Double digit growth in 2010

The local contact centre industry will grow slower this year because of high operating costs and a shrinking customer base, says The Inquirer.

Benedict Hernandez, president of the Contact Centres Association of the Philippines and Accenture's service delivery head in the Philippines, told reporters that group members were looking at 15% to 20% revenue growth this year, or by about $1 billion from the level in 2008.

Revenues of the contact or call centre industry grew 21% in 2008 to $5 billion year-on-year. Total seats went up 13.8% while contact agents grew 13.2% to 275 000.

Broadcore has unveiled Broadcore Call Centre, a hosted solution for customer contact centres offering multi-location support and disaster recovery capabilities, reports TMCnet.

According to the company, the hosted solution eliminates initial costs associated with purchasing and deploying equipment and application software, as well as removing maintenance overhead for its business customers.

Administrative, queue and service level management functions are supported from any location with Internet access. A Web portal allows administrators to add, delete or change call centre agents, supervisors, queues, routing policies and IVR trees without VPN, remote desktop or firewall restrictions.

Hard Rock International has rolled out a mobile marketing CRM solution in a move to acquire new customers and build loyalty among existing ones, states DMNews.

The solution, created with mobile marketing firm Air2Web, includes three SMS components. Hard Rock will use mobile marketing to promote Hard Rock Cafes, Rock Shops, Hotels, events and products.

“The strategy is to create a stronger relationship with their customers,” says Curtis Rapp, VP of sales at Air2Web. “In the hospitality, entertainment and retail marketplaces especially, loyalty to a brand is extremely important to keep customers coming back.”