Anas ALHILAL of Lazada, speaks about the future of Asterisk call-centers business

2016-08-31

Anas ALHILAL Anas ALHILAL is an experienced manager and entrepreneur in IT and Telecommunication. After a significant experience in Consulting, Anas has founded Medina Telecom and launched UniBOX, an all-in-one information system for Businesses.
Anas is currently Regional Operations Manager at Lazada.

Could you summarize for our readers your profile and your role in Lazada organization and the core business of the company?

Lazada is a major e-commerce player in south east Asia. My role as a Regional Operations Manager is to select and implement the right technology that fits the needs of the company to achieve more automation and enhance customer experience.

Mr. ALHILAL, what's your view on the future of the Asterisk call-center industry in the next two years?

Organisations looking for a flexible, cost effective and quick to implement solution for their call-centers will still be inclined to choose an Asterisk implementation.
However, maintenance and support will still be challenging as these organisations do not have the right resources and expertise to ensure a minimal downtime and use the solution to the fullest.
This represents a real opportunity for companies solutions with added value on top of the Asterisk stack. These value added components can be service (support and maintenance) or applications (user interfaces, automated calls or any other customized solutions).

What kind of benefits do you think professionals experience with dialer software like WombatDialer?

Automation here is key. In the case of simple use cases, solutions such as WombatDialer eliminate the need for manual calls resulting in many benefits:
- Faster processing with a positive impact on customer satisfaction
- Headcount (thus cost) reduction
- Employees assigned to more sophisticated tasks enhancing employee motivation, thus productivity

What are the key factors which make a successful outbound campaign?

Not all calls can be automated, the use cases must be the simplest ones requiring a relatively limited interaction
Depending on the countries, it is more or less acceptable to receive an automated calls. In some cases, these calls can be perceived as intrusive.
Finally, the quality of the IVR is crucial and has to comply with the following:
- A clear and pleasant voice with a professional quality recording
- Allow calls recipients to input answers (via DTMF if necessary) during the voice messages

What are your thoughts about the strategic role of call-centers in the future of your business?

On one hand, call-centers are the organisations points of interaction, thus they have a great role in customer experience which has a direct impact on customer loyalty and driving revenue.
On the other hand, the trend is towards more outsourcing of this function as organisations want to focus more on their core businesses.
The challenge here for call centers is to continue contributing to a good customer experience while being outsourced.


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