India's top 25 BPO companies to work at

Merril Diniz, Sumita Vaid Dixit for Careers360

An agent seated in a colourful cubicle, ears sandwiched between a large pair of headphones, all set to tackle the queries of customers based out of the US -- this is the most popular image associated with the BPO industry.

For a sector that has been around in its current avatar for over a decade in India, the term BPO is still synonymous, for many, with two words -- call centre. So, do all BPO employees answer phone calls?

@ the Call Centre

"First of all we don't use the term call centre anymore, or refer to them as contact centres because there are different

programmes -- the most common being the incoming call by a customer using the phone," Tim Huiting, vice president-

Human Resources, Convergys says.

"They respond to customers through e-mail or chat, a growing area right now. You are not speaking but it's a live programme. Some programmes are a blend of a call back to a query, an online intervention, plus someone does research and will then call the customer back "

In other words voice is only a component of the industry, albeit a substantially large component. With over 300 big companies, and presence in almost all cities, the sector employs more than a million individuals, with a large posse of  frontline staff (known as agents) along with a team of managerial staff.