Auckland Park is home to Absa`s 12 000 square meter contact centre, the equivalent of two rugby fields, and recently won the Sacccom Best Largest Contact Centre Award 2005, for the second year running.
Competing against fellow banking sector call centres and other corporate centres, Absa emerged as winner after being judged against criteria like call volume, performance, staff morale and management, says Errol Smith, manager of media relations at Absa.
The site accommodates 1 450 call centre agents with the current roll call at 1 401, says Smith. The agents field almost 15 000 calls an hour.
Apart from client relations, the call centre has opened its doors to outsourcing and provides technical support to a Chicago-based ICT business involved in credit checking.
This venture brings in about 30 000 customers monthly, says Morney Van Der Merwe, GM of the contact centre.
SA is competing against "flavour of the month" India in the call centre space, Smith continues. The emerging market countries make business sense to countries like the US and Canada, since we provide an affordable, profitable outsource, he says.
Physically, the centre is designed according to "tree top" technology principles, patented by the Fairfax building in Scotland. The structure has no supporting columns, freeing up employees` line of sight and providing an open floor of workstations.
The stress of having a minute-by-minute schedule, with precise logging times means the pressure faced by call centre agents is second only to that felt by air traffic controllers, says Van Der Merwe.
The minute-by-minute schedule is imperative since this is how call volumes are tracked, says Lee-Anne Beazley, head of customer delivery services.
High pressure
This ongoing pressure from 53 telephone numbers routed to the centre is faced by agents of an average age of 24, says Van Der Merwe.
The fast moving, high-pressure environment requires a young workforce to keep up, he says. With these factors in mind, the call centre utilises the concept of mood charts.
The yellow flip charts, similar to desktop calendars, sit atop computer monitors and employees may choose to display a graphic representation of their current mood. With options ranging from "confident" to "hung over", a team leader is aware of an individual`s disposition at any given time and can attend to the matter immediately, says Van Der Merwe.
The philosophy behind Absa`s vision, says Van Der Merwe, is if employees are made and kept happy, then their attitude spills over, helping to make and keep clients.
In keeping with this philosophy, employees are provided with three subsidised meals a day at the 24-hour canteen facility and provided with additional care facilities like a psychiatrist and physician and for a special treat, a manicurist, he says.
Keep learning
The centre supports a team of 28 trainers who run an ongoing training programme, which operates like an onsite college.
There are five levels of "promotion" for agents to strive to, says Van Der Merwe. Through continuous training, agents can move from level to level, he says.
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