Sage Pastel, South Africa’s leading developer of accounting and business software, is now officially the EMEA region’s best help desk, with a gold medal recently awarded to the team at the Contact Centre Best Practices Conference & Awards in Vienna and they also won a silver medal for Best Community Spirit

Johannesburg, South Africa -- (SBWire) -- 08/15/2013 --The Global Association for Contact Center Best Practices & Networking saw over 1500 entries from around the world, with the EMEA region receiving over 600 entries from over 28 nations and only the best qualified after vigorous screening by judges based in America, Canada and Asia Pacific. The finalists who presented in Vienna are considered the elite of the industry.

Sage Pastel has been a regular winner at these awards over the years. Steven Cohen, MD of Sage Pastel Accounting, said that taking top honours now was a significant tribute to the company’s service ethic, which put consistent customer care at its heart.

“I’m so proud of our team for leading EMEA in the level of customer service they provide. It takes a special kind of person – and a bonded team – to work in a contact centre, especially a technical contact centre like ours where everyone needs to understand the basic principles of accounting and business management as well as software.”

Cohen said that winning gold also acknowledged the way that contact centre staff were motivated, retained and developed, as well as the company’s reward and recognition programme and the centre’s management. The final result of the competition is based on a combination of written entry and judging by industry peers, with judges considering the contact centre’s level of customer service, technology and strategies for employee motivation, reward and retention.

Sage Pastel’s 165-seat contact centre takes over 850 000 calls per annum and 60 000 email and other contacts per month.

Morne van Deventer, Sage Pastel Accounting’s Contact Centre Manager, said that when you have such high volumes of calls you need to be committed to a best practice techniques that combine sourcing – and keeping – talented people and investing in cutting-edge technology. “One of the most useful aspects of attending the conference was being able to benchmark our contact centre against world standards and best practices. We always need to stay on top of areas such as telephony technology, customer service initiatives and other contact centre metrics.”

The best community spirit award is given to the contact centre that demonstrates a commitment to the community and is involved in local community activities. “This is particularly important in South Africa today,” said Cohen.

The next stop for the Sage Pastel contact centre team is representing the EMEA region at the Best in the World help desk event to be held in Las Vegas in November this year.

About Sage Pastel Accounting
Sage Pastel Accounting is South Africa's leading developer of accounting, payroll and business management software for the small, medium and large enterprise market. Since inception, Sage Pastel has developed an in-depth knowledge and understanding of the industry, establishing itself as a market leader and the preferred choice of South African business. The numbers speak for themselves as thousands of businesses use Sage Pastel Accounting to run their businesses and trust Sage Pastel to help them achieve their business ambitions.

About Sage
Softline was founded in 1988 by Ivan Epstein, Alan Osrin and Steven Cohen. The company was established during the formative years of the business software industry in South Africa, and soon became the leader in the provision of business software and services to small and medium sized companies. In 2003 Softline was acquired by UK based company The Sage Group plc. Softline officially changed to Sage in February 2013 to align with our parent company Sage Group plc. We continue to provide local expertise backed by the global Sage brand.

About The Sage Group plc
Sage Group plc is a leading global provider of business management software to small and medium sized companies, creating greater freedom for them to succeed. Sage understands how and why each business is unique. We provide products and services that suit varying needs, are a pleasure to use and are secure and efficient. Formed in 1981, Sage was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1989 and entered the FTSE 100 in 1999. Sage has over 6 million customers and more than 13,380 employees in 24 countries covering the UK & Ireland, mainland Europe, North America, South Africa, Australia, Asia and Brazil. For further information please visit http://www.sage.com/.