Spescom has supplied a contact centre solution to new cellular operator Cell C to support its client-facing communications in a good example of how solid project management principles and implementation experience can combine to overcome obstacles.
Cell C has been in the difficult position of launching a full operation as the country's third cellular service provider with minimal time to make it happen. In fact, the company's licence and bandwidth allocations were only approved in June and July, some three months before the planned launch.
Consequently, when Cell C called in its integration partner Accenture to provide the IT infrastructure, the specification for the contact centre had two main requirements - world-class quality and no late delivery.
Paul Fick, director of Spescom DataFusion and head of the customer contact solutions division, takes up the story.
"The initial specification was already ambitious. Accenture, handling the project management for Cell C as the end-user, required a 100-seat contact centre solution that would provide complete desktop CTI (computer telephony integration) for the agents, transparently integrated with Accenture's Clarify CRM solution.
"The delivery of the Avaya equipment that is the core of the system was scheduled for 23 September, but events in America resulted in a three-week delay. Even so, the equipment arrived on a Sunday, was cleared through customs on the Tuesday and - with the hard work of all the partners - the basic system was running by the Thursday."
The Spescom solution, provided for Cell C's operational launch in mid to late November, runs on the world-leading Avaya Definity contact centre platform and includes a Spescom DataVoice voice transaction management solution. It also incorporates the Avaya Conversant interactive voice response system, allowing callers to access account information and basic services without going through an agent.
The solution will be enhanced with an Avaya predictive dialling system in the near future.
For the more complex transactions, the agents answer the customers' needs with all the relevant information available live through the integration of the Spescom solution with the Accenture CRM software.
"This was a multi-disciplinary implementation facilitated by dedicated overall management by Motlatsi Mokoena of Accenture and Spescom's experience in deploying the top-of-the-range Avaya contact-centre equipment," says Fick. "Our contribution was supported by Mike Hughes, IT director at Cell C, and the project team was able to overcome all the difficulties caused by late arrival of the equipment, as well as the task of systems integration achieved in a minimal time period.
"With all the functionality incorporated - including voice recording, CTI, CRM and IVR - we are certain that Cell C has the ability to handle its customers effectively on a 24x7 basis."
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Spescom Limited is an information and communications technology company listed on the JSE Securities Exchange SA, with operations in the US, UK and SA.
The group is active in two main areas of the world IT market, namely offering product and solutions to connect to the networked economy, and the provision of software solutions to manage information and knowledge.
The strategic focus is on the convergence of knowledge, document, configuration and voice transaction management technologies.
Spescom holds the controlling interest in US-based, Spescom Software Inc (formerly Altris Software Inc), a Nasdaq-, OTCBB-listed company, and developer of the award-winning eB software.
In SA, Spescom, in alliance with world-leading companies such as Cisco and Avaya, provides a range of customer contact and intelligent network solutions to its blue-chip customer base.
The company is a leading supplier of communications solutions and products to network operators and service providers on the African continent.
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