Virgin Money grows call centre

Johannesburg, 16 Aug 2006

Virgin Money, which has been available in SA for six weeks, says it has approved over 50 000 credit cards and over 20 000 petrol cards, and has needed to employ more call centre staff.

With operations beginning on 26 June, the company registered 80 000 hits on its Web site within 48 hours. By the end of its first month, hits had grown to 300 000. "Our contact centre`s 130 agents dealt with, on average, 5 000 calls every day for the first two weeks," says MD John Maxwell.

As a result of all the interest, an additional 30 people have been recruited for the call centre, Maxwell says. Initially, the company had recruited enough staff to handle credit card applications and home loans, when those were phased in. However, the company has had to reassess this and all the call centre staff are now dedicated to taking credit card applications.

Due to the unexpected flurry of applications, Virgin was unable to deliver on its initial promises and has had to increase capacity. "We have employed additional couriers to boost our delivery capacity to cope with customer demand for the card. We now have over 500 couriers working flat out delivering over 2 500 cards a day."

The company believes it is "on track to become one of the fastest growing credit cards in SA," according to a statement released today.

Maxwell contends the response is a result of South Africans who are unsatisfied with the other offerings in the marketplace. "South African credit cardholders are fed up with being ripped-off to the tune of R1.5 billion a year by their credit card providers, and have been very quick to pick up on the great value offered by the Virgin Money credit card."

The company estimates it has saved local consumers over R13 million in fees. The company does not charge annual or loyalty fees and offers an interest rate of 0% for the first three months.

Virgin Money also operates in the UK and Australia and has over two million customers. The company began operating in the UK in 1995 and Australia in 2003, and offers credit cards, personal loans, home loans, cancer cover, insurance, pensions and saving accounts in these two markets.