East or West, from Newfoundland to Vancouver, Canada's call centers are changing. "Click-to-call", "click-to-be-contacted", e-mail response and chat capabilities have the industry abuzz.

Nowhere are call centers in a better position to seize these new opportunities than in Canada, with its world-renowned telecommunications infrastructure and capability, its innovative software industry, quality work force and low-cost operation structure.

The report of the Canadian E-Business Opportunities Roundtable, "Fast Forward: Accelerating Canada's Leadership in the Internet Economy," estimated Canada's Internet economy was worth $28.5 billion (Canadian dollars) in 1998.

According to Ernst & Young's global online retailing report, Canada is one of the most wired countries in the world, with 56 percent of Canadian households having a computer at home and 39 percent with Internet access. Canada also offers the lowest Internet access rates among G-7 countries.

Prince Edward Island is just one example of the wired life. The island is served by a submarine fiber-optic cable connection to the national network as well as by a second connection via the Confederation Bridge.

Residents and businesses province-wide enjoy a 100 percent digital switching network.

Watt's Communications Inc., and Online Support Inc., both inbound technical support centers, boast successful operations in Prince Edward Island.

Watt's Communications operates three facilities there and is just completing their third expansion since 1996.

Online Support Inc. employs 300 and is currently building its second Charlottetown call center facility.

Banks offer more services from centers

Canadian banks were among the first to migrate their services onto the Web. TD Waterhouse, a subsidiary of TD Bank, is the second-largest Internet brokerage operation, with $122 billion under management, and 3.6 million customers in Canada, the United States, Australia, the UK, Hong Kong, India and Japan.

In order to improve service standards, TD Waterhouse announced in March it would double its call center capacity in Canada. The company will expand its current facility and open two new centers in Markham, Ontario, and Edmonton, Alberta.

"The volume of business on the stock exchange and increased participation have created a unique situation," said Steve Sparrow, senior manager of trading and service at TD Waterhouse Investor Services in Canada. "By the fall, we will have 1,600 investment representatives in our call centers across the country.

"Our centers handle 5 million calls a month, 4.2 million of which come from our WebBroker online brokerage service and our TalkBroker, our proprietary speech recognition system. We are looking into adding the convenience of Internet chat and voice over IP further down the road."

The 250-employee Markham facility opened in July, while the Edmonton center will be operational at the end of September.

Edmonton has two other similar announcements to trumpet. Convergys, based in Cincinnati, Ohio, opened a 60,000 square foot call center. Convergys has 39 call centers in the U.S., Canada and in Europe.

LiveBridge, from Portland, Ore., also recently set up a 300-employee Web-enabled call center in Edmonton.

PCSupport revamps old system

An indication of things to come is PC Support.com, of Vancouver, British Columbia.

"We consider ourselves a cut-above traditional call centers", said David Rowat, vice president and chief financial officer of PC Support.

Launched in October 1999, PCSupport offers an alternative to traditional support systems. Rowat considers the old method of operating a call center outdated.

"In a traditional setup, one technician interacts with one user," said Rowat. "By using the Internet, one of our technicians can handle up to six inquiries simultaneously, a bit like a chess master."

PCSupport joined with AltaVista in April to create a support portal and will offer similar services to the 325,000 TELUS Internet subscribers.

The future looks even brighter

If you think what call centers are now capable of is great, wait until the next generation of technology hits in the coming years.

M-commerce, or mobile commerce, is the next rage. Web-enabled cell phones and hand-held devices will open up a whole new range of Internet services from comparison shopping to m-trading and m-payment.