The Internet Solutions (IS) Global Service Centre (GSC) was recognised as a top industry performer at the recent Business Process enabling South Africa (BPeSA) awards ceremony, receiving the award for the Best SA Customer Service Centre in Gauteng.

The GSC is a dynamic and interactive contact centre located at The Campus, in Johannesburg, which serves all South African and African IS clients. Operating 24 hours a day, the GSC aims to attend to all IS client needs with the most efficient and effective level of service. The GSC fields 17 000 inbound telephone calls, 40 000 service requests and averages 15 000 successful network generated events on a monthly basis.

“Over the past two years, we have been working hard to create a fun, challenging yet highly rewarding environment for our staff to work in, while also meeting the needs of our clients through excellent client service,” explains Matthew Kaplan, Global Service Centre Manager at IS. “This is all aimed at developing the GSC into a world-class contact centre through the use of the best service technologies, as well as the most highly trained, qualified and professional staff.”

According to Kaplan, the GSC’s main internal focus over the last two years has been the growth and development of staff through a number of programmes. “Training and development is a key focus for both our staff and managers,” he explains. “For instance, we have implemented an in-house training and development centre, offering A+, N+, MCSA, CCNA and CCNP courses for our staff, who are encouraged to attend at least one certification annually. They are also encouraged to attend relevant seminars and receive soft skills training around call coaching and telephone and communication skills. Our managers, on the other hand, attend Generation Y management, interpersonal-style, people development, and team dynamics training, among others.”

Additional staff enrichment tools include bi-annual KPIs, positive environmental variables, like chill rooms, and management development programmes for staff that have been identified as having the calibre and aptitude to follow this non-technical path and become future leaders. “All of this has resulted in a staff attrition rate of just 4% for 2010, which is in stark contrast to the industry norm of around 25%, and is something we are very proud of,” says Kaplan.

“Externally, our focus has been on our clients’ experience when using our service, ensuring that it is of the highest quality,” he continues. “We conduct regular client satisfaction surveys to rate the initial interaction the client received when logging a call, as well as the interaction and service received when dealing with a specialist technician. This has enabled us to continually improve on our client touch points and evolve the processes we use in logging, classifying, prioritising, investigating, escalating and resolving their support calls.” Kaplan also believes that the company’s smooth transition to the ISO20000 international IT service management standard in August 2010, having adopted it more than two years ago, also improved the level of service offered to IS’ local and international customers through the contact centre.

“Having invested so much into both sides of our business, it is very rewarding to be recognised by an industry representative body such as BPeSA,” states Kaplan. As the national co-ordinating industry association representing the interests of the business process outsourcing and off-shoring sector in South Africa, the overriding aim of BPeSA is to deliver a national co-ordinated support services to the industry, to enable the development, growth and continued success of the sector as a whole. Accordingly, these awards form an important element in the recognition of operators who are doing exceptional work in this rapidly growing and increasingly important sector.

“The award re-enforces the positive client feedback the GSC has received, and confirms that our process enhancements and the training and development we are giving our agents and engineers is yielding the desired results,” continues Kaplan. “It should also reaffirm our clients’ trust in our ability to effectively outsource and support their networks by offering a truly world-class experience when dealing with the service centre. Our clients can rest assured that we will continue to raise our level and quality of service, especially as the GSC plays an increasingly important role in cementing our market leading status locally, while helping to drive IS’ expansion into Africa,” he concludes.

ITWeb Article

Conclusion: The African communications growth story can no longer be viewed as a frontier opportunity as more and more players from developed markets enter the African market.

Rather, the market is showing signs of greater maturity reflected by, amongst other: (i) increased competition; (ii) reducing gross margins; (iii) declining ARPUs; (iv) greater complexity of product offering and mobile payment services; (v) active attempts by incumbent mobile and fixed-line operators to expand into other parts of the value chain; and (vi) the emergence of infrastructure sharing models. While subscriber growth remains superior to other regions, with significant pent-up demand remaining, these changes in the communications landscape is forcing operators to rethink their strategies and focus on the next wave of growth.

Significantly, there have been a number of major developments that will catapult the African communications market into another league from both a cost and bandwidth perspective. These include the arrival of new international submarine fibre optic cables such as Seacom connecting the East African seaboard to international submarine fibre networks and the accelerated liberalisation of African communications markets.

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African Satellite Program will Launch Intelsat New Dawn by Late 2010

Pembroke, Bermuda, and Johannesburg, South Africa, 9 December 2008.

Intelsat, Ltd., the world’s leading provider of fixed satellite services, today announced a joint venture with a South African investor group led by Convergence Partners that will utilize project financing to build and launch a new satellite into the 33 East orbital location, ideally positioned to serve the African continent. The satellite, to be called “Intelsat New Dawn,” will feature a payload optimized to deliver wireless backhaul, broadband and television programming to the continent and is expected to enter service in early 2011. The satellite will be operated and marketed as part of the global Intelsat fleet.

Africa has been one of the fastest growing regions for fixed satellite services in recent years, fueled by demand for critical infrastructure from communications providers and television programmers. Wireless telecom operators, broadband service providers, corporate network service providers and direct-to-home television operators have experienced growth along with the economic development of the region. The New Dawn joint venture was established to provide solutions for African communication needs, and is expected to deliver new capacity for voice, wireless backhaul, Internet and media applications.

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SEACOM Closes Financing, Starts Full Construction of Undersea Fiber Optic Cable

Transcontinental Investment Boosts South and East African Economic and Social Development with High Capacity Link to India and Europe

African investors have taken a significant majority stake in SEACOM’s undersea broadband cable, joining hands with an international partner to link southern and east Africa with India and Europe in a massive technological boost to economic and social development on the continent.

The equity and debt facilities for the entire project costs have been unconditionally committed for the construction of the state-of-the-art cable from Mtunzini in South Africa to Mumbai in India and Marseille in France via Mozambique, Madagascar, Kenya, and Tanzania.
“This is a major milestone”, stated SEACOM President, Brian Herlihy “The construction of a new submarine fiber optic network will pave the way for a data revolution that intends to follow the explosive growth of the mobile industry in Africa. A shift from a primary voice market to a primary data market will be a catalyst to increasing worker productivity, creating better access to e-eduction and the growth of service industries such as call-centres, BPOs and research centres in Africa.
SEACOM has already invested more than $10 million in the marine survey and engineering of the cable. The advance start has enabled SEACOM to maintain its ready for service date of June 2009. Actual production of the high-tech cable and undersea repeaters start next week.”

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