Scotiabank Jamaica and its sister company in Trinidad handle some two to three million customer calls per year, but feel they should be handling as much as three to four million.

To reach that target, the bank is pumping close to CDN$5 million into a customer-contact centre project, in the process creating a virtual platform between Trinidad and Jamaica to handle queries.

The two centres serve 16 Caribbean countries.

The Jamaican operation at Trafalgar Road on the edge of the business district in New Kingston employs 165, while Port-of-Spain employs 53.

Scotiabank is in the process of outfitting the Trinidad and Jamaica centres with new technology - worth about J$200 million on the Jamaican end and included in the overall project cost.

Technological platform

The technological platform is being supplied by LIME Jamaica in partnership with Avaya, which is providing the telephonic hardware, according to the bank.

"It will be used to leverage service relationship and deepen banking relationship as agents probe and investigate customer needs and refer them to the parts of Scotiabank that meet their needs," said Maya Walrond, senior vice-president customer experience and technology innovation.

Scotia, on a tour of the Kingston facility Monday, said the centre expansion project, which began this year, will take five years to complete.

Staff will be increased to 300 over the period.

Calls will be streamed randomly through the system to either country, but Jamaica with its larger operation is expected to continue handling the majority of queries.

"It's a powerful tool for sales and service," said Phil Thomas, vice-president, contact centres international banking at Scotiabank, speaking at a tour of the New Kingston centre on Monday.

The project is not only expected to rebalance the workload between the two, but also allows the bank to remain connected to customers were one country to falter.

"The virtual connection with Trinidad will also improve the bank's disaster-recovery capabilities and facilitate undisturbed service to customers as the agents in Trinidad will be able to respond to calls should the centre in Jamaica be forced to close in the case of any disturbances," said a source from the bank.

"Jamaica will also be able to take calls intended for Trinidad should a similar situation arise in that country," said Scotiabank in a press release.

The contact centre operates on a 24-hour basis, seven days per week. The agents are equipped to handle calls relating to all banking service, including credit card, insurance, wealth management and other branch-related support.

sabrina.gordon@gleanerjm.com