Computer Faire has outsourced its call centre to Atio Corporation. Atio will provide the exhibition with a call centre before and during the exhibition.
Computer Faire, an annual IT, wireless, cellular and business automation exhibition, is the country`s largest exhibition of its kind with tens of thousands of visitors flocking to it in a matter of four days. Atio is a call centre specialist and the company`s Intelligent Business Solutions division will undertake the demanding job of answering telephonic and web questions from the South African IT fraternity at large.
In addition to manning the call centre, Atio will also provide Computer Faire and its co-located event, Mobilexpo, with post-show analysis of caller patterns.
Computer Faire and Mobilexpo takes place from 23 - 26 May at Gallagher Estate in Midrand.
The Computer Faire Atio call centre will be in operation at Atio`s premises from 1 to 21 May to deal with pre-show queries and then move to Gallagher estate for the duration of the show. The call centre will simultaneously act as a live exhibit of a call centre in the Business Solutions Hall (Hall 2).
Andre le Roux, MD of Atio`s Intelligent Business Solutions division, said the centre will be manned by agents behind PCs as well as agents handling walk-in queries from Computer Faire visitors. These agents will be supplied by Linda Coetzee and Associates, a specialist call centre recruitment company, and will be trained by Atio.
"We`ll use a special program, Interaction Manager 4, which allows agents to centralise queries, whether they come in via e-mail, internet, fax or telephone. The agents can then respond in the same way, thus communicating in the medium of the customers` choice," he says.
"In addition, the software draws up profiles of the people who phone in, which will provide Computer Faire staff with intelligent information which they can use when preparing for next year`s campaign," he explains.
The centre will move back to Atio`s premises on 26 May and will be operational until the end of the month to provide post-show statistics. Le Roux says this is the first time such analysis will be done and available to exhibitors, visitors and press.
According to Celeste Abroms, Computer Faire general manager, the need for a call centre became evident when Reed started doing visitor projections for this year`s event. "Now that we`re also hosting Mobilexpo and Windows World at Computer Faire, we`re expecting more interest in the Faire and thus far more calls than in the past. Apart from handling the increasing number of calls, a professional call centre also assures the quality of information given to the public," said Abroms.
Share
Editorial contacts