As a key component of Dimension Data`s global services delivery and support, the Group is establishing sophisticated service call centres which provide customers with one-call access to its diverse networking, enterprise, interactive and infrastructure skills.
According to Mike Maree, South African head of Dimension Data Global Services, these call centres - a logical adjunct to the Group`s revolutionary Global Services Operating Architecture (GSOA) - are designed to effectively meet diverse customer needs in an increasingly complex, converged networking environment, where uptime is paramount.
The GSOA forms the basis of Dimension Data`s operations centres and their associated satellite hubs in Africa, Australasia, the Far East, Europe, the UK, the United States and South America.
The pilot GSOA call centre is currently being rolled out in South Africa, with overseas centres to follow. These will provide a means to rapidly resolve customer`s IT issues, through clearly defined and uniform processes; best matching of skills requirements; and reducing multiple interaction by the client with the Group on service delivery.
Dimension Data is integrating and realigning its back-end engines, enabling enterprise, networking, interactive and infrastructure services to be handled through these centralised call centres. The Group is in the unique position to offer an enterprise service covering all communications systems.
Maree says multinationals are now starting to sign single global agreements, where service levels, service measurement and pricing, need to be consistent across the world. Dimension Data`s call centres will help to deliver on these global service level agreements.
The call centres will deal with service calls and call escalation, with GSOA`s Uptime service as a blueprint. The Uptime model defines how a call is handled, how it is escalated, how the issue is resolved and communicated back to the customer in a defined process.
"The Uptime blueprint tries to achieve as much resolution online as possible, thereby improving service levels and customer satisfaction," he explains.
At present, Dimension Data`s operations centres have different functions within them, such as call and service management.
With the new call centres, these functions will all be consolidated, with a range of call volumes, differing degrees of impact or criticality, and differing skills-requirements, all being handled via a single telephone number.
"The challenge will be to identify what type of call it is as it comes into the call centre and to resolve the call within one hop," concludes Maree.
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Dimension Data
Dimension Data is a leading global network services and i-Commerce solutions provider, focused on enabling enterprises, telecommunication service providers and new economy companies to communicate and transact effectively in an e-enabled environment.
Dimension Data listed on the London Stock Exchange in July 2000 and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 index. The Group has over 11,000 employees and operates in over 30 countries on six continents. It has achieved a compound annual growth rate in US dollars of 57 per cent in revenue and 36 per cent in earnings per share over the past two years.