First female-owned BEE call centre opens

Johannesburg, 27 Feb 2006

Lathitha Contact Services, billed as the first wholly-owned black female black economic empowerment (BEE) contact centre company in SA, opened its offices at the Life Centre building, in central Johannesburg last week.

The company will operate as an emerging outsource customer call centre and hopes to attract a percentage of the local business process outsourcing (BPO) across all sectors. It also aims to secure direct foreign businesses, Lathitha says in a statement.

"We are a full contact centre, offering voice inbound and outbound support, as well as e-mail response. Our business offering is about providing outsourced customer service support, and therefore maintaining a high level of end customer satisfaction through call resolution and other applications," says Bulelwa Koyana, Lathitha Contact Services CEO.

The company has secured business for 75 agent seats and is discussing new business ventures with a number of companies to provide outsourced call and contact customer support services. It has formed a strategic BEE partnership with Merchants, a Dimension Data company, and Emmanuel`s staffing services to provide a skilled agent base, the company says.

The call centre will be supported by an integrated front-end voice system and customer relationship management solutions provided by Intelleca, a local IP systems provider, says Koyana.

Merchants will provide a back-end technical infrastructure, allowing multi-tier plug-in and scaleable service options for clients. The company will also assist with people development and training to ensure a high standard of voice delivery, rapid response and turnaround times, she says.

"The predicted growth of the contact centre market in SA and the support we are seeing from government to assist in establishing this industry sector, bodes well for a successful partnership with Lathitha Contact Services and the broader potential socio-economic benefit impact in terms of job creation," says Martin Dove, Merchants global sales and marketing director.

Although the contact centre will cater for English only, its partnership with Emmanuels will enable it to provide a diverse labour pool for other languages.

Urban Development Zone

The location of the office forms part of the City of Johannesburg`s Urban Development Zone - a plan that encourages inner city renewal through tax incentives.

"The BPO industry in Gauteng is going to generate a lot of opportunity and being in the city is a tremendous advantage for us, as it is highly accessible for our staff, who are a vital component of our business," says Koyana.

"We are very encouraged by the confidence that small and medium enterprises in particular have shown in investing in the inner city. This will ultimately support the city`s initiatives to create a vibrant BPO zone. Lathitha and other BPO operators are taking advantage of the return to the CBD, based on a sound commercial business case," says Charnell Hebrard, project consultant for the City of Johannesburg Economic Development Unit.