Aerospace business Pratt & Whitney Canada is expanding its Asian customer service capabilities from its operational hub in Singapore.

P&WC is growing its service team to enhance its customer service capabilities in the region with staff located in the same time zone as its customers. The Singapore operation includes 15 new team members, including customer managers and engineers, CFirst event managers providing front-line support, and accessories specialists who provide support on the full complement of P&WC engines in the region.

"The Asia Pacific region is of growing importance as our customer base continues to expand," said P&WC's Raffaele Virgili. "Serving customers in this region in a timely and efficient manner is a priority for us and we will continue to build critical mass in our capabilities to meet the growing demand."

Budget airline AirAsia will drastically change its customer service model with plans to close its contact centre service in Malaysia early next year.

Group CEO Tan Sri Tony Fernandes said the service, outsourced to another firm, was not making money and the sales amount was insignificant. Fernandes said the move would encourage more customers to use the carrier's online helpdesk or go to the nearest AirAsia Travel and Service Centre.

"Call centres cannot contain our fast-growing consumer base and their needs," he said. "We stopped sales at the centres four months ago and we will cease call centre services by March 2012." AirAsia has asked its contact centres in Indonesia and Thailand to report whether there is a need for their services. "However, we will maintain call centre services in China and India due to the absence of an AirAsia base there," Fernandes said.

The Negros Oriental Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Association in regional Philippines is offering free customer service training to prospective contact centre agents.

The courses, provided in conjunction with member-companies of the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) are made available under the information technology-business process outsourcing industry-based training for work scholarship program. ICT Dumaguete president Randy Bandiola said 900 scholarships are offered by three Tesda accredited schools.

Metro Dumagute College is accepting 400 students, while the remaining 500 slots are divided between the Philippine Call Center Institute (PCCI) and Science Technology Institute (STI). Bandiola said the ICT association is strengthening linkages with schools and local government units to attract more potential ICT workers in the province.

A bipartisan bill has been tabled in the US House of Representatives to make companies that offshore customer service overseas ineligible for grants or guaranteed loans from the federal government.

Introduced by lawmakers Tim Bishop and David McKinley, the US Call Center Worker and Consumer Protection Act would also put some aggressive mandates on contact centre operations. Under the proposed legislation, not only would customer service representatives working overseas for US corporations have to disclose their locations upon request, they would also have to offer callers the option of being transferred to customer service agents back in America.

The Bill also requires the Secretary of Labour to maintain a list of employers that locate contact centres overseas. The companies also require to provide 120 day advance notification before moving a contact centre overseas.

Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) has launched a mobile customer service coach, MobileLINK, aimed at providing greater consumer access with the central bank.

The custom-made coach will enhance access to basic banking services and provide advisory services on banking, insurance and SME financing related matters. "The journey for MobileLINK will begin today to cover about 50% of the identified non-urban areas nationwide in the next three years," said BNM governor Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz.

MobileLINK will also provide information on personal credit through the Central Credit Reference Information System, information on BNM through a self-service web-based terminal and advisory services on other financial-related. "It will also enable the bank to hear directly from the public on financial issues concerning our financial system," Zeti said.

Chinese financial services company Ping An Insurance Group has started offering video interaction with its clients, thanks to a Genesys system.

Ping An's customer contact agents are now equipped to handle video communication with customers, improving interaction and service quality. The agents and customers will use video communication to make the business more direct by gaining a timely understanding of their situation or claim status, while helping agents accelerate business management.

Agents will use video and fingerprint viewing for verification of applicants' identities. Ping An is able to centralise all its contact center resources, provide intelligent routing, command real-time monitoring and historical statistics reporting, and optimise the customer service operations.

Philippine outsourcer SPi Global is eying Australia as a potential major source of new business.

SPi Global CEO Maulik Parekh said more companies in Australia are now exploring the possibility of outsourcing to the Philippines because of the country's reputation for excellent customer service. "We foresee an expansion in our business now that the Australian market is really opening up and companies there are seeing the advantage of entrusting to Filipinos their voice and, soon, their non-voice outsourcing needs as well," said Parekh.

Parekh said SPi Global's advantage over some competitors was its ability to offer value-added voice and non-voice BPO solutions, anchored on its strong operational presence in the Asia Pacific region. The company is also well-versed in the verticals that are relevant to Australian companies.

Customer service IT company Verint Systems has been named Asia Pacific Call Monitoring Systems Vendor of the Year.

Verit received the award from Frost & Sullivan for its influence in driving call monitoring and work force technology across the region. "Verint continues to demonstrate excellence in product innovation and enhancing customer value, while also reinforcing its leadership in the call monitoring systems market in Asia Pacific," said Frost & Sullivan's Krishna Baidya.

Baidya said by providing actionable intelligence to customers, Verint is well-equipped to capitalise on the growing demand for process optimisation in the industry. "Its strong value proposition is further underscored through its proven capability around enterprise workforce optimisation and analytics," she said.

Technology supply company Koh Young has opened a new customer service and support center in Shenzen, China.

Koh Young said the new facility will give it the ability to better serve customers in the China market, an area of growth for the company. Sales revenue from China has reached 27% of Koh Young's total sales.

The center officially opened on November 11. Koh Young was established in South Korea and specialises in machine vision technology, intelligent system software and precision mechatronics.

Hong Kong-based PCCW Teleservices has been awarded the Best China Outsourcing Customer Contact Center of the Year (Inbound) at China's Best Customer Contact Center Awards 2011.

The Awards, organized by 51CallCenter in Tianjin, is recognised as the preeminent awards of China's contact center industry. Members of the judging panel were impressed by PCCW Teleservices' professional operations and management, and excellent service delivery, which enable its clients to improve customer satisfaction and increase revenue generation opportunities.

"We are delighted to be honoured in the Annual China Best Customer Contact Center Awards," PCCW Teleservices vice president Joseph Wong said. "It is a tribute to our professional team who has made this possible, and we will provide even better services and solutions to our clients in the future."

Philippine outsourcer SPi Global has won the Sao Khue 2011 Prize for best foreign BPO service in Vietnam.

The award from the Vietnam Software Association (Vinasa), recognised SPi Global's "excellent conversion solutions in Vietnam". Vinasa also honoured the Spi's "pre-eminent service" for its content processing solutions, which includes digitisation, data entry, and high-volume transaction processing.

SPi Global's Hanoi operation, established in 2002, employs over 600 employees, and supports the company's robust Philippine operations. "This award is a testimony to our best practices," said SPi Global CEO Maulik Parekh said. "We have made a significant investment in best practices to provide best-in-class service to our growing clientele base."

Global insurance provider Sun Life plans to expand its business process outsourcing operations and possibly set up a new customer service center in the Philippines.

Canada-based Sun Life already has some to 200 seats in the Philippines handling the information technology requirements of the firm's operations in the United States and Canada. "We're expanding our BPO and potentially moving our call center offices here," Sun Life of Canada (Philippines) president Riza Mantaring told reporters.

Sun Life has selected the Philippines for its English-speaking workforce and expects its investments in the country to continue. Mantaring said Sun Life would study the best vehicle for its prospective contact center hub in the country, which she said would hopefully open by next year. "They are already looking at how to set it up," she said.

Asia Pacific companies are recognising new technology such as CRM analytics, as well as innovations like cloud and social media are critical for customer care delivery, according to new research.

Frost & Sullivan's VP, Asia Pacific ICT Research, Andrew Milroy told the consulting company's Customer Interaction Hong Kong Summit it is critical for companies to understand customer's behaviour to drive revenue growth, build experience & improve operations and margins. "Analytics plays a key role in enabling enterprises to deliver differentiated experience, and create a winning strategy," he said, adding that strategic contact centres report on customer-centric insights, not on operational metrics.

Milroy said there is strong interest from companies to use social media for customer care or customer engagement, adding that the telecoms, hospitality and banking industry are already experimenting with social media. He added that there is a need to integrate social media as one of the channels in the contact centre. "Creating processes on how to screen and respond on social media is critical," he said.

The Philippines' customer service outsourcing boom is slowing the exodus of workers heading overseas by providing well-paid jobs for graduates at home.

Nine million, or some 10% of all Filipinos live overseas, performing low-skilled jobs such as maids and sailors, but also working as nurses, engineers and IT specialists. They were responsible for sending more than US$18 billion back to the Philippines last year, equivalent to 10% of the country's GDP.

The outsourcing workforce grew about 10% this year to 600,000, and is expected to expand to 900,000 employees by 2016, according to the Business Processing Association of the Philippines. While most jobs are in the contact centre industry, the industry is also increasingly attracting work for higher-paying skills such as data warehousing, accounting and medical transcription, as well as creative work ranging from webpage design to animation and video games.

Salmat, Australia's leading marketing and communications company and largest outsourced call centre operator, has announced a multi-million dollar agreement with Avaya, a global provider of business communications and collaboration systems and services. The investment will see Salmat's contact centres powered by the latest technology with greatly expanded multichannel capabilities, delivering significantly enhanced contact centre operations in Australia and New Zealand.

To be rolled out in February 2012, customer interactions will be consistent across multiple channels including phone, e-mail, chat, SMS and social media, giving customers a superior contact centre experience. The robust, feature-rich communications platform will consolidate all existing features as well as introduce new and improved capabilities including self-service features, call recording and better integration with client systems, website and back office systems, to create a more refined user experience.

Speaking about the investment, Salmat Chief Executive Officer, Grant Harrod, said "Avaya's current technology, roadmap and vision are aligned with our own vision to greatly improve the way companies engage with customers via the contact centre." "By hosting Avaya's latest technology, combined with our expertise in contact centre operations, Salmat will offer an entirely new level of integrated multichannel customer communication not available to our knowledge anywhere else in Australia and New Zealand," said Harrod.

Singapore-based office space supplier Servcorp has embraced social media for its customer service, launching a dedicated Facebook page to share with local and international organisations.

The page will feature unique special offers as well as information and updates for its fans. Facebook has more than 800 million users around the world, and over 2.5 million in Singapore alone. Servcorp has already set up a Twitter account to provide a channel to broadcast industry news and information.

One of Servcorp's popular packages involves virtual offices, which enables its clients to maintain a comprehensive interface for customers without having to commit to any full-time working locations. The company says getting its message across via social media sites is a vital tool in its ongoing strategy.

India's government owned banks are lagging behind their customers when it comes to the quality of services offered, according to the Reserve Bank of India.

In order to give more emphasis to customer service, the Reserve Bank set up a separate customer service department in 2006 along with banking ombudsman (BO) centres in various centres.

Although there has been an overall reduction in the number of complaints received by the BO in the last financial year the number has been quite high in areas including Bhopal, Patna, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh and Guwahati. Government or public sector banks are still favoured by most Indians.

Korean based electronics company Dongbu HiTek has stepped up its support for customers in China as it announces the manufacture of products for two new Chinese clients.

Dongbu HiTek this year set up customer service/sales operations in Shanghai and Shenzhen to support local customers as it aims to expand its foundry business in the region. The company has begun volume producing DC/DC converters for Wuxi Silicon Technology, a semiconductor company based in Wuxi, China.

Dongbu HiTek is also manufacturing power management ICs for Leaderchip Technology, based in Xi'an.

Brunei's Sipadu Systems has outlined plans to open the country's first customer service centre services project.

The company says Brunei's high literacy rate, English language fluency and sense of courtesy makes it an attractive place for a contact centre for companies in the Asia-Pacific region. "Our selling point is the people we employ," said SiPadu Systems' Hj Sahralidin Hj Abd Momin.

A wholly-owned subsidiary company of TelBru Berhad, SiPadu Systems recently signed a joint venture agreement with an Omani IT company Bahwan CyberTek to set up the state-of-the-art contact centre. The inbound services include help desk, complaint handling technical support, directory enquiry and information, problem resolution, product enquiry, and reservations and delivery status. The outbound services would include data verification, data collection, customer satisfaction survey, telemarketing and lead generation and product/service awareness campaigns.

Standard Chartered Bank will soon start using such social medium websites to improve customer service in India.

The bank's technology group based out of Chennai will launch a pilot project to use social media networks to 'listen' to what customers are saying about the bank. "It could be good or bad, we need to react immediately," said Jaya Vaidhyanathan of Scope International, which is responsible for providing technology solutions to the bank globally.

At present, customers can make a complaint via the phone, e-mail, SMS or by filling in a complaint form. The use of social media will be the latest in the list. "Social media is a powerful medium to ignore. Some of our competitors are also testing this medium, which will also help us to reach the GenY," vaidhyanathan said.

In a sign of the growing power of social media customer service, Malaysia's lifestyle mall Pavilion KL has reached the 100,000 fans its Facebook page in one year.

"Consumerism has dramatically evolved, today's consumers want to be engaged and they want all the information at their finger tips in real time," Pavilion KL director of marketing Kung Suan Ai told reporters. "Social media is fast, easy and effective, allowing us to share all the latest developments as they happen."

Kung said that Facebook allowed real time conversations, which has socialised shopping experience. "Communications are starting online and moving offline. A recent study by online viewership by comScore stated that social networking represented almost one third of time spent online in Malaysia in August 2011, ranking as the top online activity for the market."

The Philippine government will consider laws that demand many businesses extend their customer service to better cater for the deaf.

Lawmaker Bagong Herrera-Dy is filing a bill that would make it mandatory for organisations, particularly fast food chains and government agencies, to put up their own "call centres" for hearing-and speech-impaired persons, or hire sign language interpreters to attend to them. Herrera-Dy announced the plan at a ceremony to congratulate 30 individuals who completed a two-month Video Relay Service (VRS) Call Center Training Program.

"It is the right of individuals with vocal and audiological impairments to be heard. Being able to communicate and be understood are human entitlements that must not be denied," Herrera-Dy said. The VRS program includes sign language proficiency training and video relay computer program education, which are the main components of contact centre services for the deaf.

Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) on Singapore's Sentosa Island is using business analytics to give its customer service an edge.

RWS houses a casino, several hotels, restaurants, retail outlets, a convention centre and the Universal Studios theme park. RWS CTO Yap Chee Yuen told reporters that with a site as varied as his, customer insights on how visitors spend their time in the resort enable the company's customer service, sales and marketing teams to plan their operations more effectively.

"Big data and business analytics are important in this respect. They will aggregate and summarise customer information, and provide an intuitive tool for our business users to access this information," Yuen said. He said the next phase of the company's IT strategy will look at utilising business analytics to process information collected from the resort's key transactional systems, including ticketing, the casino and hotel systems, and point of sales.

US-based producer of rare earth oxides (REO) Molycorp is opening an office in Tokyo in order to better serve its customers in the world's largest rare earth consuming nation outside of China.

The office will provide customer support as well as consulting and technical services to Molycorp's customers in Japan. "We are very pleased to be opening a Molycorp office in Tokyo," said Molycorp President Mark A. Smith.

"This will help us better serve our many valued customers in Japan, as well as help us forge new relationships, improve communications, and increase our understanding of the needs of this very important market," Smith said. "Coupled with our offices in Europe and the U.S., this provides Molycorp with a more comprehensive global reach and

Ebay-owned online payment service PayPal has opened a customer service-base in Malaysia to boost its support in Asia.

PayPal's new centre will offer customer service and support in English to PayPal customers across Asia and provide risk and financial services operations for PayPal's business globally. The company plans to host some 500 workers at the site by the end of 2013.

In a recent interview, PayPal's Rupert Keeley said the company chose Malaysia because of accommodative policies as well as the availability of multi-lingual workers and the fast development of e-commerce and technologies in the country. The company already has about 200 staff on site.

Hong Kong's PCCW Teleservices, a premier provider of global outsourcing solutions, has received a major award at the Annual China Best Customer Contact Centre Awards.

PCCW was named the Best China Outsourcing Customer Contact Centre of the Year (Inbound). The Awards is organised by 51Callcenter to promote social awareness of excellent customer service, to improve contact centre operation management, to establish service outsourcing industry standard, and to foster the development of outsourcing contact centre industry in mainland China.

Members of the judging panel were impressed by PCCW Teleservices' "professional operations and management, and excellent service delivery, which enable its clients to improve customer satisfaction and increase revenue generation opportunities." "We are delighted to be honoured in the Annual China Best Customer Contact Centre Awards. It is a tribute to our professional team who has made this possible, and we will provide even better services and solutions to our clients in the future." said PCCW Teleservices VP Joseph Wong.

The Philippines Department of Science and Technology (DOST) will offer free customer service training to assess and improve the skills of would be BPO professionals.

One of the programs that will be launched through the DOST's Information and Communication Technology Office, is an online and CD-based training tool designed to help potential employees prepare themselves to be part of the BPO workforce. The program is also meant to improve the current average hiring rate in the industry, which the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) placed at only 5%.

During a recent International Outsourcing Summit, Trade Secretary Gregory Domingo said that education and capacity-building were on top of the DOST's agenda for the BPO industry.

Asia Pacific-based CRM company LeadMaster has upgraded its CRM suite to support Japanese, Chinese and Korean.

"Being one of the first Web-based CRMs to support multilanguage format is a very important milestone for LeadMaster," said LeadMaster APAC CEO David Mackey. "We are now able to offer our world-class CRM and SFA tool in any language, which makes its market fit universal."

Mackey said being able to communicate and work in a local language wherever you are in the world is an obvious requirement for business. LeadMaster has offices in Singapore, Hong Kong and Australia.

Overseas Chinese Banking Corporation Limited OCBC Bank has upped its customer service with the launch of new online banking.

The technology brings together intuitive user interfaces and new features to "significantly simplify the customer's online tasks". The new experience includes an instant overview of the customer's assets and liabilities upon logging-in, innovative navigational aids and a powerful savings tool.

The debut of the new online banking platform also marks the first time a bank in Singapore is offering online telegraphic transfers via mobile phone. Driving the creation of the new experience were insights distilled from extensive customer research including interviews, focus groups and experience labs, since last year, with some 900 customers.

India's Tata Teleservices will consolidate its customer service under plans to integrate all its service offerings under a single Tata DoCoMo brand.

India's sixth largest mobile phone company by [number of] customers currently provides services -mobile, fixed line and broadband - under several different brands. "The integration extends beyond the brand - there will be one website and one call centre for customer services," Tata Teleservices Deepak Gulati said.

Tata Teleservices is 26% owned by Japanese cellular company NTT DoCoMo. Gulati said collapsing all existing brands into DoCoMo would result in significant savings for the company, including that of marketing costs.

High-definition audio technology specialist DTS has opened its newest office in Singapore offering customer service, as well as R&D.

As one of the most dynamic and fast-growing consumer electronics markets, Asia plays a critical role in the development and manufacturing of innovative mobile, PC, and network-connected products and technologies. DTS says its Singapore office enhances the company's overall commitment to its local partners and the Asia market.

"As a leading developer and innovator for today's audio technology industry, we are proud to grow our presence within Asia," said Brian Towne of DTS. "The strategic addition of our Singapore office will further enhance available DTS resources within the region, allowing us to better partner with key customers and address the growing consumer demand for high-quality audio regardless of the platform."

Hong Kong-based customer service IT company Chatter Box Call Centre (CBCC) has launched new services aimed at getting most out of emerging networking channels.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) helps search engines find and rank a site higher than millions of others in response to a query and is an emerging internet marketing tool. Chatter Box's custom Facebook tab makes the most of social networking by helping a Facebook page stand out from the crowd.

"Social networking has moved into the business world, with some companies actively promoting employee involvement to raise awareness of their products or services, and keep in touch with each other and existing or potential customers," CBCC said. "Since Chatter Box is a BPO company, engaging in these markets would be an edge for its pre-nominal services to be associated with these new services involving the use of internet for company and business management."

Indian outsourcer Aegis People Support has invested in setting up its own two-story customer service centre in the regional Philippine city of Cebu.

Aegis managing director and global CEO Aparup Sengupta said the move shows Aegis' seriousness in investing in the Philippines. "The Philippines took the offshore (customer service) leadership position in the world," he said. "It is the de-facto destination, especially for North American customers. Hence, it is strategic for us to come here."

Aegis has 12,000 employees in its facilities in Manila, Cebu and Baguio and aims to reach 15,000 Philippine employees by year end. "We love the Filipino workforce. We love the warmth you bring to the table. That is why it is not surprising that you have enjoyed the status of being a preferred destination," said Aegis president for Association for Southeast Asian Nations and Australia-New Zealand, Rajiv Ahuja

India's state-owned IDBI Bank will expand its customer service footprint by opening about 250 new branches across the country, as well as a branch in Singapore over the next year.

"We will be opening 200-250 branches across various states in next 12 months," IDBI Bank chairman R M Malla told reporters. The bank also submitted applications to the Monetary Authority of Singapore for setting up an Offshore Banking Unit there and to the China Banking Regulatory Commission for setting up a representative office at Shanghai.

Malla said IDBI Bank hopes to get licence from the Singaporean authorities within the next few months. He then went to say IDBI Bank constantly endeavours to expand its branch network to execute its strategy of building a sufficiently larger customer base and improved customer service.

Malaysian-based carrier AirAsia says it has improved its service by investing in a New Zealand-developed airline management system.

The system, merlot.aero, will boost customer service by optimising AirAsia's aircraft and crew utilisation, making it possible for the airline to further improve its on-time performance and minimise costs. "AirAsia is committed to service excellence. We have chosen this state-of-the-art operational tool in our quest to offer our guests the best travelling experience," said AirAsia COO Bo Lingam.

"Merlot.aero more smartly forecasts, organises, predicts, measures and reports on daily aircraft and crew utilisation," said Merlot CEO Mark McCaughan. The system will be used by the entire AirAsia Group throughout the region and by its sister company, AirAsia X. The system will commence rollout in November, with the full implementation of the system expected to be completed by mid-2012.

Citibank India says it's customers are embracing online service with more than 40% banking online regularly and more receiving e-statements than paper statements.

Close to 60% of the US-owned bank's customers have signed up for e-statements and nearly 90% of all customer communication is now electronic. The findings reaffirm Citibank's belief that urban India is increasingly consuming digital content for banking and commercial services for solving real needs.

Citibank's digital platform has grown to become a critical channel attracting more usage than the combined usage across all other channels like ATMs, phone banking, branches and regular mail. "Our digital platform is the largest channel of customer service and engagement. More than 50% of all customer contacts with the bank are digital," said Citibank India's Gowri Mukherjee.

Global electronics company RS Components has won the China Best Customer Contact Centre Industry Promising Star of the Year award at the 2011 China Best Customer Contact Centre and CRM Awards.

The annual awards recognise China's best in contact centre and customer relationship management. RS Components won its award for displaying a number of key strengths and showing a clear and decisive customer centric strategy, which translated across the customer service teams, enabled the company to deliver efficient and effective service to their customers.

Award winners at the event also included internationally acclaimed companies such as HP, Sony, eBay, and DHL in addition to local companies including China Mobile as well as the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. The awards aim to improve the overall service and management of local customer contact centres while helping to establish industry standards as well as driving the rapid development of contact centres in China.

Outsourcer TELUS International Philippines (TIP) has forged a partnership with De La Salle University (DLSU) to provide TIP members access to higher education and learning opportunities.

TIP executives reportedly met with DLSU officials to formalise the agreement, as well as introduce their new country manager, Jeffrey Uthoff. The partnership supports TELUS International University (TIU), TIP’s initiative to support team members who wish to pursue higher education.

The program allows TIP members to finish their bachelor degree or pursue a master degree on-site while continuing to work at TELUS. "We have been working with DLSU since the start of TIU and we are proud that our partnership with DLSU has been formalised," TIP president Javier Infante said.

Guangqi Honda and Dongfeng Honda - Honda's automobile's production and sales joint ventures in China have been ranked No.1 and No.2 respectively in after-sales service by a new survey.

The J.D. Power Asia Pacific 2011 China Customer Service Index (CSI) Study measures satisfaction among vehicle owners who visit an authoried dealer during the period of 12 to 24 months after the purchase of the vehicle. Overall satisfaction is reported as an index score based on a 1,000-point scale.

Guangqi Honda earned the highest score in three of the five measures: service initiation, service advisor and service facility, and ranked first in overall satisfaction with a score of 896 points, followed by Dongfeng Honda at a score of 891 points.

In a testament to the growing power of social media, North Korea's Air Koryo is using Facebook to push its customer service credentials.

The page is grabbing attention around the world among travellers, airplane enthusiasts and even South Koreans, who get a rare peek at a North Korean operated page through the popular social networking. The English language page features photos of planes and terminals, as well as links to timetables and a discussion board.

Visitors have plenty of questions about scheduling and services, which are patiently answered. Though dialogue on politics is discouraged, discussions do veer in that direction, prompting humorous jabs from the operators.

Philippine outsourcer SPi Global has established an Australian office to form business partnerships with local companies for their contact centre and other outsourcing needs.

The company's decision to establish its presence in Australia bodes well for the Philippines, which recently emerged as the top off-shoring destination for Australian firms. SPi Global is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT).

"We are keen to enter the Australian market and attract major companies to our customer relationship management services," said SPi Global President Maulik Parekh. "Many Australian and US companies have already discovered the Philippines as a place where they can cost-effectively drive their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and we are keen to attract more business."

Indian outsourcer has opened its first rural centre at Manjakkudi village in Tamil Nadu state to capitalise on the literate talent pool available in the region.

The Manjakkudi centre has a capacity of 120 seats, and will open with a 50-seat pilot project for an international client in the retail sector. Wipro plans to expand its rural BPO operations to 500 seats by March 2013.

"Rural BPOs are a crucial part of the development of our country as a business leader," Wipro BPO senior VP Manish Dugar said. The Manjakkudi BPO centre benefits from a fully-equipped IT and physical infrastructure, which complies with standard security and regulatory requirements.

Indian outsourcer Aegis Limited plans to hire more than 4,000 customer service staff in the US and has joined the jobs4america Coalition.

"Aegis is committed to creating jobs in the United States, and plans to create 4,000 U.S. contact centre jobs over the next 2 years," Aegis president Sandip Sen said. "From saving jobs in Killeen, Texas, to being a top 10 employer in nearly every city in which we operate, Aegis is proud to contribute to job creation as a member of the jobs4america Coalition."

Aegis' commitment is an ironic twist after years of complaints from US lawmakers and commentators regarding the loss of American jobs to India. Sen said many of the jobs created will be seasonal, as well as temporary to permanent, and include benefits including insurance for employees who meet the tenure criteria. "We are expanding our client engagements for many of the world's leading brands, and these new positions will help us deliver an exceptional customer experience."

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) will expand its customer service delivery to include more social media and online technology as it works to widen its tourism message to new markets.

The TAT says its Amazing Thailand Facebook page has attracted 201,392 followers to date. "We will also apply customer relationship management on many channels such as websites, social networks, mobile applications and games," TAT's Thapanee Kiatphaibool said. "Good CRM will help us collect data to create more targeted marketing campaigns in future."

Thapanee said TAT would launch country-specific marketing campaigns. A recent campaign saw the TAT collaborate with local travel agents in China to promote Thailand destinations on well-known blogs. "More online campaigns should be launched as international tourists look up information from the internet," she said.

A large number of Fijian Health Ministry employees were among the first civil servants to participate in government-wide customer service skills training workshops.

Around 250 staff members from the Colonial War Memorial Hospital have taken part in the first round of workshops that will target most ministries, government agencies and departments in the Fiji capital, Suva, before moving to the other three divisions. Health Ministry spokesman Peni Namotu said the Fiji government had outsourced the customer service training to local training agency Human Resource Development South Pacific.

The training program contract is in line with the Fiji government's outsourcing policy to create a leaner and more efficient civil service. Public Service Commission' permanent secretary Parmesh Chand said the programs were aimed at improving productivity and assisting participants develop customer care skill. "It will also help participants in 'thinking outside the box' and going that extra mile in terms of service delivery," he said.

Hard worked Christchurch City Council customer service staff are receiving free shoulder massages every 10 days to boost morale.

Call volume at the council's contact centre has doubled since February's earthquake and the council's 44 customer service agents have fielded hundreds of calls a day from distraught Canterbury residents. Contact centre manager David Dally said the workload had put staff under immense pressure and staff were working triple-shift rosters in March and put in extensive overtime to keep the phones answered.

"People are quite distressed, and understandably so. However, staff have often been in that same position themselves," said Dally, who paid for staff to have neck and shoulder massages to help relieve tension. He also laid on roast dinners and morning teas to keep staff fuelled during their shifts. To help decrease the workload, extra staff have arrived after being trained to help cope with the nature and number of calls.

Customer analytics company Verint Systems has signed a definitive agreement to acquire enterprise feedback management (EFM) solutions company Vovici.

With the merger, as well as strategic partnerships with companies such as text analytics firm Clarabridge, Verint says it is creating a Voice of the Customer (VoC) hub capable of tracking and measuring a customer's journey across online and offline touch points. "As the market's most comprehensive VoC Analytics platform available, the Verint-Vovici solution will enable organisations to implement a single-vendor solution for collecting, analysing and acting on customer insights," the companies said in a statement.

"This business combination will change the playing field in the market, advancing our customers around the globe through a solution designed to help them achieve their voice of the customer goals at all levels - from the contact centre through the entire enterprise," said Verint CEO Dan Bodner. "Combining Vovici's deep domain expertise with our actionable intelligence vision will further position us to solidify our already strong market leadership position."

Philippine youths make great contact centre agents, according to US outsourcer Convergys.

Convergys president for customer management Andrea Ayers said the younger generation has a distinct advantage when it comes to multitasking and computer utilisation skills, making them perfect for the BPO industry. Currently, half of Convergys' 25,000 employees in the Philippines are either college students or fresh graduates.

The company plans to hire another 5,000 youths by the end of the year. "They (youth) take multitasking to a whole new level," Ayers told reporters during a visit to Manila for Convergys' 8th anniversary in the country.

India's Essar Group's outsourcing division, Aegis, has announced plans to enter the UK and European markets for the first time, creating 600 new jobs in Manchester.

The jobs will be at a new customer centre in Manchester, expected to be operational later this year. Aegis will service a number of major blue chip clients from the centre. Aegis also plans a further expansion across various countries in Continental Europe, where a number of additional customer service centres will be opened in the next two years.

"We're delighted to be launching our European presence with a new customer centre in Manchester," said Aegis CEO Aparup Sengupta. "This approach of setting up greenfield centres in our target markets will be at the heart of Aegis’s plans to further expand in other European countries,"

The Shanghai Dazhong Transportation Group has joined www.TaiwanTaxi.com.tw by signing a customer service agreement to provide a taxi-ordering service for tourists from the city and the island.

"The move is aimed at giving a helping hand to the individual tour of Taiwan, which will start on June 28," said Yang Guoping, chairman of the Shanghai Dazhong Transportation Group. "The cooperation will surely help smooth the tour and make tourists more convenient."

Dazhong's Li Weitao said the company's taxi contact centre will send booking information to the Taiwan side and will confirm arrangements with the customer after receiving the reply from Taiwan. The same applies to Taiwan tourists to Shanghai, who can also call Taiwan Taxi Co to order Shanghai taxis, he said.

The Shanghai Dazhong Transportation Group has joined www.TaiwanTaxi.com.tw by signing a customer service agreement to provide a taxi-ordering service for tourists from the city and the island.

The move is aimed at giving a helping hand to the individual tour of Taiwan, which will start on June 28," said Yang Guoping, chairman of the Shanghai Dazhong Transportation Group. "The cooperation will surely help smooth the tour and make tourists more convenient."

Dazhong's Li Weitao said the company's taxi contact centre will send booking information to the Taiwan side and will confirm arrangements with the customer after receiving the reply from Taiwan. The same applies to Taiwan tourists to Shanghai, who can also call Taiwan Taxi Co to order Shanghai taxis, he said.

ANZ bank says it plans to trial the use of foreign staff to call Australian customers as part of its debt collection division.

The pilot program will involve 100 staff based in Manila who will make some early stage debt collection phone calls. ANZ says the 100 jobs are not being cut from Australia, and will come in addition to the 800 employees it already employs in debt collection in Melbourne.

ANZ says it is conducting the pilot due to the difficulties in attracting and retaining local staff in debt collections. The bank's spokesman Paul Edwards told reporters a rise in bad debts also meant it needed to find more people to handle collections. "The decision is primarily driven by the recent uptick we've seen in loan arrears, particularly on mortgages and unsecured lending," he said.

New Zealand's Fisher and Paykel thanks its customer service strategy for the much of its success in being named the country's most trusted whitegoods brand in the Reader's Digest Most Trusted Brands Survey.

Fisher & Paykel New Zealand marketing manager Roger Bridge said customer insight and rigorous appliance testing led the development of Fisher & Paykel products, while continued advancement of leading proprietary technology keeps it ahead of the rest. "When it comes to customer support, we're the only whiteware company in NZ with a 24/7 customer care" he said.

"Our global call centre is based here in New Zealand, assisting people from all over the world and is able to activate a network of Fisher & Paykel appliance experts in each local market." The company's support of its customers extends to its communities, with partnerships with the Silver Ferns national netball teams and culinary events around New Zealand. In the aftermath of the Canterbury earthquakes, Fisher & Paykel continues to provide free washing and drying facility.

French outsourcer Capgemini has opened a new service centre in Gurgaon, its first BPO centre in North India and sixth in the country.

The new facility will increase Capgemini's total seat capacity in India to over 4500 seats. The staff in Gurgaon will deliver Global Order Management services to Nokia Siemens Networks, a leading global enabler of communications services, to support the company's global Supply Chain Management.

The services delivered cover Quote-to-Cash end-to-end processes including all aspects of order management, spanning preparation for delivery, customer order management, distribution, and customer invoicing. In India, Capgemini's BPO deliver Finance & Accounting, Management Assurance, Engineering services, Content Management, Research & Advisory, Supply Chain Management, Procurement Services and Human Resources outsourcing services to more than 25 international clients.

Financial services giant Citi says it is leveraging new digital technologies to engage Asian consumers.

Citi operates over 700 Asian branches and is refitting each outlet so it resembles a store more than a traditional bank. One feature of the new-look branches will be interactive "media walls", a large screen displaying financial and general news, alongside touchscreen functionality letting customers browse product information.

Applications for bank accounts, credit cards and equivalent offerings may also be completed in the same manner, and videoconferencing customer service tools are available if further guidance is required. "In order to capitalise on the phenomenal growth of consumer markets in Asia, and the opportunities new technology is offering, for us the greater risk was in not acting," said Citi Asia Pacific’s Francesco Lagutaine.

Global e-commerce provider, cleverbridge, has launched an Asian customer service operation in Shanghai, China.

The Shanghai facility extends cleverbridge's global customer support network across Asia, Europe and North America. "Bringing customer support to Asia allows us to provide our clients with native-speaking representatives, not only bridging language barriers but also cultural differences," said CEO Christian Blume. "We have tripled the number of Asian-focused customer service representatives, and are well positioned to grow in these important markets, which enables our clients to expand their business in these regions."

The Asian cleverbridge customer support team currently includes Japanese native speakers, with Chinese and Korean language support soon to follow. "Our targeted strategy is to offer a scalable customer support environment in all operating regions," said cleverbridge global director of customer support Joe Schnaufer. "The opening of our first customer support operation in Asia is imperative to providing the level of customer support our clients and their customers are accustomed to - and expect from cleverbridge."

Social media as a customer service tool is steadily growing in the outsourcing hub of the Philippines, according to one of the market's biggest players.

Convergys president of customer management Andrea Ayers said while her company's services were largely voice-based BPO, its non-voice service offerings are slowly seeing growth. "We do a fair amount of non-voice BPO (such as) back-office email management, chat processing, coupons processing and claims processing, among others," Ayers said.

Non-voice customer service is beginning to push the local BPO market to growth, as voice-based BPO services in the country near saturation. "Our social media work is also considered back-office," Ayers said. "We're helping one of our clients in inserting experts into blogs and forums on the web, so that when there's an issue in the social media realm, we insert an expert there to resolve the issue." Convergys operates 15 centres in the Philippines.

US outsourcer Alorica has opened a new office in the Philippines, its fifth customer service centre in the country.

Alorica's latest facility in Manila was opened with the goal of increasing its employee base, which will then hopefully increase customer satisfaction rates. The all new office has a 2,500-seat capacity, making it Alorica's largest base operating in the Philippines.

"We're looking for the best and brightest people in each of the industries we cover. They should have the right attitude, the right work ethics and are driven to excel," said Alorica CEO Andy Lee. "These are the people who are fundamental aspects of our growth."

Japanese oils and fats manufacturer Fuji Oil has opened a customer service centre in Bangkok to analyse local market trends.

The new centre comes ahead of the planned opening of research centers in Thailand and in China, to develop products for local bakery snacks manufacturers. Construction has also begun on a new margarine plant.

The company has previously opened two R&D centres in Singapore and Shanghai. "The two new research centres will help our local clients develop new products through designing ingredient mixes using our products, such as margarine and cream," said a Fuji spokesman.

Malaysia's AmBank has been awarded the inaugural Best of Malaysia Service to Care Champion 2011 (Best Customer Satisfaction) award by marketing consultancy Markplus.

AmBank was ranked No.1 "for its consistent customer service and customer care excellence" in the category for conventional banking with assets valued at more than US$20 billion category. Besides receiving the Best Customer Satisfaction award in the conventional banking category, AmBank was also among the top four in the credit card category for the Malaysia Service to Care Award 2011.

The awards are designed to raise the awareness and commitment of Malaysian companies to improving service levels throughout the country. The service care level of a company is calculated through measurement of five key factors _ credibility, dependability, courtesy, comfort-ability and connectivity. AmBank topped the list for best customer satisfaction.

Hewlett-Packard has pledged to expand its customer service and manufacturing operations in China to reverse its shrinking share in country's personal-computer market.

Speaking during a visit to China last week Todd Bradley, who heads the HP personal systems group, said part of his company's decline in PC market share stemmed from a consumer backlash last year over a technical glitch in some of its computers caused by a faulty graphics chip. Bradley said HP had learned from the experience and improved its customer service in the country.

"Subsequent to that we've really looked hard at what's the service expectation and how do we exceed that expectation here in China," Bradley said. HP also plans to expand its manufacturing facilities in Shanghai, and is also adding an R and D centre in Beijing that will be a global hub for networking research, and a service center in Tianjin where it can train customer executives on using its cloud-computing technology.

Semiconductor test company Johnstech International has opened its Asian sales and service centre in Singapore.

The new Johnstech Singapore centre will house field service engineering, applications engineering, and customer service in support of Asia. "For more than 16 years, we've developed and maintained great relationships with distributors and customers throughout Asia," says Johnstech's Founder and CEO, David Johnson. "As test and design markets continue to shift to Asia, we continue to adjust our service and support to best meet our partner and customer need."

Asia regional channel manager Gary Teh said the new sales and service centre in Singapore allows Johnstech to be closer to its Asian-based customers. "We can now respond to channel partner demands for real-time business and technical support," The said.

Research and consulting company callcentres.net Pty Ltd announces that it is relaunching as Fifth Quadrant Pty Ltd, a Service Strategy and Research Consultancy, from July 1st 2011.

Due to the strong equity in the existing brand, the callcentres.net name will be kept for Fifth Quadrant's online, publishing and social media division, which has 9000 executive subscribers.

"The last few years has seen an amazing evolution for callcentres.net," says Dr Catriona Wallace, Director of Fifth Quadrant, "and the relaunch of the business as Fifth Quadrant is the next step in our growth, reflective also of the rapidly changing service sector. No longer just experts in contact centre, we now provide specialist consulting, research and training across voice, face-to-face, online, correspondence and social media service channels. We've adopted a truly multi-channel and enterprise-wide focus."

Specialising in all things service, Fifth Quadrant's strategic intention is to fundamentally change the way organisations think about Service Strategy and to ensure it has on-going presence at the Boardroom table.

"We're bored of service taking the back seat in terms of board-level strategies," says Wallace, "At Fifth Quadrant we firmly believe Service Strategy should sit rightfully alongside and integrate with the other core strategies of Finance, Marketing & Sales, IT/Operations and Human Resources."

"We know that great service leads to customer engagement and that engagement correlates strongly with business performance. We also believe that service has a tangible effect on a person's day and life and that the act of serving someone is one of the most powerful 'goods' an organisation can do."

"And our new name reflects these beliefs," muses Wallace. "It signifies the bringing of a fifth strategy, Service Strategy, to the traditional organisational strategic planning process."

IT company Convergys Corporation says it will implement a new CRM solution for Chinese telco G-Net.

G-Net is a leading Asia Pacific provider of data, video, audio, and convergent teleconference services to enterprise clients around the world. "G-Net is committed to providing its subscribers with reliable, easy-to-use customer-centric services that help them solve problems, meet demand for higher capacity, and create value," said G-Net CEO Gavin Chen.

"Convergys fully supports G-Net's customer-oriented approach and our Smart Revenue Solutions will help G-Net drive an enhanced client experience, while also providing the built-in flexibility to launch new and innovative services without disruption," said Convergys Asia Pacific VP Raj Thangiah.

Indonesia has set up a new contact centre to help its citizens working overseas.

Manpower and Transmigration Minister Muhaimin Iskandar officially opened the Migrant Workers Crisis Centre this week. Muhaimin said the contact centre, dubbed Halo TKI, would operate 24/7 using free numbers.

"The Crisis Centre with a call centre facility is part of the government's commitment to giving the best possible service to migrant workers, their families and the people,” Muhaimin said. “All complaints will be responded to and handled by the centre."

Filipino-owned BPO company SPI Global has been selected by the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) to supervise its hotline for reporting damaged roads and other public infrastructure.

DPWH is the first Philippine government agency to outsource its contact centre operations. The centre is reported to have less than 20 seat capacity and will feature pure voice calls.

As well as reporting damaged roads and infrastructures, SPi global said that the DPWH hotline will allow citizens to inquire about the department's projects, make suggestions, file complaints, and even report wrongdoings of DPWH officials. "The team members assigned to the DPWH account underwent a rigorous training program at SPi Global's facilities to ensure the highest standards of performance and productivity," SPi Global said. SPi is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company