Sabah – Being in close proximity to Europe, providing time zone advantages to companies which outsource some of their operations, and having a large multi-lingual labor pool, Türkiye increasingly serves as an international hub for call centers.
Taking advantage of these distinct advantages, Netherlands-based data collection company GDCC has opened an office in Istanbul which will initially have 30 seats to conduct market and opinion based research in German, French and Dutch languages. The company plans to add Turkish and other European languages and expand the capacity to 75 seats at a later date.
Türkiye’s call center industry employs 70,000 people, according to the Chairman of the Call Centers Association of Türkiye, Metin Tarakci. “Among these, some 2,000 call center employees specifically service European customers.”, Tarakci said, adding that the sector had reached a volume of USD 1.4 billion.
Last September, a Swiss company announced plans to open a 200-seat call center in Diyarbakir in Southeastern Anatolia to serve its clients in Switzerland’s insurance sector.
Eastern and Southeastern Anatolia, best supported regions in the country’s investment incentive scheme, currently host nearly half of the 1,000 call centers in operation in Türkiye.