In addition to providing facilities for inbound and outbound call centre facilities for companies throughout the group, the centre will provide full outsourced services to both large and small companies - the first of its kind in southern Africa.
The new system, which was implemented in a record-breaking three weeks of receiving USKO's order, is based on Nortel's Meridian 1 call centre technology and was supplied by South African distributor, Grintek Telecom.
"This facility will undoubtedly become one of the show-cases of the rapidly emerging call centre market in South Africa," says Martin Siepker, director of business systems, Grintek Telecom.
"What USKO is doing is very exciting. It will help bring call centre technology to a wider base of users. Grintek Telecom, as a group of companies on the leading edge of telecommunications in South Africa, looks forward to partnering them in meeting their vision," he adds.
The R50-million investment includes a new PBX, Automatic Call Distribution switch, CTI technology, the network infrastructure and new premises. Integration of the call centre to the World Wide Web will further enhance the range of services that can be supplied.
Three group companies GIA, USKO Internet and Spearhead are already up and running on the new facility. The balance of USKO companies will come on board by July with the outsourced service due for launch in April.
"What attracted us to this solution was that it has the capacity for virtually unlimited growth and can also be implemented remotely - a key point for a group like ours which has branches and offices all over the country as well as for outsourcing," says Paulo Froes, Usko Group Executive.
Froes agrees that the availability of a full outsourced call centre facility will make call centre technology more affordable for the smaller company and help business and commerce become more service oriented.
"South Africa has a dearth of service. I believe call centres can help address this and build up customer relationship. As a technology, it's going to fly," he says.
One Usko, company already benefiting from enhanced customer service is GIA, the consumer-focused Internet Service Provider. Prior to the installation of the new facility, GIA used a standard PBX to manage customer support calls. As a result of delays, more than 20% of callers, abandoned their call.
"We've managed to up our call intake by more than 30%," says John McDonald, General Manager, GIA. But this is likely to expand considerably as the centre's services broaden.
McDonald is currently restricting call centre use to help desk support and sales until additional staff are recruited and trained and internal processes enhanced. Even so maximum support calls to date have totalled 1 300 a day. These calls were fielded by a staff of 16 working two shifts between 7 am and 12 midnight. With the Internet growing at such a pace, McDonald expects to be running a 24-hour-day, seven-days-a-week operation very soon.
When all the group is on board, the call centre is expected to manage more than 1 000 agents, making the technology an essential component to business success.
"That is why, when we were evaluating our call centre solution, quality and reliability were critical," says Froes.
"Grintek Telecom's call centre philosophy is to take the international best of breed product and supply a fully integrated solution to the South African market" states Siepker.
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