In a move designed to enhance Unilever`s customer service, Dimension Data has implemented modern call centre technology and telephony services valued at R5.6 million, at the company`s new head offices on the La Lucia Ridge in KwaZulu-Natal.
The project, which included telephony services for approximately 900 Unilever staff members, also involved call centre services for Unilever`s customers and consumers.
The total call centre divisions, which handle approximately 2 500 inbound and outbound calls per day, on average, generate revenues of between R5 million and R10 million per day.
The customer call centres provide an online professional service to some 550 of its field marketers, distributors and customers countrywide, each of whom are responsible for ensuring that Unilever products are made available to everyone everywhere. These dynamics dictate that full functionality access on a 24x7 basis is required and this has been delivered.
Based on Nortel Networks hardware technology, running Symposium 4.0 software that manages the inflow and outflow of calls, information gathering and scheduling, the call centre is a mission-critical management tool with timing an essential element to the business.
This enables the consumer services call centres to provide a speedy and efficient response to consumer complaints and queries, resulting in the achievement of a 98% annual service level.
To ensure maximum efficiency, Dimension Data tailored the call centres to re-route calls not answered within 15 seconds to the front of the queue, thus guaranteeing priority connection and service delivery.
The new system has automated most of the manual work and service levels are now greater than 96%. This means that management can, at a glance, monitor call centre performance on a wallboard indicating any discrepancies or delays.
To avoid downtime during the move from the central Durban offices to La Lucia, Dimension Data was faced with the challenge of ensuring that the business continued to run as usual. As a result, half the call centre staff were relocated to the new system while the other half remained on the old system. A week later the second half was moved to the new centre.
Gavin Ward, who heads Unilever`s Commercial Services, says: "The logistics of moving 900 individuals to new premises during the busy Christmas period was achieved without a single hiccup and each person was telephone-enabled as they sat down at their new work stations.
Mitch Sowden, e-Services Manager at Unilever`s Global Infrastructure Organisation, says the most important criteria to be considered when choosing a telephony vendor was the need for professionalism and guaranteed delivery times in a given timeframe.
"Dimension Data`s determination to meet deadlines and targets for the new technology call centres and basic telephony for 900 people was achieved. We were very pleased with the results," says Sowden.
Commenting on the project, Anton Buys Du Plessis, Channel Manager, Nortel Networks SA, says: "We were happy our technology was able to give Unilever the functionality they needed to achieve their business objectives. We are looking forward to continue working with, and building, our relationship with Dimension Data and Unilever."
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Dimension Data Holdings plc (LSE: DDT) is a leading global technology services company. It specialises in providing IT solutions that enable businesses to operate seamlessly across application networks (the result of the convergence of two previous separate areas of IT: application integration and network infrastructure.)
The group`s ability to offer expertise in networking, application integration and global managed services makes it uniquely positioned to deliver the IT solutions required by businesses to connect devices, information, applications, business processes, people and organisations.
Dimension Data, founded in 1983, had revenues of $2.5 billion in 2001 and operates in 30+ countries with over 9 500 employees.
Nortel Networks
Nortel Networks is an industry leader and innovator focused on transforming how the world communicates and exchanges information. The company is supplying its service provider and enterprise customers with the communications technology and infrastructure to enable value-added IP data, voice and multimedia services spanning metro and enterprise networks, wireless networks and optical long-haul networks. As a global company, Nortel Networks does business in more than 150 countries. More information about Nortel Networks can be found on the Web at www.nortelnetworks.com.
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