Starting A Telemarketing Business

[jamie2008]

Hi Guys/Gals.

As you probably realised I am very new to this forum. I just wondered if i could run an idea past you and you tell me what you think or even any advice would be welcome.

I am currently a business development manager who specialises in telemarketing/cold calling in a business to business role.

I ideally would like to come to Thailand to hopefully one day set up a medium sized call centre and outsource my services to companies in the UK and other countries like the US and Canada etc that are looking for lead generation, appointment making, research that type of thing.

In the UK businesses would charge around £250-£300+ per day for this service and with labour being cheaper in Thailand i think this could be a good business opportunity as obviously the day rate i charge a client would be cheaper than the UK.

What do you think?

Are the phone companies reliable in Thailand?

Obviously there is a lot to take into account with office rental, telephones, staff costs, can anyone advise me what these are likely to be, just a rough figure would be great?

I could also offer my services as a sub contractor to other telemarketing companies in the UK etc .

Have many of you started business in Thailand, can you advise of any potential pitfalls or laws that i should be aware of.

I look forward to hearing from you all.

Many Thanks

[ThaiPauly]

You are gonna need your staff to speak perfect English and thats gonna cost you at least 25,000 Baht per person.

Cost of phone calls is gonna be a major drain on your recources, Skpe is not reliable enough to do biz with IMO

An office in BK for 8 -10 people would be around 20k a month, plus electric

Phone companies are not as reliable as back home , but they are OK.

Other than that .....nothing to add really, good luck

Edited February 10, 2008 by ThaiPauly

[gregb]

Lots of these already operate in Thailand.

The telecom side isn't a problem any more. Prices have really come down since the NTC started issuing licenses. Outbound to UK mobile is very expensive , but otherwise UK landline calls and inbound DIDs with London numbers are very cheap. Skype is a ripoff. There are many local services as cheap or cheaper with better quality and local support.

Your staff will usually consist of local expats operating without a work permit, and you will be paying about 50k per month for them. This is a high turnover industry, and your staff will be the ones who aren't necessarily the most reliable.

You also have to keep things low profile, as having a bunch of people without work permits in your office is kind of an offense in Thailand.

You may want to consider a distributed call center instead, but you will have to spend more time thinking about how to arrange this. In this case, your low paid expats work from home, and you just transfer the calls to them. They'll need a good internet connection and a landline. This is much easier to hide in the event someone wants to make trouble for you.

Lots of opportunities here if you have the contacts back in farangland, but keep in mind this will be a shady business. Thais can not do the job, so you will have to violate the work permit laws if you actually want to be successful.

[7TEL]

yeah the previous posters pretty much said it jamie...

to set up here you will need a fair size budget to go legit i.e. company formation/registration/work permits etc... but the overhead is ok after that.

then its all about staff after that.. but there is a plentiful supply of native english speakers here

.... if u want to check it out further ,pm me here . im an experienced contact centre manager and will be based in thailand from april onwards..

[raro]

You may be better off in the Philippines, the people there speak English far better than in Thailand at lower salaries (compared to a Thai with good ernglish skills).

[Chang_paarp]

You may be better off in the Philippines, the people there speak English far better than in Thailand at lower salaries (compared to a Thai with good ernglish skills).

If you need a contact in The Philippines for the telecom end of that send me a PM, I have friend that does that sort of thing all over Asia, not sure if he get to Thailand but definitely Philipines.

[taxin]

Hi Guys/Gals.

As you probably realised I am very new to this forum. I just wondered if i could run an idea past you and you tell me what you think or even any advice would be welcome.

I am currently a business development manager who specialises in telemarketing/cold calling in a business to business role.

I ideally would like to come to Thailand to hopefully one day set up a medium sized call centre and outsource my services to companies in the UK and other countries like the US and Canada etc that are looking for lead generation, appointment making, research that type of thing.

In the UK businesses would charge around £250-£300+ per day for this service and with labour being cheaper in Thailand i think this could be a good business opportunity as obviously the day rate i charge a client would be cheaper than the UK.

What do you think?

Are the phone companies reliable in Thailand?

Obviously there is a lot to take into account with office rental, telephones, staff costs, can anyone advise me what these are likely to be, just a rough figure would be great?

I could also offer my services as a sub contractor to other telemarketing companies in the UK etc .

Have many of you started business in Thailand, can you advise of any potential pitfalls or laws that i should be aware of.

I look forward to hearing from you all.

Many Thanks

Jamie, my advice would be to find an existing company who already has premises, staff etc or an existing company that would look to expand there services more. This way you wont need to worry about the pitfalls & laws and spend more time on securing business and taking care of your clients. More importantly your start up costs will be much lower.

There are companies in Thailand that would work with you, its just a matter of finding them. If you have a good enough business plan along with the contacts overseas im sure they would talk to you. You might hear a lot about companies stealing your idea or going behind your back and doing it themselves however, in reality this doesnt happen as much as people would like you to believe.

As someone previously mentioned your biggest problem is staff. Firstly the Thai English skills are not that good. Secondly with something like telemarketing where you have to accept that you will get 1 "Yes" for every 50 times you get a "No", this can be very challenging to your average Thais employees confidence, they would give up too easy.

As for expats Thailand has a very small expat work force, they are either inexperienced or have high expectations such as western style salaries that are far too high. Thailand is also the opposite of the UK in terms of loyalty when employing expats. Here its what a company can do for an employee, not what an employee can do for the company.

The majority of the expat workforce in Thailand are only interested in finding an employer as a means of "staying" in Thailand, and will have no other desire such as actually making your business work. Due to this your best option would be to recruit from overseas such as the UK.

[alexcage2000]

Jamie,

Hi Guys/Gals.

As you probably realised I am very new to this forum. I just wondered if i could run an idea past you and you tell me what you think or even any advice would be welcome.

I am currently a business development manager who specialises in telemarketing/cold calling in a business to business role.

I ideally would like to come to Thailand to hopefully one day set up a medium sized call centre and outsource my services to companies in the UK and other countries like the US and Canada etc that are looking for lead generation, appointment making, research that type of thing.

In the UK businesses would charge around £250-£300+ per day for this service and with labour being cheaper in Thailand i think this could be a good business opportunity as obviously the day rate i charge a client would be cheaper than the UK.

What do you think?

Are the phone companies reliable in Thailand?

Obviously there is a lot to take into account with office rental, telephones, staff costs, can anyone advise me what these are likely to be, just a rough figure would be great?

I could also offer my services as a sub contractor to other telemarketing companies in the UK etc .

Have many of you started business in Thailand, can you advise of any potential pitfalls or laws that i should be aware of.

I look forward to hearing from you all.

Many Thanks

Jamie, my advice would be to find an existing company who already has premises, staff etc or an existing company that would look to expand there services more. This way you wont need to worry about the pitfalls & laws and spend more time on securing business and taking care of your clients. More importantly your start up costs will be much lower.

There are companies in Thailand that would work with you, its just a matter of finding them. If you have a good enough business plan along with the contacts overseas im sure they would talk to you. You might hear a lot about companies stealing your idea or going behind your back and doing it themselves however, in reality this doesnt happen as much as people would like you to believe.

As someone previously mentioned your biggest problem is staff. Firstly the Thai English skills are not that good. Secondly with something like telemarketing where you have to accept that you will get 1 "Yes" for every 50 times you get a "No", this can be very challenging to your average Thais employees confidence, they would give up too easy.

As for expats Thailand has a very small expat work force, they are either inexperienced or have high expectations such as western style salaries that are far too high. Thailand is also the opposite of the UK in terms of loyalty when employing expats. Here its what a company can do for an employee, not what an employee can do for the company.

The majority of the expat workforce in Thailand are only interested in finding an employer as a means of "staying" in Thailand, and will have no other desire such as actually making your business work. Due to this your best option would be to recruit from overseas such as the UK.

[alexcage2000]

Jamie,

Great idea! My name is Alex and I am in Thailand right now and just about ready to start the exact same business you mentioned. I've been here for six months now researching it. I disagree with most of the other postings.

For example, I have moved to Chiangmai, which is north of Bangkok 10 hours and even cheaper. The complete costs to register and set up a new business here is about $3,000 US.

It is true that few people speak English and even fewer speak it well. But I am only one man and I don't need 1000 telemarketers. I will start with two people and expand from there. There is a college campus here and I will recruit English speaking Thais from there. I would never hire expats because that wipes out much of the cost savings

Office space and computers are cheap. A website can be set up through Yahoo business for $60 US for three months, then I will pay a local developer little money to improve it. Landline phone quality is great. Yes, I will have to pay about $5 US per hour for the overseas calling, my target market being America, because that is where I am from. But since I will bill at $25-30 US per hour, pay around $5 per hour or less for staff, there is a huge profit margin. After doing the initial setup - I start next week, I will need to coldcall a new client.

If you want the chat about ideas, my number here is 66-80-790-2970. My email is [email protected]. Hope to hear from you and bounce around some ideas to improve both of our plans!

Alex

[PhuketPig]

Hi Jamie i have been thinking along the same lines.I have a freind here in Australia selling Photocopier toners.Although she is turning a profit im sure a cut in labour costs would help.I was looking at doing the sales from Kohn Kaen and still distrubiting from suppliers in Aust.At around $200 per day per person here.I dont want to make millions just live a comfortable life in Issan.Im sure i could get english speaking Thais for less in a university town.Any thoughts?

[Shah Jahan]

Hi Jamie i have been thinking along the same lines.I have a freind here in Australia selling Photocopier toners.Although she is turning a profit im sure a cut in labour costs would help.I was looking at doing the sales from Kohn Kaen and still distrubiting from suppliers in Aust.At around $200 per day per person here.I dont want to make millions just live a comfortable life in Issan.Im sure i could get english speaking Thais for less in a university town.Any thoughts?

unless they have lived overseas for a number of years - even english speaking thais generally dont speak good enough english to be a telemarketer

you need Falangs or Filipinos

[PhuketPig]

Jamie,

Great idea! My name is Alex and I am in Thailand right now and just about ready to start the exact same business you mentioned. I've been here for six months now researching it. I disagree with most of the other postings.

For example, I have moved to Chiangmai, which is north of Bangkok 10 hours and even cheaper. The complete costs to register and set up a new business here is about $3,000 US.

It is true that few people speak English and even fewer speak it well. But I am only one man and I don't need 1000 telemarketers. I will start with two people and expand from there. There is a college campus here and I will recruit English speaking Thais from there. I would never hire expats because that wipes out much of the cost savings

Office space and computers are cheap. A website can be set up through Yahoo business for $60 US for three months, then I will pay a local developer little money to improve it. Landline phone quality is great. Yes, I will have to pay about $5 US per hour for the overseas calling, my target market being America, because that is where I am from. But since I will bill at $25-30 US per hour, pay around $5 per hour or less for staff, there is a huge profit margin. After doing the initial setup - I start next week, I will need to coldcall a new client.

If you want the chat about ideas, my number here is 66-80-790-2970. My email is [email protected]. Hope to hear from you and bounce around some ideas to improve both of our plans!

Alex

[PhuketPig]

Jamie,

Great idea! My name is Alex and I am in Thailand right now and just about ready to start the exact same business you mentioned. I've been here for six months now researching it. I disagree with most of the other postings.

For example, I have moved to Chiangmai, which is north of Bangkok 10 hours and even cheaper. The complete costs to register and set up a new business here is about $3,000 US.

It is true that few people speak English and even fewer speak it well. But I am only one man and I don't need 1000 telemarketers. I will start with two people and expand from there. There is a college campus here and I will recruit English speaking Thais from there. I would never hire expats because that wipes out much of the cost savings

Office space and computers are cheap. A website can be set up through Yahoo business for $60 US for three months, then I will pay a local developer little money to improve it. Landline phone quality is great. Yes, I will have to pay about $5 US per hour for the overseas calling, my target market being America, because that is where I am from. But since I will bill at $25-30 US per hour, pay around $5 per hour or less for staff, there is a huge profit margin. After doing the initial setup - I start next week, I will need to coldcall a new client.

If you want the chat about ideas, my number here is 66-80-790-2970. My email is [email protected]. Hope to hear from you and bounce around some ideas to improve both of our plans!

Alex

Hey Alex had any luck in finding compentent staff yet,If so what salery would i be looking paying at for telemarketers up north..