By DAVID SIMS
TMCnet CRM Alert Columnist E-Services Group International today announced that it is beginning a pilot program with Delta Air Lines, presumably no pun intended. E-Services Group International will provide Delta with customer contact services, including reservations for US based customers, which could lead to a larger partnership. E-Services Group International will manage the work for Delta Air Lines from their existing facilities in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Last August e-Services Group International and Woodforest National Bank of Houston, Texas announced the signing of an agreement for e-Services to provide backroom office processing support for the Bank's internal operations. The initial plan called for a ramp up to 50 employees in e-Services Kingston operation. Woodforest is a $1.7 billion dollar financial institution with 155 branches in Texas and North Carolina. Jamaica made quite a push for call center business in 2001 and 2002, generating lots of press coverage in the United States. It was billed as a place already used to service, as it had been a tourism-based economy for some time already, spoke English and understood American culture. By 2002, according to a report sponsored by Nortel Networks, the country had 13 call centers, twice what anybody else in the Caribbean had at the time, part of the Jamaican government's plan to encourage the industry on the island: "Over the last 18 to 24 months, the Jamaican IT industry has experienced unprecedented growth in its call center sector," the report read. "Today [2002] the country has 13 call centers with approximately 3,000 agents and the same number in seating capacity. "This growth has not been incidental but has been largely fueled by the government’s decision to create a knowledge society driven by increased foreign investment in information technology services as well as nurturing and supporting its local call center entrepreneurs." Growth since then hasn't been as spectacular as the nation would have liked, but the country has hopes for the future. A Datamonitor report produced in 2004 expected the country's 5,000 agents in 2002 to grow to 8,000 by 2008. "Jamaica’s small population places constraints on sustainable growth. Outsourcers and end-users should understand that the absence of a substantial bilingual agent population precludes Jamaica from competing with Latin America for the majority of international offshore outsourcing contracts," the report concluded. David Sims is contributing editor for TMCnet. For more articles please visit David Sims' columnist page.