Dimension Data's outsourcing company, Merchants, has secured a R60 million deal to design, build, operate and transfer a contact centre for Australian ISP iiNet, in Cape Town.
Sipho Zungu, CEO of contact centre industry agency Calling the Cape, says this is the first instance of an Australian company locating a contact centre in the Western Cape.
The contact centre is expected to employ about 188 people once it becomes fully operational in September. Merchants will operate it for a minimum of 12 months, after which a decision will be made on whether to transfer it entirely to iiNet's control, says Merchants' marketing director Vanda Dickson.
iiNet is based in the Western Australian city of Perth, and has revenue of A$240 million (R1.5 billion). It has over 750 employees located in Perth, Sydney and the New Zealand city of Auckland, and now SA. It supports more than half a million dial-up, broadband and telephony subscribers.
"Using a combination of voice and e-mail technologies, the customer service centre will primarily be used for incoming sales, billing and provisioning, and first-line technical support," says Lisa Roos, business development manager for Merchants SA.
She says plans are to expand this in the near future, as well as make use of other technologies such as instant messaging.
The end-to-end solution, which will be delivered in conjunction with Merchants, Internet Solutions and Dimension Data, is expected to go live in September. It will, however, begin fielding e-mail enquiries as early as June.
Sunshine strategy
iiNet's decision to plant a customer service centre in SA is part of the company's "follow-the-sun" approach, allowing the company to provide 24-hour customer service from staff operating out of local, agreeable working hours.
"This strategy will see our Australian and New Zealand contact centres transfer customer calls into the Cape Town operation at the end of their day and the start of the conventional work day in SA," says iiNet MD Michael Malone.
He notes that the time difference makes Cape Town the perfect location to service iiNet's Australian market during the night-time hours.
Malone says customer service is at the centre of iiNet's business strategies and, ensuring consistent results in this area was the critical factor in making the decision to open an operation in SA.
Calling the Cape's Zungu says iiNet sent a senior delegation earlier this year and they met with a number of the local industry players.
"They obviously liked what they saw."
Zungu adds that a large UK operator is close to finalising a deal to locate a contact centre in Cape Town.
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