The broadband view
The outsourced operation – run by Dimension Data subsidiary Merchants – provides technical support to subscribers to TalkTalk’s broadband service, which runs at up to 8Mbps, speeds that Internet users in SA can only dream of.
TalkTalk, which started to offer broadband as an inclusive part of its voice offering in April this year, is taking advantage of the access given to it by the opening up of the infrastructure in SA to take on operations of the like of British Telecom (BT) at their own game.
The company’s strategy is to bundle its broadband offering along with one of its voice packages and market it as free to consumers but at a price point that compares favourably with its competitors’ voice-only offerings.
TalkTalk is a division of British retailer The Carphone Warehouse and is the amalgamation of three smaller telecoms operators – Vartek, Tele2 and OneTel – with a subscriber base of around 2,5m, compared to BT’s 19m users.
Steve Rescorla, customer service director at TalkTalk, says that it’s BT’s fastest growing competitor, adding 350 000 broadband customers since the service was launched early in April. It’s had to scale up its contact centre operation substantially. "Prior to making the decision to locate some of our services in SA, we already had contact centres in Britain as well as India. However, we settled on using SA for a few key reasons."
Those included the minimal time difference between Britain and SA, as well as the ability to recruit high quality staff in SA. "There’s also a close cultural fit between SA and Britain, with many South Africans displaying a keen interest in things such as English Premiership soccer."
Andrew McNair, client manager at Merchants, says that once the company had won the contract and SA was selected, the decision was made to locate it at the DiData Campus in Bryanston, as it was possible to get the contact centre up and running in a relatively short time.
While the Bryanston site, by leveraging existing infrastructure, has been operating for a number of months, the contact centre being set up directly by TalkTalk in Cape Town is only just starting to operate. It has a multi site strategy across the globe and has adopted a dual site strategy in SA, says McNair, with one being outsourced and the other run by the company itself.
"The success of the service has challenged our operations, as we now have to expand more rapidly than previously anticipated," says McNair. "While we’d originally targeted having 250 agents by October, that’s increasing to 350 in a shorter period of time. While that’s a recruitment and training challenge it generates an additional problem of creating an imbalance between experienced and inexperienced agents. Though that’s a temporary issue, it’s one that has to be managed to deliver the required service.
"While we were expecting to have 18 agents in training at any one time, we have already ramped that up to 24 and at its peak we’ll have 48 new agents joining the business each week until we reach the desired capacity."
Rescola says that while value is an important part of TalkTalk’s strategy, its reputation as one that provides a high level of service is critical in all its operations, especially its support services. "The Carphone Warehouse has a reputation of providing excellent support to its customers and that has to be carried through into all the operations."
McNair adds that there are a number of key measurables that the contact centre has to keep track of, including productivity as well as the amount of issues resolved on the first call. That’s in addition to less tangible quality measurements that must also be met. He says that though its SA operation is still relatively new, the Merchants team is already meeting or exceeding the standards set by the client.
With contact centres one of the key parts of Government’s employment creation drive, contracts such as that won from TalkTalk provide an indicator that the providers here are more than capable of meeting any expectations set by clients. With many of the associated costs of operating such centres dropping and the softer rand benefiting outsourcers, the market will continue to grow.
Source: Finweek
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