the project.

Training? Why, wasn't college enough?

A news story in rediff today says that IT companies consider employee training low priority. I agree. My experience has been that a new employee is expected to 'just know' everything that is required for his job. Often there will be some technical training in the domain of the project, but that is pretty much it. The larger companies even have a couple of months of training sessions, which are supposed to bring even non-computer science graduates up to speed on IT, after which they join alongside their CS-grad brethren in projects. I don't doubt that the technical training they get is decent enough and comprehensive enough to work on the outsourced projects. (Remember my thesis that it is the fringe and 'simpler' part of any project that generaly gets outsourced.)

The area where training usually falls short is the Culture training. I don't mean stuff like which-hand-to-hold-the-fork and what-dress-code-to-be-followed. The working culture of a professional organization is very different from the cool, somewhat laidback environment of a college. The ground rules for interaction with colleagues and customers are more formal and rigid, even though they may not be spelt out explicitly. But these details are usually explained through informal sessions with senior employees in the project, not through any formal training. And this is where new employees usually trip up. Remember that the only way customers know the project team members is through their phone conversations, emails and chat. Special care needs to be taken in this respect. Yet these issues are skipped over entirely in the training sessions, and usually there isn't even any documentation explaining the details that experienced people take for granted.

I will list out the particulars of the unwritten codes of conduct in the next few posts. Comments and additions to the list are always welcome.

"My Job Went to India"

George sends me this link about a book which so blatantly opportunistic it hurts. It's called "My Job went to India(and all I got was this lousy book.)" Well, atleast he knows the quality of his book beforehand.

The blurb is full of marketing-type gems like "It's time to take control of our careers, and in the process, learn to stay both relevant and employed.", and "You'll learn how to shift your skillset up the value chain, from offshore-ready commodity to one in high demand."

On a more serious note, this book ought to be on every Outsourcee company's library bookshelf. Any Indian manager who is dealing with American clients on a daily basis needs to know the keywords and terminology that reassures the client. And whatever techniques this guy advocates to 'keep current' can be used just as easily by Outsourcee companies too.

Call Centre Theft

We've read the reports in the news (here, here) about the 'three ex-employees' of Mphasis, Pune, a call centre company stealing money from customers. Rediff is reporting it as a development that could 'bust the BPO boom'.

No one seems to notice the exact methodology that was used. I remember, when I got my PIN number for my bank account, that the instructions specifically said "DO NOT GIVE THIS NUMBER TO ANYONE, NOT EVEN A BANK EMPLOYEE." It sounds like a sensible instruction. How then did these victims give their PIN numbers to some unnamed call centre operator in India? [On a sarcastic note: According to the numerous Slashdot posts on the topic, aren't these Indian call centre workers supposed to be terrible at English, barely understandable, incapable of fixing the simplest problems? Apparently, they aren't so incomprehensible that you wouldn't give them your PIN number, eh?]

So the way in which this incident is being reported is all wrong : It's not a 'misuse of private data', it was a confidence scam. I'm pretty sure this sort of thing happens pretty frequently in the US too. Of course, when it happens there, it can't be turned into an anti-outsourcing story, can it? NASSCOM has come out with the right response to this:

The threat of data theft and misuse is no higher in India than in other countries, including the U.S., according to the National Association of Software and Service Companies in Delhi. The organization maintains that Indian outsourcing companies have adequate security systems in place.