Aspect, a leading provider of customer contact and enterprise workforce optimisation, today announced that MTN, the leading cellular phone services provider, has achieved significant increases in sales, answer rates, customer service and an improved customer experience through the implementation of Aspect Unified IP. The company's contact centre has also reduced average individual call handling time by 20 seconds.
The high-technology contact centre is a first in South Africa and constitutes an innovative move by MTN to significantly change the way it is doing business, with blended agents handling both inbound and outbound calls. Inbound call centre (ICC) sales have increased by 62%, online sales by 137% and outbound call centre (OCC) sales by 60%.
"The call centre is also assisting MTN employees to gain skills they previously did not have and the increase in agent productivity has resulted in high levels of excitement within MTN management and staff," says Layla Gibbons, MTN Direct senior manager. "Initially there was some anxiety because a unified communications solution is a first for Africa, but the high levels of excitement emanating from the Aspect solution and the whole team at MTN ensured that excellent results would be achieved. Every day has been an adrenalin rush and the staff is energised because they are so involved. They got it right the first time, and staff, who did not think that so much could be achieved quickly, acquired the high level of skills the solution demanded."
Gibbons added that within a year, it was clear that the new call centre was a resounding success, with service levels significantly improving to the benefit of customers and no reversion to the old system. "MTN seized this opportunity and it has paid off handsomely, as the feedback from MTN customers has been most positive."
Henry McCracken, Aspect regional sales director in Africa, said the next-generation unified contact centre software was developed to transform the call centre environment. "Our Aspect UIP solution was designed to offer MTN a full house of customer contact capabilities for inbound and outbound calls, next-generation voice self-service capabilities for automation, Internet contact, multi-channel self-service and proactive contact, unified communications and collaboration functionality."
Formed in 2009, the MTN channel initially operated two separate call centres serving inbound and outbound customers respectively, and was designed to make MTN directly and efficiently accessible to the public through online customer applications and including door-to-door delivery service anywhere in
South Africa.
"We faced challenges in terms of load balancing calls and lost calls. Call abandonment rates were high, too, which impacted the customer experience and sales," said Gibbons. "This situation was compounded by a labour-intensive online process requiring significant human resources to finalise the applications, and this labour intensity impacted outbound sales, as sales consultants were having to move between applications, which wasted time and impacted productivity."
Against this background, MTN evaluated its internal processes against best practices, which resulted in a project to transform the existing inbound and outbound contact centres in Gauteng into a blended, intelligent routing environment, which was subsequently also implemented in KwaZulu-Natal. By upgrading the technological infrastructure, MTN was able to implement Aspect's Unified IP solution, enabling MTN Direct to receive inbound calls as a priority, as well as make outbound calls during sales campaigning.
"The ratio of inbound to outbound calls is flexible and is adjustable according to call volumes," said Gibbons. "This blended and intelligent routing environment has led to significantly improved efficiency and customer service through a unified, end-to-end service offering."
Statistics gathered by MTN enabled pre- and post-implementation performance, sales increases, answer rates and customer experience to be measured and the results were significant.
"Service levels improved from an average of 85% to 96%, an increase of 11%, and has been consistent at 96% month on month," said Gibbons. "Answer rate improved from 80% to 98%, and has been consistent at 98% month to month. Our ICC sales increased by 62%, online sales by 137% and OCC sales by 60%."
The Unified IP solution has resulted in better servicing of customers through improved customer experience, and efficiency has been raised by the decrease in call abandonment rate and the improved service levels.
"We now also have real-time reporting and access to historical data, which enables trending to be conducted and, very importantly, we have developed multi-skilled agents who are able to handle both inbound and outbound calls and involve groups of employees in meetings via the Aspect Unified IP solution," concluded Gibbons.
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