Market size for Call Centers reached 4,45 billion, whereas employment hit 85 thousand

The results of a market survey indicating the market data for 2016 realized by IMI Conferences cooperating with Net Araştırma project management organized by Call Centers Association has recently been announced. According to the survey, the employment within the sector has increased 3 percent compared to last year and has reached 85 thousand employees from 83 thousand.

Mr. Metin Tarakçı, President of the Call Centers Association indicated that the call center market will continue to grow within the year 2017 as well and mentioned that, “For the next year, we expect the employment figures to reach 92 thousand, When we examine the sectoral breakdown of the employment numbers, the telecommunication sector holds the first place with 23.509 employees while the finance sector is the second with 16.869 workers. In the regional breakdown, Istanbul holds 40 %, Ankara 11%, İzmir 6%, and the whole other cities hold 43 % of the sector.”

In this respect, the market size reached 4,45 billion TL achieving a growth rate of 23,5 % upon the 30 % increase in the minimum wages. Thus, the real growth of the sector has hit 3 to 4 percent.

The social media effect in the Call Centers

The channels used by the Call Centers were primarily the phone calls and e- mails, whereas a 12 % increase in the usage of the social media was detected.

Last year the number of in and out calls through the Call Centers were 2 billion, while this figure reached 2,2 billion calls within the year 2016. This year, 48 percent of the incoming calls requested product/service information, whereas 20 percent were operational and 11 percent were for technical support. The majority of the out calls were realized for sales and marketing purposes.

64 percent of the Customer Representatives are women

The number of women customer representatives has already reached 64 percent in the Call Centers. Average age of the employees is 25 while there is a drastic increase in the number of high school graduates and students. According to an educational breakdown, the employees of Call Centers hold 52 percent university or post-graduate degrees, 36 percent high school graduates and 12 percent university students.

48 percent earn minimum wages

38 percent of the customer representatives earn 1.300 to 2.000,- TL salaries, while 10 percent earn between 2.000 to 2.500,- TL per month. However, 48 percent of the employees still work for the minimum wages.

The number of the customer representatives serving in foreign languages is around 4.000. 51 percent of these employees serve in English, 39 percent in German, 4 percent in Arabic and 3 percent in Dutch. The average working time for the customer representatives was realized as 1 to 2 years within the year 2016.

Please feel free to watch the interview we have achieved with Mr. Metin Tarakçı, President of the Call Centers Association at the following video in Turkish.