Shell`s plans to open a customer service centre in Cape Town is a vote of confidence in the local business processing offshore market, says Luke Mills, executive director of Calling the Cape.
The international petroleum corporation will locate one of its global super customer service centres (super-CSC) in the Mother City, it announced. The super-CSC will provide customer services and credit management support to business customers of its oil products in France and the Netherlands.
"This is not just a call centre. Shell is setting up a business-to-business type of service and the relationship will be managed between it and its customers (service stations) from here," Mills says.
He says the relationship management includes the managing of credit and payments and taking orders from the customers.
"Also, this is the first call centre to be geared primarily towards Europe rather than the UK, which accounts for about 70% of our business," Mills says.
Calling the Cape, along with other international consultancies, was instrumental in helping Shell decide on locating its super-CSC in Cape Town.
"Other petroleum companies have set up similar operations in Cape Town mainly to cater for the local market," Mills says.
He says Shell`s decision gives the local call centre industry another flagship type project following on the announcement earlier this year that UK telecommunications group, The Carphone Warehouse, would set up a R200 million centre that will eventually employ 400 people.
"The great thing about this centre is Shell is renowned for its meticulous project management, so its decision is really great," Mills says.
Shell says its super-CSC should be operational by June 2007 and that it would employ about 100 people initially and then could double that over time, but has given no details about the overall investment. The staff will be trained to speak Dutch and French.
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