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Pink call centre’s assets being used to provide local
services
by Ivan Brincat
The assets of Pink, the brand name used for Maltacom’s
international call centre including the software, hardware and
call centre facilities are being used by Dial It.
Dial It is the brand name being used for local call centre operations
and which recently moved to the offices were the Pink call centre
had been established.
Maltacom chief executive officer Stephen Muscat told The Malta
Business Weekly that Pink has not folded up. Pink is the brandname
used by Worldwide Communications Ltd.
Pink has not managed to seal any major contracts from international
clients. Even internet betting companies, which had
established themselves in Malta, had init-ially discussed the
possibility of using the Pink call centre but eventually had
decided to operate their own call centres.
Last Tuesday, Maltacom chairman Maurice Zarb Adami admitted
that the company had not managed to attract any foreign clients.
He said the company has now been advised to develop the local
market first.
In fact, the assets of the company have been transferred to
Telepage Ltd which was operating radio paging services. The
company has now taken over the assets and their operation.
Mr Muscat said Maltacom’s 190 service is currently being
operated by Dial It. Even calls on Maltacom’s main line
(240000) are handled by the call centre as well as any customer
care requests.
“We also have some private and public companies for which
we offer the service. Basically people can phone our call centre
without knowing that they are in fact speaking to the call centre.”
Dial It is also offering services such as the sale of products,
debt collection and market research and surveys.
Originally the Pink call centre had been estimated to generate
a turnover of Lm2m by 2002 and employ 400 people.
In 1998, the project manager of Pink’s call centre Frank
Schmidt had stated that established European giants such as
Kodak, Siemens and UU Net had expressed an interest in using
the local call centre. It was estimated that the investment
for the call centre would reach Lm2.6m.
These estimates have obviously been scaled down with the Maltacom
chairman admitting that attracting international clients had
not been easy.
“We are still working on attracting international clients
and we can operate the
service depending on any contracts we can sign. Pink had some
short-term contracts but obviously the centre needs long-term
contracts to be successful,” Mr Muscat said.
However, locally Dial It is expected to generate more business
and is also in the process of developing new business ideas.
During the first six months of the year, Maltacom’s turnover
from radio paging and telemarketing services was Lm57,000 with
the company making Lm140,000 losses in this area.
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