With a workforce of around 2 000 people handling more than two million calls a month, financial services company Absa runs one of the country’s largest in-house contact centre operations. This service infrastructure is at the heart of the bank’s business, providing frontline service and support to existing customers as well as supporting the customer retention and acquisition strategy through outbound calls.

Like many other contact centres in South Africa, it is under pressure to evolve to meet the changing needs of customers who want to interact with companies using electronic channels such as web, e-mail and social media, as well as the telephone. “We are at a crossroads, the point where we are starting the transition to the next phase of contact centres,” says Nolan John, managing executive of Absa’s contact centre. “Our biggest challenge is to understand our value proposition for the business and for our customers.”