CallingtheCape Highlights Newsletter - July 2006

Dear Stakeholders,

Our annual highlight event the CallingtheCape Awards will be happening on 5th August 2006. This month we also bring you some exciting news about our CADET scheme as well as the success that two UK companies are having in Cape Town.

If you have any suggestions or views that you would like to share please forward them to rhomeez@callingthecape.org.za

(i) CallingtheCape 2006 Annual Awards ("Winter Wonderland")
5th August 2006, 6:30pm
Grand West Casino, Cape Town

Join us to celebrate the success of the Western Cape's BPO industry at a "Winter Wonderland" banquet on 5th August 2006 at the Market Hall, Grand West. We will once again be honouring the industry's most outstanding companies and individuals. All the regional winners will automatically be entered for the national SACCCOM awards.

To RSVP and for sponsorship opportunities please contact Nicky Floris at nicky@callingthecape.org.za
Cost: R550 per guest or R5,500 for a table of ten.

(ii) Site Visits (New!!!)

CallingtheCape will be hosting a series of high profile site visits to leading contact centre and BPO facilities in Cape Town. The purpose of the visits are to give the industry access to leading companies and in so-doing to spread best practice standards.

There's been much interest in these site visits and we can only accommodate members of CallingtheCape. Fifteen delegates will be given the opportunity on a first-come-first-serve basis. We will make every effort to accommodate BEE/SME companies. ONLY ONE DELEGATE PER COMPANY ALLOWED.

It will start off with a one hour tour of the facility focusing on:

  • Agent Retention
  • Team Leader Development
  • QA
  • Operations
  • Technology
  • Disaster Recovery

There will be a fifteen minute Q&A session at th end of the tour. We plan to have three site visits for the remainder of 2006.

The dates are as follows:

  • Fusion Outsourcing (Budget Insurance UK) - 11th July 2006 at 11h00am
  • Old Mutual - 19th September 2006 at 11h00am
  • The Phone House - November

All information regarding site visits will be given to delegates closer to the time.

RSVP to Rhomeez@callingthecape.org.za . We need to be informed of cancellations at least two days before the event.

(iii)CallingtheCape Leadership Development Programme
26th July 2006
Old Mutual Business School, Pinelands, Cape Town

The next workshop in our popular CallingtheCape Leadership Development series will be taking place on 26th July 2006 and will focus on the management of employee relationships and will deal specifically with performance management within the context of South African labour legislation. The content is aimed at team leaders and aspiring team leaders and delegates will gain a solid practical grasp of performance management and labour law, reinforced by industrial theatre, presentations by industry thought leaders, and a half day workshop.

Confirmed speakers include Margie Middleton, Stephen Beukes, and Pure Basic Industrial Theatre. Seats are limited to forty.

Cost: R2,000 for non-members and R1,800 for CallingtheCape members.

For more info contact Nicky Floris at nicky@callingthecape.org.za

(iv) Customer Management South Africa 2006
1st - 2nd August 2006
Arabella Sheraton Hotel, Cape Town

Customer Management South Africa returns for 2006, with a mix of local and international speakers, a forum for sharing best practice, and networking for the contact centre industry role players.

For more information please contact Christina Wood at +44(0) 1483 755647 or christina@ictcomms.com

(i) mydesktop - IT, Wireless & Visual Solutions

Specialists in the Supply, Sourcing, Installation & Support of Call Centre (BPO) related IT Hardware & Head sets.

JUNE SPECIALS:

HEADSET (trialled and tested) - Genius HS04A @ R 79 xVAT
Refurb Compaq Deskpro ENS, PIII,128RAM PC's @ R 999 xVAT
Panasonic PLASMA's (new version 8 with wall bracket) from R11 900 xVAT

Tel: (021) 919 5128
Fax: (021) 919 4297
Email: sales@mydesktop.co.za
Web: www.mydesktop.co.za

(ii) PROBLEMS billing your call costs and do you have agents abusing your phones???

DIGILOGIC distribute a software suite called ASPIVIA that accurately bills your call costs, specialising in environments with many different suppliers charging in several different currencies.

"This is the only solution that we have found that enables us to manage our complex Telecoms environment, report & control on abuse and bill our campaigns accurately. Digilogic's value added services are hugely beneficial and with our expansion into Durban and Johannesburg, we know we can rely on Digilogic to help us expand confidently keeping tabs on our costs." - Paul Oosthuizen, Financial Director Dialogue Group.

The software is also able to identify personal calls and abusive and fraudulent calls made by agents and reports on them. The result is a drop in Telecoms spend across the board.

Please contact Sean on sean@digilogic.co.za  or call 021 434 6712 or 083 657 3097 for more information.

To advertise contact Rhomeez Hendricks.

This month's new members are:

If you are interested in becoming a member of CallingtheCape please contact Rhomeez Hendricks.

(i) Huge Interest in CallingtheCape Awards

The 2006 awards will be announced at a "Winter Wonderland" banquet on August 5th at The Market hall, Grand West where CallingtheCape will honour the industry's most outstanding companies and individuals. This promises to be a night to remember with ice bars, snowmen, cocktails, ice sculptures, fairy lights and funky DJ's all conducted by Master of Ceremonies, Az Abrahams from Heart 104.9 FM.

We want to see more agents at the banquet this year, so we have some special offers for companies who invite their agents:

  • Book one table and get a second, agents-only table for R4,000.
  • Book two tables and get three extra agents-only tables at R4,000 each.
  • Book three tables and get five extra agents-only tables at R4,000 each.

Already we have OVER 350 GUESTS CONFIRMED ATTENDING this event - so don't delay, book before it's too late.

(ii) Still a few sponsorship packages available

The CallingtheCape Awards sponsorship packages are currently for sale. There are 3 silver sponsorship packages left at R12 000 for members and R17 000 for non members. It includes a table for 10, a year's free membership to CtC, recognition in remaining newsletters prior to the awards, branding at the event including two banners and inclusion in media announcements.

We take this opportunity to congratulate and thank all our Sponsors for their ongoing support. Please contact Nicky Floris for more details.

The following companies are this year's Gold Sponsors:

  • Datapro
  • The Dialogue Group
  • Fusion Outsourcing
  • Spescom

Silver Sponsors:

  • 3iSolutions
  • Lufthansa Globaltelesales
  • OC2
  • Old Mutual
  • Storm
  • Wesgro
  • Woolworths

(iii) Heart 104.9 Radio campaign

CallingtheCape has embarked on an 8 week radio campaign (June and July) in partnership with Heart 104.9 to create awareness about the Western Cape call centre industry, the career opportunities it offers, and the CallingtheCape Awards and CADET scheme.

During the month of July, Heart 104.9 DJ, Az Abrahams will spend 1 hour at 4 different contact centres. At each centre he will interview agents, mangers and supervisors about their careers, companies, growth opportunities, etc which will be discussed the following Sunday on air, during the "Az You Are" weekend.

Tune in to Az You Are on Heart FM 104.9 every Sunday in June and July from 9:00am until 10:00am.

(iv) Training scheme helps Cape call centres maintain their lead

A training and learnership scheme implemented by CallingtheCape is helping the local industry to maintain its global position by ensuring a supply of suitable skills well into the future.

Working closely with local industry members, recruitment agencies and training organisations, CallingtheCape has designed a four-stage programme aimed at the long-term unemployed and those who have been retrenched from other sectors such as the clothing and textile industry.

"We identified the specific skills that people were lacking for success in the job market and designed the programme to impart those skills," says programme manager Sonja Lawson. "It's aimed at people who are not going to find jobs on their own, despite the fact that many of them show superb learning abilities in our testing".

The Career Assessment Development Education & Training (CADET) programme is now in its second year, with 90% of the current crop of 100 learners expected to find full-time work.

The first two stages of the programme include a rigorous skills assessment, career guidance and job profiling, followed by four weeks of basic workplace orientation and training in life skills, IT skills, typing and communication. The third phase is a seven-week accredited training programme at NQF2 level, followed finally by a six-month learnership during which candidates get on-the-job experience at host companies.

"Some of the learners from the first programme are now top performers at the contact centres where they work," says Lawson. "And some of the learners in the second group are already working on international programmes, which is amazing progress."

The total cost of the programme is R16 500 per learner and CallingtheCape welcomes partnerships with industry role players to assist us in creating jobs for unemployed people in Cape Town - please contact Sonja Lawson at sonja@qhelisa.co.za  if you would like to get involved in this programme.

(v) UK Entrepreneur Penny Streeter Pledges to help meet SA Healthcare Staffing Shortage - from the UK

UK healthcare entrepreneur Penny Streeter OBE (Order of the British Empire) has launched a new South African healthcare staffing division of Ambition 24hours - a major employment agency in the UK, which has annual revenue there of over R700 million.

The announcement is in response to the critical healthcare shortage nationally, according to Penny Streeter - coinciding with a volume of new enquiries from locum doctors and nurses resident in the UK, working with Ambition 24hours and seeking similar temporary positions in South Africa. The UK is experiencing major cuts in staffing, she says. Information is at www.ambition24hours.co.za.

" A number of senior administrators in public health have asked if we can help meet the pressing need in the South African health sector for experienced staff, just as we have done in the UK. Ambition 24hours will be recruiting doctors and nurses both here and in the UK, where we have a databank of some 13 500 UK personnel. Many of these are South Africans and are keen to return home, from the flood of requests I have received. We have never recruited South African personnel to work in the UK: all our South African staff arrived there through voluntary relocation and other recruitment sources," says Penny Streeter.

Ambition 24hours has opened a dedicated office in Bellville, Cape Town, and plans to launch a nationwide chain of branches by the close of 2006, according to Penny Streeter. A unique feature of the service, she says, is that it is 24-hours and seven days a week. Also, the company is committed to paying staff in full, every week - in a sector where delays of several weeks are common, she says.

Penny Streeter, former CBI (Confederation of British Industry) 'Entrepreneur of the Year' in the UK, founded Ambition 24hours in the UK in 1996. It has been one of the fastest growing British companies (Source: UK FastTrack 100), and opened in South Africa on October 4th 2004 with an investment of R150 million in Cape Town, to develop additional sales and back-office resources to supplement its UK facilities.

(vi) Cape Town contact centre wows UK parent in first month

A R200m investment into the South African contact centre industry has paid off handsomely for UK telecommunications provider The Carphone Warehouse, whose local operation The Phone House has exceeded its three-month targets just a month after going live.

"It's a spectacular result," says General Manager Wynand Schutte. "The South African operation has exceeded all expectations, to the extent that we were one of the best-performing contact centres out of the 12 in the group last month. It's a great testament to the talent and motivation of our local employees that they've achieved this during the first month of providing support for a product none of them had encountered before." The Phone House handles customer service calls for The Carphone Warehouse's booming UK telephony and broadband business TalkTalk.

As a result of the better than expected performance, the UK company has asked The Phone House to accelerate its rollout plan. "We had planned to fill 400 seats in the contact centre by March 2007," says Schutte. "That's now been brought forward to December 2006, so we will need to recruit about 60 customer service advisors a month for the rest of the year."

The accelerated rollout entails substantial additional investment into infrastructure and staff, says Schutte. "We're going to be employing more junior and middle managers as well as more customer service advisors," he says. "That also means more training." The Phone House puts all its advisors through a comprehensive four-week training course, of which two weeks are spent in a classroom setting and two weeks in a "development bank" taking live calls with intensive coaching and support.

"We intend to provide the best customer service in the group and we're well on the way to achieving that. Our employees deal with calls efficiently and provide the correct advice the first time. That's a very valuable skill in this industry."

The Phone House intends to become one of the most sought-after employers in the Cape Town industry, says Schutte. "Our location at Stadium on Main in Claremont is close to public transport and has excellent facilities including a bowling alley and a gym which we provide subsidised memberships for," he says. "We also provide full medical aid and provident fund benefits, real career paths for every employee and lots of social events to maintain the positive energy that people are bringing in to the company. It's a very exciting and rewarding place to work."

Schutte says prospective employees should have matric and basic computer literacy, but the magic ingredient is attitude. "We're looking for people with ambition and hunger to achieve - and we're finding them," he says. "We've been blown away by the quality of Cape Town's people. It's a real vindication of the decision to invest here."

Have a great month.

Rhomeez Hendricks
Communications Officer
Telephone No: +27(0) 21 487 8655 : Switchboard No: +27(0) 21 487 8600
Fax No: +27(0) 21 422 3744 : Mobile No: +27(0) 82 927 8021
Email address: rhomeez@callingthecape.org.za  Website: www.callingthecape.org.za


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