The call centre industry is one of South Africa's fastest growing sectors and one where government and private sector are investing heavily in skills development. However, in this highly competitive industry, the country is presented with a number of challenges that could see it outpaced by other countries if strong initiatives are not put in place to measure the industry's productivity and efficiency levels.
South Africa's contact industry employs 200 000 people, but has just 9 000 offshore jobs, which is far below that of Morocco with 31 000, Egypt with 14 000, and Mauritius with 10 000, according to Everest Research Institute. Although there are many factors surrounding this, clearly productivity measurement has a role to play.
The lack of productivity measurement in the South African business process outsourcing (BPO) industry is causing SA to be less competitive. In 2009, an agent based in SA was priced at about £13 000-£15 000 per year, which is about 20%-30% more than its African peers. Hence SA contact centres have to excel in productivity to compete.
“Far fewer companies in South Africa actively monitor productivity of their call centre environments than elsewhere in the world,” comments Patrick Coleman, CEO of Customer Service Engineering (CSE), formerly Payg IT - the only company in South Africa that applies engineering principles to customer service productivity to manage efficiency, effectiveness and environmental factors.
“As a result of ineffective use or lack of use of measurement tools, many contact centres in South Africa use between 30% to 50% more staff than they require, costing companies more money while achieving lower returns and results.”
Seventy percent to 80% of companies in Europe and the United States make use of products to monitor customer contact centres' productivity in real-time. In South Africa, however, research conducted by CSE estimated that only 20% - 30% of companies are equipped to undertake active productivity monitoring and ongoing optimisation. Where monitoring is done, most South African companies use ineffective manual processes like spreadsheets.
Coleman says: “One of the biggest contributors to poor contact centre services in SA is the lack of effective measurement tools to determine productivity. The contact centre sector is an industry that does not employ engineers, but clearly needs them to ensure optimal productivity. Measurement needs to be done in an empirical, consistent and understandable manner.
“To be able to compete on a global level, there's a need for South African companies to start prioritising performance and making use of global measurement tools and innovative ways to ensure the success of SA's BPO and contact centre operations,” says Coleman.
By providing engineering support to operational management CSE seeks to address an important gap in service centre skills.
“As customer services are increasingly focused on by South African companies, contact centres are expanding, and the need for technology solutions to support this growth and stimulate the productivity of SA's call centres has become more important,” says Coleman.
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