Aegis: Why 100 Agents quit together
By Vandu

Aegis BPO has 39,000 employees based in 42 delivery centers and looking after 135 clients.  Head quartered in Mumbai, Aegis has call centres in India, Philippines, America, Costa Rica, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Australia, Kenya and South Africa. Aegis, ranked eighth by NASSCOM among the top BPO exporters in India, is experiencing a growth spurt in a number of its centres.

Aegis Lucknow, which has a workforce of 5000, is a key pillar of Aegis India.  Aegis Lucknow clients include Videocon, Airtel and Vodafone.

It seems that the Airtel UPE Process managed by Aegis Lucknow has run into a few teething issues.  This Airtel Process at Aegis employs about 500 Agents out of which approximately 100 quit on the weekend of Aug 7-8, 2010.  This has been a shock to Aegis managers as the company has an excellent track record of management employee relations.

So, what went wrong?  Why did 100 Agents of one of the most successful BPO’s Aegis leave a Process supporting India’s most successful Telecom Airtel?

According to source in Aegis Maharashtra, the genesis of the problem at their UP offices was the dip by more than 50 percent in customer satisfaction coupled with the rise in AHT (Average Handling Time).  The AHT for the Airtel Process at Aegis Lucknow used to be about 117 seconds but it increased to 134 in July, 2010. Such an increase in AHT translates to losses worth lakhs.

Airtel wanted the issues fixed and Aegis Lucknow swung into action.  Hearing news that the Process staff would face a shake up, some Agents quit. The Process has suspended leave and Agents are working longer hours to improve their Customer Satisfaction Rating.  Then came news that Aegis Lucknow had advertised new jobs for the Airtel Process which paid a higher salary at Rs. 7000/month.  Many in the existing workforce were not happy as they had joined on Rs. 6000/month while new Agents would be paid Rs. 1000 more.

All these reasons contributed to 100 Agents leaving the Airtel Process on weekend starting Aug 7.

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