Spescom, the JSE-listed, multinational technology innovator, has won a major contract to supply a call centre solution that supports the ongoing CRM strategy of one of SA's leading banking groups.
"First National Bank (FNB), a division of FirstRand bank Limited, is one of the country's largest banking groups," says Paul Fick, MD of Spescom DataFusion. "In keeping with its progressive policy to provide leading customer service, the decision was made to combine a number of its separate call centres into one operation."
In a deal valued at R6.7 million, the latest Avaya technology was provided for FNB's new contact centre premises in Randburg. The technology was integrated with existing systems at the adjoining building and linked to the bank's upgraded CRM systems.
"With careful planning, the whole system was migrated and operational in the course of a single weekend," says Fick. "FNB now has an 800-seat call centre running on the latest Avaya MultiVantage technology, which is integrated with a Spescom DataVoice recording solution. All this was achieved with a rapid, fault-free deployment that caused zero downtime."
Leonie van Tonder, CEO of Banking Operations at FNB, says: "The new solution was essential as we had both outgrown the previous premises and needed to cater for future growth. We now have a world-class infrastructure providing scalability for the next five to ten years and the immediate productivity improvement we were looking for.
"The state-of-the-art Avaya technology has allowed us to accommodate some 800 agents on a single floor, with an additional 80 back-office staff and a number of remote VOIP connections."
According to Robert Koch, channel manager at Spescom DataVoice; "The voice recording solution includes both internal and external communications. The internal system uses an Orion Professional ISDN recorder. External calls, both inbound and outbound, are handled by five Orion Professional recorders. These are linked to a recording controller that identifies agents when they log onto the system - allowing agents to operate from different locations in the call centre - and managed by a DataVoice Nexus system.
"The Nexus management provides continuous health monitoring and immediate fault alerts by SMS or e-mail. This is essential for a solution that delivers customer service around the clock involving some 800 agents and up to 75 000 calls daily."
"Spescom has a long-standing relationship with FNB and we were pleased to be selected as the solution provider for this extensive undertaking. Considering the complexity, critical timing and exacting logistics of the project, Spescom excelled in its execution and carried it out with minimum disruption and maximum speed of deployment." Fick concludes.
Share
Spescom is a multinational technology innovator with direct operations in the US, UK and SA.
Spescom Limited is publicly listed on the JSE Securities Exchange, South Africa. Spescom Software Inc is publicly listed on the NASDAQ OTCBB: SPCO.
Spescom addresses the information and communications technology market, providing both products and solutions to connect to the network economy, as well as enterprise software to manage information and knowledge.
Specifically, Spescom provides solutions in the areas of access network, enterprise information management, multimedia transaction recording, broadcast, customer contact centres, and test and measurement.
Spescom markets its products worldwide through appointed partners and distributors under the eB brand for its enterprise software, and the DataVoice brand for its multimedia transaction recording solutions.
Spescom's global customer base consists of multinational organisations including leading enterprises in the utilities, telecommunications, transportation, financial, banking and insurance sectors.
Worldwide, customers include Siemens, British Telecoms, Network Rail (formerly Railtrack), Lloyds of London, Barclays Bank, Abbey National Bank, WH Smith, Caterpillar, Bechtel, AmerenUE, Entergy, Bombardier, Ocean Energy, Sempra Energy, Telkom, SABC, Old Mutual, Eskom, Transnet and First National Bank.
For more information on Spescom, please visit www.spescomsoftware.com and www.spescom.com.
Editorial contacts