Industry Facts & Figures: Australia

The Australian Contact Centre service sector in 2007 is a mature (25 year old) industry estimated to be worth $12 billion and employing an estimated 250,000 people in over 4,000 call centres.

Key highlights include:    
 

• The world class services have all the infrastructure and support services necessary to operate (cost effectively).
• Availability of a large multicultural pool of friendly, skilled, experienced personnel. Australia is a truly modern multicultural English speaking society, with peoples from all over the globe. Multilingualism provides greater call centre operational flexibility and cost efficiency.
• Most Call Centres have flexible employment contracts allowing management to gear its labour force for seasonal and market needs.
• The increasing number of call centre training institutions ensure the availability of a well educated workforce.
• Australia possesses a sophisticated state-of-the-art telecom infrastructure and a high level of technical support knowledge.
• The long distance call costs are some of the lowest in the world.
• Australia has some of the highest world-best self regulatory industry standards set by national call-centre industry associations but does not have restrictive government telemarketing call rules and regulations similar to the U.S. or E.U. countries.
• Many Australian call centres offer one-stop customized teleservice solutions, including complete outsourcing of the clients centre.
• Compared to Asian or most European call centres Australian call makers/takers have a highly attractive English speaking accent and live in a western society - thus understanding western culture and language as it applies to customer service.
• Australia has one of the lowest cost environments in Asia - it has a competitive wage structure and low campaign running costs.
• An extremely favorable Australian exchange rate to the U.S. Dollar ie: $US1.00 = $A 1.15 (approx.) 
• Is the regional business hub for Asia.
• The growing number of 24/7 web-based large (250+ seats) contact/call centres.
• The people are likeable and it's a great place to visit and do business in.

Some key (2007) statistical points are:

• Estimated number of call centres – 4,000 plus
• Estimated number of persons employed in the industry - 250,000
• Estimated value of call centre industry recurrent costs: AU$12 Billion pa includes:  

• Estimated total number of call centre seats - 150,000 to 170,000
• Estimated mean call centre size - 67 seats

Source: Information sourced from ACA Research 2002 Call Centre Industry Benchmarking Study and locally sourced research.

 Buying over the Phone: US Statistics

Who bought via outbound telemarketing calls? (May 2002 - May 2003)

• 32% of adult Americans, ~ 66 million
• 34% men
• 30% woman
• No significant variation by income

What did they buy?

• 12% / ~ 7.9 million adult Americans

• 11% / ~ 7.2 million adult Americans

• 8% / ~ 5.2 million adult Americans

• 6% / ~ 4 million adult Americans

• 5% / ~ 3.3 million adult Americans

• 5% / ~ 3.3 million adult Americans

• 5% / ~ 3.3 million adult Americans

• 5% / ~ 3.3 million adult Americans

• 4% / ~ 2.6 million adult Americans

• 4% / ~2.6 million adult Americans

• 2% / 1.3 million adult Americans

How much did they spend?

US$135 average cost of most recent purchase
US$9.02 billion spent on just the most recent purchases

Why did they buy?

57% felt product specially suited to needs or interests
39% liked great savings or special trial offer
38% liked quality of the product
29% liked company’s reputation
23% like the friendly or helpful caller

Source: The DMA’s Telemarketing Survey.
U.S. nationwide, statistically valid survey of over 1,000 adult Americans, May 2003