JSE-listed Afrox has installed ATIO`s CyberCall software as the foundation of its new gas and welding service centre. This service centre forms part of Afrox`s corporate-wide "Project Renew" to boost productivity and reduce operating costs.
Part of the global BOC Group, Afrox is the largest producer of gases in sub-Saharan Africa, manufacturing and distributing over 20 000 gases and gas mixtures.
"The renewal project is part of BOC`s strategy to achieve global competitiveness and world-class quality," says Andre Keyter, IT Manager of Afrox`s Service Centre. "Gas is a utility item. No one notices it until it`s not there. Our role is to ensure our customers are always stocked up."
Another key issue the renewal project had to address was improved management of one of Afrox`s major assets, its cylinders, which represent a huge capital investment. Afrox also needed to be able to disseminate information quickly to customers who are operating its equipment.
The establishment of the service centre was core to the entire project, says Keyter. "Through the service centre we will be able to centralise and improve service functions such as customer orders, debt and asset management and delivery scheduling. A pilot project was established in the Witwatersrand region three years ago. We chose ATIO as our partner after a stringent evaluation of the options. ATIO had a large installed base and was willing to understand our business needs without just selling us software and hardware.
"The effect of the project has been nothing short of a paradigm shift for us. The service centre has enabled us to run our business differently and better. We`ve streamlined our structure and shortened lines of communication, freeing us up to focus on stretching financial and customer service performance targets. This has resulted in an expectation of annualised savings of R45 million, to be realised by mid-2000."
The service centre has installed capacity for 127 seats, of which 60 are currently in use. A project is under way to include the other five geographic regions: Northern Province, Free State, Western Cape, Eastern Cape and Kwazulu-Natal.
"Our current implementation in the call centre revolves around ATIO`s CTI (computer telephony integration) middleware. The CTI middleware enables us to provide a truly differentiated level of service to our client base by integrating our back-end applications with telephony."
When a client calls in, the agent is empowered to access relevant files and documentation to service the client at first contact. "We aim to resolve 80% of all incoming calls at the first point of contact," says Keyter. "Only calls requiring expert knowledge are transferred to a second contact point. Another quality benefit for our customers has been the 50% reduction in our call queue time to a 22-second average. Our target is 18 seconds.
"We are now upgrading our service centre to incorporate ATIO`s new CyberCall product," adds Keyter."
CyberCall is a derivative of the current AtioCALL CTI middleware, but produced by ATIO Corporation, USA, a partly owned subsidiary of the South African company. CyberCall is receiving wide acclaim in the North American market and making its mark with many awards at recent call centre expos. It was recently nominated as a Microsoft NT top 50 application.
CyberCall will interface to Afrox`s Amsoft customer order processing and accounts receivable systems, its bespoke cylinder asset management system, the DIS imaging system from Exsol, and RightFax for faxing direct from the desktop. To facilitate the service centre infrastructure, Telkom installed additional lines and is busy installing a microwave link.
CyberCall will integrate with the existing Hicom switch, which is in the process of being upgraded. The LAN has been upgraded from 10 base-T to 100 base-T to enhance the performance of the system as part of delivering the new service centre objectives.
"As the leader in the industry, competitors constantly attempt to nibble at our market share," says Keyter. "To maintain a competitive edge we need to offer the best possible service. We have had to reskill many of our existing staff in both the service and support centres.
"We retained some staff who were doing similar work, we gave staff from other departments an opportunity to be retrained, and we hired new staff who had no previous experience of Afrox, but who were professional call centre operators. We believe we have accomplished the best of both worlds in terms of new blood and experience. Exposure to new technology through training and new sets of skills enhanced with training has also given staff a new challenge and better prospects."
Keyter says service centre staff will be given four to five weeks a year of refresher training on products, applications and customer relationship management. "It is our intention to deliver unprecedented levels of service to our highly valued customer base. Our future depends on it."
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