First Technology`s national call centre is Radical!

Twelve months ago, First Technology upgraded its national call centre with Radical Software from Solutional and the result has been a vast improvement in and management of customer service levels.

With automatic escalations and notifications through Radical`s Business Rules Processor the response and repair times of the service level agreements in place are strictly adhered to and constantly monitored. The Radical database is a national one, containing detailed customer information ranging from the equipment they have installed to asset and warranty data.

And it is these service level agreements and their effective management and tracking that made Radical stand out from the other products that were evaluated. Being one of the fastest growing IT solution providers in SA, with fully-fledged branches in every major business node, a consistently high level of service excellence across the country is critical to the business.

"With our system there are no limits to giving and receiving information," says Ronel Swart, National Call Centre Manager. "Our Radical database also holds historical information, such as the number and types of calls logged over a period. This enables us to give reports to the clients at regular intervals, which they find very useful in terms of getting the bigger picture of what is happening with technology in their organisation. For us, it lets us know exactly who we are dealing with so that we can provide appropriate service."

Likewise, there are no boundaries when it comes to resolving calls. "Service means resolving every call to a customer`s satisfaction. Our procedures allow for a call to be escalated to the highest level in our customers` organisation. For instance, the system can automatically inform the IT director, who is based at head office that the server at his or her branch in another location is still down after the four hours agreed upon in the SLA."

Trek to the summit

00Days

:

00Hrs

:

00Min

:

00Sec

Radical facilitates call logging, asset management and tracking and maintenance of all supplier information. As well as managing severity and SLA compliance relating to the customer contracts that are in place, Radical is also used to generate all related customer quotations. All engineer job cards are also created in Radical.

Due to the flexibility of Radical, each branch has been able to maintain their own corporate culture with a different look and feel to the system, although all working off a central database.

"It is an excellent system that fulfils all of our requirements. Due to the customisability of the system, our business requirements could immediately be implemented. Radical enables us to incorporate functionality into our call centre that our previous system could not, like quotations for example. I would say that Radical in our environment is more of a workflow system than a help-desk system. Almost anything is possible and the support from Solutional has been excellent," says Swart.

According to Swart, the upgraded service has allowed the call centre team to be consistent. "Our customers know they can expect the same level of commitment with each call that is logged." "Radical was selected after a lengthy competitive product evaluation process. One of Radical`s outstanding features was that it not only enabled First Technology to track their customer service level agreements, but also the back-to-back service levels with their suppliers." says Ross Field, Development Manager at Solutional.