Jasco has successfully implemented the first Proactive Outreach Manager (POM) call centre platform in South Africa that integrates outbound and inbound call capabilities.

The POM platform was developed by one of the world’s pioneers in global business telecommunication systems, Avaya, and installed by Jasco on behalf of one of SA’s largest financial services and Jasco’s longstanding client.

Jasco’s national support services executive, Sibusiso Ngcobo, says Jasco is the first Avaya Connect Partner in South Africa to successfully implement the POM platform without assistance from Avaya’s professional services team.

“This reaffirms Jasco’s leadership position with respect to the depth and breadth of our Avaya skills and expertise,” adds Ngcobo, pointing out there had been unsuccessful attempts in the past by other South African companies to implement POM.

POMs provides automated outbound campaign management, enabling organisations to create and deliver automated voice, email, or SMS messages that allow users to immediately choose a self-service option or interact with a live call centre agent.

By simplifying the creation, execution and management of campaigns and notifications, businesses can reduce costs, increase revenues, and improve customer satisfaction.

Ngcobo says he is particularly proud of the fact that Jasco delivered a turnkey solution, from system implementation to training call centre agents.

He explains the platform will empower call center agents trained to operate inbound and outbound calls on a platform that has found widespread use in global markets.

“The benefit to call centre agents is that they will now be able to use their skills in other jurisdictions outside the country where this system is used, particularly in many first-world countries were the Avaya POM platform has been deployed by many call centre operators,” says Ngcobo.

“The unified Agent Desktop interface, developed by Jasco, ensures that the agent does not toggle between many applications while servicing the contact which in turn reduces the handling time per contact.

“Our clients, such as Sanlam, will be able to realise high levels of efficiency and cost savings by implementing this platform because each agent will be able to multitask, operating both outbound and inbound activities from the same desk,” adds Ngcobo.

He says the system implementation was completed in August and while it is still too early to have quantitative data on cost savings, when scaled-up considerably the platform has the potential to save companies millions of rand in operating costs.

“We are already witnessing an increase in interest from other existing Jasco clients.”

Ngcobo says POM’s added advantage is that because it is highly embedded in Customer Relationship Management systems, it automatically generates leads for call centre agents to follow.