Local Help Desk agent, Kingsway, has appointed I-Fusion as an independent training partner to Help Desk 2000, a Help Desk membership and certification organisation.
I-Fusion will focus on training Help Desk and call centre professionals, managers and directors, providing them with the generic soft skills required to successfully own and operate their own call centres and Help Desks.
"The Help Desk 2000 Partner Programme focuses on establishing training relationships with independent training providers such as I-Fusion," says Jonathan Newton, sales executive at Kingsway. "Training providers have an opportunity to compliment their technical training courses with high quality help desk certification classes focused on strategic support skills."
Newton adds that I-Fusion fitted the bill for the niche market solution. "Help Desk 2000 is really geared toward the higher-end corporate that tends to be larger and more sophisticated in its market approach. This type of corporation is looking at every competitive advantage available and Help Desk 2000 assists them in preparing their front line for the most demanding tasks," he says.
"Students of our centre will be skilled in problem solving and customer relations as part of the entire range of best practices that create a successful call centre," says Debbie Slabbert, MD of I-Fusion Training.
"The Help Desk 2000 certification classes provide a natural progression for students to enrol in technical training courses," she says. With the inclusion of the Director course, Help Desk 2000 also appeals to managerial levels within an organisation, building on concepts such as service level agreements, staffing models, marketing, mission statements and standard operating procedures.
Slabbert says: "With the rapid changes in technology, Help Desk professionals need a foundation of customer service support skills which will enable them to be prepared for any change that the organisation might undergo."
I-Fusion plans on using its own command centre as an example of the Help Desk training programme, once the programme is fully operational at the end of November.
"The call centre market is emerging locally and is really starting to take off now," says Slabbert.
Allison Scholl, International Director of Operations and Education at Help Desk 2000, says: "South Africa already has an understanding of the value of certification. Now we are shifting the focus from technical skills to strategic support skills."
She says the Help Desk 2000 programme began development in 1996, introducing the first course in 1997. "Since then we`ve had a World Leadership Team instituted, consisting of practitioners from the industry who help us to develop the product. This is one of the ways we ensure the course content addresses the needs in the industry," she says.
"In the US, the UK and Asia we found that any size call centre receives a return on the training." she adds.
Scholl says the local market is large enough to support her company`s offering through its local partners. "The way we measure it is to base it on the A-Plus certification which appeals to the same market as our service. South Africa currently accounts for about 25 percent of the world`s newly certified A-Plus qualifications."
Future expansion plans for Help Desk 2000 include the introduction of a course to meet the needs of field technicians and RoundTable events for professionals to keep abreast of industry best practices.
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