Social enterprise “Sonido”
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Call centre “Sonido”, Riga, Kekava
Provides a wide range of call centre services for businesses in any sector, employing people at risk of social exclusion. The profits from the business fund the social project “Let’s Talk” – a phone line to reduce loneliness for those who feel alone and want to talk. Calls are received in Latvian, Russian, English and sign language.
Mūkusalas iela 41, Riga, LV-1050
+371 66047240
Nowadays, there is a growing demand for socially responsible entrepreneurship, and social enterprise “Sonido” is an example of how providing a professional service can be a way to make a profit, support socially at-risk groups and contribute to society at the same time. The main activity for “Sonido” is a call centre that provides a wide range of high-quality services for businesses in any sector. Besides that, the company employs people with disabilities, providing special adjustments to the workplace and training for employees as well as runs the social project “Let’s Talk” alongside its day-to-day work.
“The dream of creating a business is to say too much – I would say I had no choice but to make money and be my own boss! And I see the approach to making calls, telemarketing and handling incoming calls differently than other companies – that was my advantage,” says the founder Inga Muižniece when talking about how she started her own business.
During the work in different places, Inga realised that she could not and did not want to work under the supervision of other bosses: “Without much consideration at my last job, I said – I’m going to prove you – I’ll start a company and I will be successful! Then I went out and realised – I don’t have any entrepreneur friends, I don’t know how to make a business, I don’t have any money.” She managed to find a business partner, but the first two years were difficult – Inga had no idea where to start. Joining BNI, or Bussines networking international, an organisation that brings together different entrepreneurs helped a lot. Gradually, contacts were made, the client base expanded and, as the company stabilised, Inga came up with an idea she had already thought of – to set up a phone line where people could call just to talk, express their worries and be listened to.
“When I worked in other call centres, I noticed that people often called to talk. When I had a functioning call centre, I came back to the same realisation that most conversations are 70% about emotions and only 30% about solutions. I realised that there are different helplines for all kinds of help – psychological, legal, etc. – but there really isn’t a line where you can call when you have no one to talk to,” says Inga Muižniece.
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Being active at BNI taught Inga that ideas need to be spoken out loud, because someone might already know the easiest way to make them happen. “And that’s what I started to do – I said I wanted to make a phone where people could call to talk, but I didn’t have the money. Where do I get the money? I just put my thoughts out into space and hoped that maybe it would catch on somewhere.” Zita Baranova heard Inga’s idea – she told her about social entrepreneurship, wrote her first project for support and the helpline was operational from 1 September 2018.
It was clear from the outset that the people who would be answering these calls did not need specific knowledge, but a great deal of empathy. A colleague called for her father, who is in a wheelchair, to be given a chance. “I went to meet him and he said, ‘That’s a very good idea! I’ll bring you more like me, and let’s make it happen! So suddenly out of nowhere, the staff came and it all happened so organically that I don’t even know if it was me – apart from telling everyone around me that I wanted to do it!” Inga says with a laugh.
More than five years have passed, and from 40 calls in the first month, the number of calls has now grown to a thousand a month. “The most interesting thing is that this is still a unique service in Europe, where there are only helplines. Why? Because it’s the most realistic way you can make money from this kind of activity – the state pays you to provide a service. For me, the business model is different – my call centre customers know that I’m supporting “Let’s Talk” with part of the profits when they choose my services. I would say that my customers are all value-based – they understand why my service might be more expensive sometimes because they see the added value.”
The company employs 26 to 30 people on a daily basis, about half of whom have disabilities. The turnover of employees is very low, but the selection criteria for anyone who wants to work in the call centre are identical: when hiring a person, no one here looks at their disability group, but at their ability to do the job. The job requires language skills, computer skills and the ability to learn new information. Every potential employee also has the opportunity to shadow a prospective colleague for a day to see for themselves if they are ready for the job, as it is not for everyone.
“We call all our employees with disabilities ‘the great colleague’. It’s easy to get staff for “Let’s Talk” line because there are no additional skills needed. For example, Lolita, who is visually impaired, and Vineta, who is hard of hearing, also work there. They have experienced the world, they have heard the world, so it is easier for them to perceive the other person. In the call centre, where you need computer skills, language skills, it is already more difficult because you have to admit that the education system does not help people who have been disabled since birth,” says Inga, emphasising once again that the education system is not inclusive for people with disabilities, especially those who have mobility problems and would actually be very good at learning new things. Often, they are sent to the special school with auxiliary services just because of their disability, where they have no possibility to develop. “We tell people with disabilities already from the beginning – you will never work! Mentally, it’s already built into them – we don’t prepare these people themselves to be educated and to work.”
Inga wants to change this attitude and employ people from groups at risk of social exclusion as widely as possible, finding ways to train and integrate them. “I believe that everyone in Latvia has the right to work, and the entrepreneur can adapt to give people more opportunities. We can do a lot of things just by investing time. I would like to see companies in Latvia starting to think how they can be sustainable now, and how they can choose socially responsible services, instead of finding them when Europe is already imposing fines,” the entrepreneur stresses.