gem secures €3m call centre contract

A €3 million contract between Belfast-based customer relation specialists, gem, and Tourism Ireland is set to create 35 new jobs in the city.

Tourism Ireland appointed gem as its new provider of contact centre services to handle all international consumer telephone and email queries.

The three-year contract was awarded following an EU tender and will commence in January next year.

The award of the contract will initially create an additional 35 new jobs to the current 450 people employed in the centre including the recruitment of multi-lingual staff catering for the French, Italian, German, Spanish and Nordic markets.

In 2003, Tourism Ireland anticipates that gem will handle in the region of 250,000 telephone calls and over 100,000 email queries from international consumers looking for information on the island of Ireland.

gem will also be the principle point for populating Tourism Ireland’s new consumer database, enabling the organisation to tailor its communications and offerings to consumers.

Tourism Ireland and gem will also develop new enhanced communication methods including an Opt-in messaging service whereby consumers can opt to have update messages with new offers sent to their mobiles as well as co-browsing on the internet.

This new facility will enable the consumer to contact the call centre and the operator can co-browse the internet with the caller answering specific queries as they view information together on the website.

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