Thames Water introduces multimedia Call Centre from Rockwell to maintain excellence in customer service

The UK`s largest water and sewerage company, Thames Water, serves almost 12 million customers in London and the Thames Valley area, and almost 20 million people worldwide. Each year, the company`s 24-hour customer service centre in Swindon, handles over 3.5 million calls and over 500,000 customer letters.

Thames Water`s success in achieving exceptional customer care was recognised in 1998 when the company won the utility industry`s most prestigious award, `The Communication Centre Excellence Award`. In 1999 Thames Water took another important step forward with the decision to implement a multimedia customer contact centre. The objective was to integrate all its customer-facing departments, to support its goal of resolving 85% of customer enquiries at the first point of contact.

Historically, Thames Water operated several customer facing departments including an accounts management centre, handling complex, account related, written enquiries and a call centre, which resolved anything from setting up direct debit bill payments to reporting a burst pipe. By merging these departments to create a single, integrated customer contact centre, Thames Water knew it would be well-placed to meets its total customer relationship management needs into the next millennium.

Thames Water also wanted to implement a multimedia call centre platform, which would offer customers the facility to use new media channels such as e-mail and the Internet to contact its customer services representatives. A single platform which centralised Management Information Systems would allow Thames Water to ensure new channels were managed efficiently alongside traditional phone and letter contacts.

The utility was aware that it needed an integrated solution, including call recording and CTI to meet its overall Customer Relationship Management needs. Andy Newman, Contact Centre Manager at Thames Water, explains:

"Several factors influenced our decision to go with Rockwell Electronic Commerce. Its capability for web-enablement was important, so we could future proof our investment, and be prepared for customers to contact us by the web.

"The inherent flexibility of the Spectrum ACD and Rockwell`s commitment to open call centre architecture also means the new customer contact solution can be seamlessly integrated with our IT infrastructure, minimizing disruption to customer service levels.

"We also required a single vendor that could provide a total customer contact solution, with `best of breed` applications to support our Customer Relationship Management strategy. In particular, we needed a more comprehensive call recording solution, which would interact dynamically with an extensive quality monitoring and review process.

"We looked at several vendors, but chose Rockwell Electronic Commerce because of its willingness to propose a solution based upon strong partnerships with Comverse Infosys and Royal Blue."

Thames Water invested lb1.4 million in a Spectrum ACD multimedia call centre platform from Rockwell Electronic Commerce Ltd, with Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) from Royal Blue and digital call recording from Comverse Infosys.

The Rockwell Spectrum ACD skills-based routing feature enables customer enquiries to be channelled to the staff best able to handle them to a professional standard, regardless of the method of contact. These changes coupled with the introduction of more flexible working arrangements will offer staff more variety in their work and far greater control over the resolution of customer enquiries from start to finish.

At least 400 staff have received training so that they can be multi-skilled from day one to handle both inbound calls and letters, as work-flow dictates. In the longer term, most of the customer service centre staff will be trained to deal with letters, calls, emails and requests from the Internet.

For instance, the accounts management staff have already made extensive progress in resolving customer contacts by responding to written request with a phone call rather than with a letter. This enables the agents to more fully understand the issues customers need to address, thereby giving better customer service and reducing unnecessary repeat contacts.

Andy Newman concludes: "The customer contact centre is a people-centered environment, focused on the customers and the agents. By integrating all customer facing departments and utilizing the best technology, from Rockwell and its partners, Thames Water benefits from a win win situation: customers receive a more intelligent and efficient customer service and we are increasing job satisfaction for our agents."