Australian Internet service provider iiNet has renewed its contact centre outsourcing agreement with Merchants.
Merchants will continue to run the Australian company's Cape Town contact centre, after building it and running the operation for a year. The Dimension Data subsidiary will run the centre for the next three years.
Perth-based iiNet supports over 750 000 broadband, telephony and dial-up services across Australia. It has revenue of over A$400 million - or about R2.75 billion - and more than 1 300 employees across Perth, Sydney, Auckland and SA.
The Cape Town centre is iiNet's fourth operation and accommodates 144 agent seats, with a total staff complement of close to 200. iiNet's decision to set-up a centre in SA is part of the company's “follow-the-sun” approach, which allows it to offer 24-hour customer service by taking advantage of different time zones.
The initial deal was worth R60 million and the centre went live last September. The value of the contract renewal has not been disclosed.
Carry on
Lisa Roos, Merchants' business development manager, explains that the contact centre was initially sold on a develop, build, operate and transfer basis. Under the initial deal, Merchants built and ran the centre for a year and was then set to transfer control to iiNet.
But, as iiNet's MD Michael Malone says, the centre was successful over the last year, and iiNet saw a solid business case for leaving the operational component of the contact centre in Merchants' hands.
“iiNet has very high standards when it comes to measuring its contact centres' performance, with customer satisfaction being the only true indication of success. If our customers are not satisfied, then neither are we,” he notes.
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