Atio Corporation has successfully delivered on its R10m call centre promise to the Mercantile Group to enable it to handle share-dealing services for Sanlam shareholders, following Sanlam`s sucessful demutualisation and listing on the JSE.
Atio, the Infotel company, was contracted to supply Mercantile with a complete call centre solution as a single point of interaction for Sanlam`s 2,2m policyholders (most of whom have limited experience with the stock market or the share dealing process).
Mercantile chose the call centre as the optimal means of communicating with Sanlam`s shareholders.
"The brief required a call centre designed for more than 20 000 incoming calls a day using 120 telephone lines and employing 180 staff over a three-month period," says Atio marketing director Andy Minnaar. "It was our responsibility to provide a turnkey solution - integrating all its components with Mercantile`s share dealing applications - and take into account the fundamental customer communication functions involved in Mercantile`s planned processes.
This included screening, recruitment and training of more than 190 people, IT and telephony equipment (hardware and software), consulting and implementation - all within a 10-week period as dictated by Mercantile`s tight deadline.
"Mercantile approached us as a candidate for the call centre contract in July, although we were officially given the contract in September," says Minnaar. "That effectively gave us 10 weeks to develop a comprehensive rollout plan for the project, source the required staff, configure the equipment and make sure everything was running error-free from the word go."
People power
Atio worked closely with Linda Coetzee and Associates, a communications skills training and recruitment company, to source and train the staff complement for the contract.
"We were looking for people from all walks of South African life with the attitude, determination and professionalism to deal with the high-pressure, business focused environment of the call centre," says Coetzee. "It is imperative that each call is dealt with in a positive manner, that the operator speaks clearly and intelligently and that callers have the utmost confidence in the service and information they are given."
The call centre team is divided into two shifts, the first from 7am to 1pm, the second from 1pm to 7pm. There are eight groups of 10 operators running simultaneously. To guarantee continuity, the teams work in a relay fashion, handing over to the next shift.
Minnaar believes it`s the human element is as important as the technology component in determining the success of the call centre.
"Atio understands that world-class customer relations are 70% human-driven and 30% technology," he says. "The quality brought through by Linda and her team and the speed with which the agents bought in to our vision of customer service excellence validate our view."
Technology matters
Atio`s CIS division specialises in putting together customer contact solutions such as the Mercantile call centre. The Atio solution incorporates hardware, software and knowledge to integrate all the components needed to create a world-class call centre. To ensure callers received a consistent and professional level of service, Atio`s solution incorporated sophisticated scripts which make it possible for the agent to take the shareholder easily through a process of understanding the options available. This level of built-in intelligence is designed to ease the process of interaction between the caller and agent.
In addition, the computer telephony integration (CTI) makes it possible for the caller to be identified to the agent by entering a code. This pops up a screen containing the caller`s details, speeding up the interaction process considerably.
"Callers are greeted by an interactive voice response system that automatically presents them with a number of options depending on their specific needs," says Minnaar. "They are then made aware that their conversations will be recorded for legal purposes and they are passed on to the intelligent call routing queue built in to the voice system."
Atio supplied and integrated a Lucent Definity switch to interface with its CyberCall CTI software.
"CyberCall has been successfully marketed and exported locally and abroad," says Minnaar. "It provides soft ACD (automatic call distribution) and call routing capabilities, integrating tightly with Mercantile`s back-end applications."
Atio further co-ordinated the switching system with live displays positioned throughout the call centre that clearly indicate the number of calls processed, number of calls in the queue and Sanlam`s latest share price.
"Every detail of the operator/caller transaction was taken into account during the planning stage of the project," adds Minnaar. "Given the inevitable peaks of calls we expected, it was important that floor supervisors had their fingers on the pulse of the call centre at all times, and that operators were kept abreast of demands on their time."
Going live
Mercantile Registrars chairman Alistair Laughland took the decision to launch the call centre early to meet the anticipated demand for information from Sanlam`s shareholders.
"Although we were scheduled to go live on Monday, December 14, we felt it necessary for the call centre to be operational by Wednesday the 9th," says Laughland. "Even so, the Atio team rose to the challenge and timed their work to perfection and were ready with a week to spare."
The rushed deadline came amid a two-month relocation process that saw Mercantile Registrars move its headquarters from President Street to Diagonal Street to coincide with the launch of the call centre.
"We intended to relocate early in 1999 but accelerated our plans for the Sanlam contract," adds Laughland.
That meant the Atio team had to work around the contracting and demolition crews to put the call centre, complete with equipment and staff, in place and in time.
"Logistics aside, I can confidently say Atio has delivered an exceptional turnkey solution that is well on the road to helping us successfully manage Sanlam`s share dealing service," says Laughland. "If the error-free performance of our first week is anything to go by, that`s a big pat on the back for everyone involved."
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