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And ContactinGauteng was also able to announce another, much more visible achievement today as well: a full-on business process outsourcing skills hub. Gauteng province in South Africa aims at creating a whopping 60,000 new jobs in the call-centre industry within the next three years. ContactinGauteng seeks to develop this potential talent pool to its call-centre industry.

Through this initiative, Gauteng’s school dropouts would be able to gain the opportunity to learn basic skills to increase their level of employability and career prospects. ContactinGauteng doubles as call-centre industry authority and member association in Gauteng.

The firm is responsible for more than 60 percent of call centres in South Africa; the city of Johannesburg’s economic development unit itself will be partnering with ContactinGauteng to develop the BPO skills hub: “The Joburg BPO skills hub will enable successful incumbents to qualify with a BTech certificate provided by the global training organisation Edexcel,” said a CIG spokesman.

The hub carries a mission statement that promises to reduce the cost of recruitment, subsidize the cost of training, provide balance sheet relief, and reduce attrition of agents in call centres, consultants and human resources in other BPO service centres. In theory, the BPO Skills Hub will benefit the local market by providing employers access to a massive human resource pool that can deliver “an internationally recognised quality of service.”

Further, the CIG brain trust envisions that, with its assistance, South Africa can become a power in the international outsourcing arena.

Call centre and business process outsourcing authority ContactinGauteng has been named host Direct Channel Holdings (née Direct Channel Marketing) as its platinum sponsor for the Gauteng contact centre industry’s annual awards. “…we felt that this high profile industry event is an exclusive opportunity to position and promote our newly consolidated brand,” said Direct Channel CEO / founder Suleman Shaik.

“Although Direct Channel has a national presence, Gauteng represents an important destination for our business growth.” The Annual Awards allowed ContactinGauteng to “pay tribute to individuals and companies that achieved extraordinary results within the call centre and BPO sector.”

Not since Titanic has a behemoth won this many awards on the same day.

Workforce optimization software and services provider Witness Systems today announced its reception of top honors for innovation in workforce optimization and IP recording. The IP Contact Center Technology Pioneer Awards was bestowed by Customer Inter@ction Solutions. The awards honor IP contact center technologies “with the most admirable feature sets and best track records of dramatically improving the operations of today’s call centers.”

Meanwhile, a twin killing was completed with Communications Solutions also acknowledging the Witness’ Impact 360 IP Recording solution with a product of the year award. This award is given to companies that “have demonstrated excellence in technological advancement and application refinement.”

Finally, Impact 360 was selected as a winner of the Customer Inter@ction Solutions 2006 CRM Excellence Award and was designated as a recipient of Customer Inter@ction Solutions’ Lifetime Achievement Award. Selected by the publication’s editors, this award recognizes companies and individuals that “are dedicated to advancing the success and reputation of today’s call center industry.”

Data access solutions provider McDATA Corporation has a new point of pride, and a new benchmark for others to live up to. McRepresentatives were happy to announce that CRM consulting firm Ambient Consulting has placed their McCompany atop the list of high industry standards for call center customer support.

Indeed, Ambient Consulting managing director David Reiss stated emphatically that “Other call centers would be well-served to follow McDATA’s example.” According to Ambient consultants, who evaluated call center efficiency, employee knowledge, process / procedures and overall customer satisfaction, McDATA’s call care “consistently exceeded industry benchmarks for both peer companies and best-in-class call centers.”

McDATA showed exceptional scores in Customer Satisfaction and First Call Resolution categories. In overall caller satisfaction, McDATA scored 38 percent higher than the industry average and 18 percent higher than top performers’ average. McDATA scored 33 percent higher than the industry average and 8 percent higher than the top performer’s average for first call resolution.

McDATA is a leading provider of data access solutions, specializing in building, globally connecting, optimizing and centrally managing data infrastructures across SAN, MAN and WAN environments.

Publisher and broadcaster industry biggie the Tribune Co. announced on Friday that 120 full-time and 130 part-time call-center jobs would be excised from at its daily newspapers, with the job to be outsourced to APAC Customer Services. APAC plans to place the jobs in the Philippines. The layoffs equal approximately 1 percent of Tribune publishing operation costs.

As a reason for the cuts, a company memo released to the press stated that, "The intensely competitive media environment we find ourselves in and the changes happening within our industry make it even more important that we continue to look for better ways to meet the needs of our readers and advertisers.” Industry analysts, however, are pretty much unanimous in citing pressure from Chandler Trust, Tribune Co.’s largest shareholder, to increase shareholder value.

In May, the company said it would buy back up to US $2 billion in stock and sell off US $500 million worth of assets in an attempt to boost the company’s performance. Tribune shares dropped 9 percent drop in July.

Bangalore-based JTS Institute has made getting a call center job a lot easier. The firm recently announced its free “e-recruitment” system, which enables job hunters to apply via an online test at www.jtsinstitute.com.

The process is three staged, with the online exam first, followed by a telephone interview by a “Voice and Accent expert from the Call Center industry.”

If the score is high enough, the prospect will then be interviewed over the phone by an HR department. JTS Institute CEO Pradeep Menon is credited as the mastermind behind this “e-recruitment” process.

According to Menon, “JTS Institute has made elaborate arrangements for the successful functioning of the e-recruitment process. 146 Voice and Accent experts have been given assignment to handle the telephonic interview with the candidates.”

On the call center front, news came from Hong Kong early this Monday morning, with the announcement that Oasis Hong Kong Airlines had appointed PAM Limited to establish, operate and maintain its Hong Kong-based call centre services, including staff and equipment.

PAM will provide customers and travel agents with sales, general enquiries and customer service assistance for twelve hours a day seven days a week. Under terms of the contract, PAM will supply staff members each fluent in Cantonese, English and/or Mandarin. PAM is also contracted to provide “intensive initial and ongoing training.”

Britannia Building Society today announced the rolling out of call centre tool QueueBuster, a solution that allows customers to hold within a queue “without being stuck on the phone.” Really. QueueBuster holds the customer in a virtual queue, letting them hang up, calling them back when at the front of the queue.

Following a successful pilot run, Britannia Building Society is rolling out call centre technology vendor Netcall’s QueueBuster in its full version. In the test, Britannia numbers showed an 82 percent increase in calls being answered within 20 seconds.

As though proof were needed to establish the handiness of such a tool, Britannia Building Society actually took a consumer survey, which showed that 54 percent would feel their personal banking experience improved if someone were to ring them back to save them holding. Britannia Building Society contact centres in Bristol and Leek, Staffordshire receive up to 3500 calls daily.

Verizon Business today introduced new internet protocol-based capabilities for its contact center services and VoIP portfolio. The capabilities include IP toll-free service; IP IVR, an interactive voice- response system for contact center services; and new IP trunking options.

All have interoperability with Avaya enterprise communications software. Verizon IP toll-free service promises to route incoming toll-free calls over IP and enables contact center agents to transfer calls using SIP capabilities. Verizon IP IVR provides call processing in a pure IP environment over a global network infrastructure.

IP Tollfree and IP IVR are compatible with Avaya Communication Manager with SIP enablement services 3.1 software and other SIP-enabled endpoints. Avaya Communication Manager with SIP enablement services is also certified for IP trunking, thereby allowing leverage of the VoIP portfolio to address inbound and outbound calling needs.

Explaining the new technology and concomitant adjustment in business strategy, Robin Goad, lead analyst, contact centers, Datamonitor was quoted in press material as stating that “Our research shows that there is a huge pent up demand for SIP-based call delivery.” Verizon Business is a unit of Verizon Communications, a leading provider of advanced communications and information technology solutions.

Minacom, a producer of VoIP test systems for telecommunications firms and cable MSOs, has introduced its Zoey interactive VoIP test agent, a customer support systems designed for providers offering self-install VoIP service.

Zoey is an automated interactive voice response agent used to test service quality; subscribers can check their caller ID, as well as evaluate noise, echo, speech quality, DTMF and fax transmission quality via Zoey functions. According to company information, in one short interactive test call, Zoey measures over 50 analog and IP service quality metrics.

Results are centrally stored in DirectQuality R7, a web-based service level test automation platform, and test results are subsequently accessible from any web browser, including those on most handheld cable, xDSL, and FTTx testsets, Blackberrys and internet-enabled cell phones. “VoIP self-install customers often use web site FAQs to setup their telephone adapters and get to a dial-tone,” explained Michel Nadeau, President & CEO of Minacom. “But who helps them if their caller ID is blocked, their friends are complaining about echo and noise, or when their voicemail and fax don’t work? Zoey solves these problems while reducing support costs and giving operations staff the information they need to keep subscribers talking.

Interactive VoIP testing is the missing element in most self-install VoIP service strategies.” Service providers can take Zoey for a test ride by obtaining the phone number at www.minacom.com/zoey. Zoey will also be demonstrated in person at the VON Fall convention on 12-13 September in Boston, Mass.

Minacom systems are web-controlled by a centralized server platform that is currently used by 72 operators including AT&T, Comcast, France Telecom, Liberty Global, Primus, Orange, Clearwire, VSNL, Bellsouth, Siemens, Cedar Point and Ericsson.