Demand and not supply is the driver for broadband. If there is supply, demand will rise to meet it, and possibly exceed it, says Michael Malone, CEO and founder of Australian Internet service provider iiNet.
Speaking to ITWeb yesterday, during the launch of iiNet's new Cape Town contact centre, Malone said it appears the South African broadband industry is in a similar position to that of Australia four years ago.
“Our prices have dropped by 97%, from A$800 per meg to A$200, since 2000, and four years ago the broadband capacity to households was only 256Kbps, now it is mostly 2Mbps - an eightfold increase.”
Malone noticed that almost every one of his Cape Town contact centre staff has a mobile phone. “Surely that must be putting pressure on the broadband demand,” he said.
Application-rich
iiNet specialises in supplying broadband and related services to Australian households and has around 500 000 customers across that country. It relies heavily on contact centres to sell, service and promote its products.
iiNet supplies, what it terms, ADSL 2+ to homes and is looking at other technologies.
Malone says Australian households use their Internet connections for the usual purposes of entertainment, browsing and banking; however, now that they have faster connections, the sites can become far more application-rich.
iiNet offers soccer as a premium service, with four on-demand games and one live game that customers can log onto. However, due to Australia's “anti-siphoning” law, 10 of the country's best-loved sports (including cricket and rugby) have to be free-to-air and so these are not offered as a premium service.
Cape Town is now the fourth of its contact centres, with the others located in iiNet's hometown of Perth, and the other two in Sydney and the New Zealand city of Auckland. This is part of its strategy of “following the sun” by having contact centres operational during all hours of the day and night, without personnel having to work shifts.
Risk component
“More than 80% of our [1 400] staff work out of our contact centres and they represent at least one-third of the risk component on all service levels.”
He noted the concept of using “Net Promoters Score”, or NPS, means staff have to interact positively with clients, who then promote iiNet to their friends and family.
“We are a totally unscripted firm. In other words, none of our contact centre staff have any scripts in front of them. If they have to solve a query, then they have to really solve it and in the friendliest way.”
Malone admits that choosing Cape Town as the location for the fourth contact centre was not a “slam dunk” for the city. The company had scouted several other locations, such as Malaysia, before making its choice.
He explained that the cultural affinity between South Africans and Australians had helped, and there has been no negative feedback from Australian customers about using South African contact centres.
iiNet's Cape Town contact centre has 150 staff and is managed by Dimension Data subsidiary Merchants under a R60 million contract.
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