Telkom creates new challenge for call centres

ShareCall in a nutshell means that the cost of the call is shared by the company and the customer. This, however, can still add up to a lot of money for the consumer if calls are protracted.

Spanner in the works

An example of one of Telkom's new packages is that, for R300 a month including line rental, home subscribers get 1000 free minutes a month at any time of day or night and irrespective of whether its a local or national call. Added to this is free "Callmore" calls between 7pm and 7am and on weekends of up to an hour each.

The problem is that these deals do not include calls to either cellphone numbers or more importantly, 0860 sharecall numbers which get added to the phone bill.

Normal landlines

All of which has led a number of consumers to try and use a normal landline telephone number to access supplier companies.

Which, after some tests I did, have turned out to be well nigh impossible.

Simply because the whole call centre or customer care process has been so firmly founded on 0860 numbers that there isn't actually any other way of doing things. And when it is possible to get through to a company via their normal switchboard, customers are invariably told to use the 0860 number.

Adjust systems

Wide-awake companies are going to have to adjust their call centre access in future by adding a normal landline number to their list of access points for customers or suffer the brunt of a lot of consumer irritation.