Devoted to the call center industry, the agents on the phones, and their managers

Call Center News of note:

New telemarketing restrictions in the UK dictate a fine of up to £50,000 (U.S. $88,000) per incident.

Sirius has contracted Steam, a tech support/customer service outsource company, to hire 1,000+ temps for their call center in the Dallas area. These customer service positions will support Sirius for the Holiday Season. Hiring will continue through December.

And this from Outsourcing World (registration required - free)

While South Africa's offshore call center industry is growing briskly, market analyst Datamonitor warns that the country faces competition from other African nations.

And it is not just from Egypt, Morocco or Tunisia. According to Datamonitor, sub-Saharan African markets are showing potential to become solid offshore players in the future. Botswana, for example, has a strong educated labor force, strong English fluency, aggressive promotional strategies and excellent incentives. In tandem with this, there is a strong focus on IT and telco investment.

In East Africa, the launch of Kencall has put Kenya on the map as a new offshore possibility. With the same population as Canada, it is scalable in terms of workforce size with strong English language capabilities. In Senegal, a number of French offshore facilities are currently in existence, it is a relatively stable investment environment, and there exists a strong IT and telco emphasis by the national government.