Friends
Provident is to move all of its UK phone lines to an internet
telephony network by the end of the year to improve customer
service and business continuity at its UK call centres and
offices.
The UK life insurance company finished moving 4,300 telephone
lines - about 95% of all lines in its UK business - to an IP
platform this month and will complete migrations in the Isle of Man
and at a new call centre opening in Germany by the end of the year.
The move is part of a company-wide strategy called
Six-Star that has involved using IT to improve response
times.
Kevin Sharratt, network consultant at Friends Provident, said
using IP telephony
(IPT) with software that links an incoming caller's number to their
details would reduce the number of transfers needed to route a
caller to the correct service agent, meaning calls could be
answered correctly within a target of 20 seconds.
Business continuity plans will also be reinforced. "In the event
of a disaster, we will be able to set up virtual call centres
because staff will be able to log in to any PC terminal and take
calls," said Sharratt.
Friends Provident will use
Cisco's CallManager software to process calls and Genesys's
telephony and desktop software for agents to manage multiple
channels of communication including phone, e-mail and web from
their computer.
The company tested the system in-house and decided to implement
software from
Psytechnics
to monitor call quality.