CallingtheCape

Outsource Partner: Digicall

5 Jul 2005: Cape Town call centres improves customer service

The UK’s Datacall, a client liaison specialist for the highly competitive UK office equipment industry, has selected Cape Town call centre operator Digicall as its preferred telesales and telemarketing partner.

“A lot of sales-driven companies struggle to develop good long-term relationships with their customers,” explains Datacall’s Steve Blogg; “sales people on the whole just aren’t that kind of animal. We provide outsourced client liaison services to benefit both the equipment sales companies and their customers”.

From South Africa, Digicall begins the process with a series of courtesy calls, using advanced predictive dialling tools and taking advantage of extremely low international call charges offered after South Africa’s recent embracing of voice over IP (VOIP) technology.

In the first joint project between the two companies, Digicall is making 2,000 calls a month to current and former clients of a major UK equipment supplier. “We update their contact details and make appointments for representatives to visit them,” says Digicall’s Andre Geboers. “This is a three-month pilot initially, but we’re confident it will grow into a long-term relationship.

“The call centre industry generally has a negative image in the UK,” says Richard Holt of the Qualia Group, who introduced the two companies. “In South Africa there is no stigma attached to working in a call centre and the people are passionate and productive; they make very good salespeople.”

‘We’re not quite as cheap as India,” adds Geboers, “but we have better English language skills and there’s less of a cultural divide. Cape Town is also a nicer place for our clients to visit, and there is no jet lag to contend with.”

Blogg agrees: “I looked at India very briefly, but it’s a victim of its own success to a degree. The labour market is not as stable as it is in South Africa, where there is more opportunity to build people and their skills because working in a call centre is seen as a genuine long-term career option”.

The cultural affinities between the UK and South Africa helped to ensure that Geboers and Blogg enjoyed what Geboers calls “an instant meeting of the minds” when they were first introduced. “We don’t do business with people unless the chemistry is right. In this case it was: we had our first meetings a month ago and the project was ready to go within a week.”

Qualia’s role was crucial, he says: “It helped enormously that Richard Holt knew us, knew Datacall and knew we had something in common. It could have taken us months to get this far without his facilitation, if we even became aware of the opportunity in the first place.”

Holt says the form of the partnership between Digicall and Datacall is becoming increasingly common. “We have the UK company creating the new business and managing clients and projects, and the South Africans doing the practical fulfilment. It has great benefits for both parties.”