In future, major corporations will tend to limit the number of distributed call centres world-wide and replace them with three or four which "followed the sun" around the globe thus making around-the-clock support technically and cost-effectively feasible.
This is the view of Ivan Otterstrom, call centre applications consultant for Oracle South Africa. He said there is a "brilliant" future for call centres as long as certain fundamental principles were adhered to.
Firstly, people manning the call centre - whether it be web-based or voice - had to be properly trained and able to fully support the product.
The second aspect was that the call centre had to be cost effective. There was absolutely no point in setting up a call centre it there were just a handful of users in the country. It would be far more cost effective to refer clients to their US or European principal`s call centres and for the local reseller to foot the bill for the long distance leg of the phone call.
"Many a product fails in the market simply because technical support is lacking. It could be a case of inadequately trained support staff or simply that there are not enough of them and that customers are expected to hold for long periods if time.
The eight-second-click rule that underpins the Internet - if the site does not load in eight second or less, the customer goes somewhere else - also applies in call centres.
"That there is a positive future for call centres - both web and voice-based - is without a doubt. For that very reason we at Oracle have devised a comprehensive suit of software that supports every aspect of call centres.
As an example of the latest technology available on the South African market he cited Oracle`s E-business suite that also includes the latest in call centre technology.
It includes a customer relationship management (CRM) suite with 40 or 50 different modules covering everything from marketing; sales and service integrated into the Oracle and other Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) packages
"An efficiently run call centre is the window of the world to the company concerned and often the first line of contact between the buyer and the seller. It is imperative that operators be trained to put their best foot forward and create a good image of the company. They can only do that if the have been subjected to the proper training and are motivated in what they do.
"There is nothing wrong with call centre technology in South Africa. The problem is that it is that the technology is not always correctly applied. There is also a 30-year backlog between some of the technology that was currently in use in this country and the new-generation technology being introduced now," he adds.
Setting up and maintaining a call centre is relatively expensive and also requires a certain degree of expertise both by the individuals setting up the call centres and then by the technologists manning it to provide support.
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