Incentives lure call centres to SA

Linda EnsorPolitical Correspondent

CAPE TOWN — The government’s scheme to provide incentives to lure international companies to establish their call centres in SA had already met with a lot of success, according to a trade and industry department official.

The success achieved so far belied the scepticism which greeted the project shortly after its launch last year, trade and industry deputy director-general Tumelo Chipfupa said in an interview.

The fiscus has allocated R680m for the incentives over three years as part of government’s strategy to deal with unemployment and poverty. More…

The Big Five of the Contact Centre

Roland Whitham on the five aspects that define the nature of a good inbound contact centre: first call resolution, customer satisfaction, staff satisfaction, service level and intelligent management information

 

In my opinion inbound contact centres have their own big five, those aspects that define the very nature of a good inbound contact centre, they are: first call resolution, customer satisfaction, staff satisfaction, service level and intelligent management information.

If you have been on a game drive in one of the beautiful reserves in South Africa you will know that seeing all of the Big Five is a highlight to be remembered. You need a pretty unique set of circumstances to see lion, leopard, elephant, buffalo and rhino in one park.

The king of beasts really is first call resolution or FCR. Achieving FCR requires that the contact centre understands at a basic level the reason for customers’ calls (or any other contact) and has been able to design the business processes and coordinate the supporting resources in a manner that allows for an Agent to resolve the customers query without the need for a further call. Simple? Not really. I know of very few call centres in South Africa that measure FCR consistently and measure it from the customer’s perspective. A closed query on a CRM application is not necessarily a resolved query nor is it necessarily a satisfied customer! Ask any customer who has experienced being given an alternate telephone number to call within the same organisation whether they experienced FCR! Realistically one has to have limits to what the contact centre can and should try to achieve, and unfortunately very often these limits are dictated not by will or ability but by budget, but at least through this measure one is able to impact significantly on customer retention and the costs of doing business. More…

Neotel ports Telkom numbers

South Africa’s second national network operator, Neotel, which is still executing tests to check routing and billing, has announced that it has successfully ported its first block of numbers from Telkom.

This is a major step toward finally giving South African corporate customers a choice of operators.

According to Stefano Mattiello, executive head of Enterprise Group at Neotel, the process of porting is completely seamless, therefore making it easier for the customer.

“During the porting process, the numbers will be advertised on both the Telkom Neotel networks for a period of 48 hours to allow for a smooth transition and ensure that calls continue to be routed without interruption.” he added.

Pointing out that they had been working closely with Telkom to put the necessary systems in place for geographic number portability, Mattiello concluded by saying that the next generation network deployed by Neotel has inherent number portability capabilities, meaning that there would be no need to deploy additional technologies.

Have SA call centres lost their way?

Of all the information gathered from the Merchants 2008 Benchmarking results, I consider the introduction to be the most alarming… “The 2007 findings indicate a shift in focus from external to internal. Instead of optimising their potential to grow business value, attention is now focused on increasing the efficiency or reducing costs of the existing contact centres.”

COST REDUCTION OVER GROWTH OF BUSINESS VALUE

Having spent the last two decades in the Contact Centre business, we have seen the industry flourish and grow immensely during these years. It has always been with much anticipation that we rely on the results derived from the annual Merchants Benchmark Report, to learn how this industry is performing.

This report has proven to be not only informative and insightful but also a comprehensive tool enabling the industry to gain an objective understanding on local and international trends and the benchmarking thereof. This edition of the report was different in that it broke down some fundamentals spanning over the last decade – 1997 to 2007.

The industry has seen phenomenal growth over this time with South Africa positioning itself as an international BPO destination of choice. However the big picture taken from this year’s comparative report was hardly the positive, progressive picture we expected, but was true to many actual experiences.

Of all the information gathered from the Merchants 2008 Benchmarking results; I considered the excerpt below, taken from the introduction to be the most alarming …

“The 2007 findings indicate a shift in focus from external to internal. Instead of optimising their potential to grow business value, attention is now focused on increasing the efficiency or reducing costs of the existing contact centres.” More…

Neotel to launch wireless in major centres

Neotel has begun the next stage of its assault on Telkom

Neotel has begun the next stage of its assault on the state-owned telecommunications giant Telkom with a launch of its first WiMax offering.

The second network operator has named WiMax (wireless data connectivity) as a cost effective technology that can rapidly deploy last-mile telecommunications services. WiMax is similar to Wi-fi, a technology used to connect users on a wireless network via a variety of technologies on a local area network like a home, office, hotel or restaurant.

WiMax is an advancement on the technology allowing connection over a much wider area such as a suburb or a city. While new operators will have to wait for the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (Icasa) to finalise its regulations for new licences, Neotel will be rolling out 100 base stations across Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.

Rajeev Sinha, head of products and services for Neotel said: “We already have a licence to rollout services, so we don’t have to wait for the new regulations.”

Sekgoela Sekgoela, Icasa spokesman said: “Company’s which already have licences won’t be affected by any changes in regulations. The changes will only apply to new operators.”

Neotel has been conducting tests around Gauteng with seven base stations that have shown “perfect” success, according to Sinha.

Source: MyBroadband