Johannesburg, 17 May 2005
Local speech and contact centre solutions provider, Intelleca Voice & Mobile, in a consortium with Grintek Telecom and DigitalMall, has completed the implementation of a R7 million project that provided a full contact centre solution to Ghana Telecom.
The new contact centre went live in September 2004.
The consortium implemented telecommunication solutions that included Intelleca`s VoiceGenie VoiceXML next-generation interactive voice response (IVR) technologies, with the underlying capability to support speech recognition and voice biometric technology. Intelleca also implemented the Varetis Directory Assistance solution, giving Ghanaians the power to make use of a call centre-based telephone directory much like Telkom South Africa`s 1023 directory enquiry service.
"To my knowledge this project is the first major attempt by a Ghanaian company to consolidate its regional customer service point facilities into a consolidated contact centre with the overall objective of improving its levels of customer care and service," says Michael Renzon, Intelleca MD.
"Customer service at Ghana Telecom currently involves people queuing at regional customer service points with their questions, requests, complaints, or applications. Ghana Telecom is striving to dramatically improve its service levels by centralising and automating its customer services in a contact centre solution so that customers can interact with the company quickly and easily."
The South African consortium was invited by a Ghanaian partner AIC Technologies, which has lead responsibility for the contract and was responsible for co-ordinating and managing the implementation of the solution at Ghana Telecom. AIC also provided ongoing maintenance and support for the solution.
Intelleca was responsible for the self-service automation, directory assistance implementation, and voice and speech technologies.
Grintek provided the communication infrastructure using its Nortel Networks contact centre platform. It also performed the computer telephony integration using products from its associate company, Electrodynamics.
DigitalMall supplied the customer relationship management platform and call centre consulting services.
"This new contact centre offer many benefits to Ghana, not least of which is the move towards improved customer services in the country," says Kojo Hayford, AIC`s CEO. "It provided the opportunity to engage in invaluable skills transfers between the South African partners, AIC and Ghana Telecom; and employment opportunities have become a reality."
At the beginning of 2004, the Intelleca/Grintek/DigitalMall consortium completed a project in SA, providing a customised contact centre solution to the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) for the handling of SA`s 2004 elections. This public service call centre operated 15 hours a day, seven days a week, and handled an average of 25 000 calls a day.
"We aim to emulate the success of the IEC implementation at Ghana Telecom," says Roger Blain, group executive: business incubation at Grintek. "Working in Ghana has the advantage of allowing us to operate in a green-field situation. There are no legacy systems hindering Ghana Telecom, and it is leapfrogging several generations of technology to reach its goal of improving its interactions with customers."
Ghana Telecom was established in 1995 to take over the operations of the telecommunications division of the Post and Telecommunications Corporation. It has branches in the 10 regional capitals and in most of the 110 district capitals in the country.
"We have a vision of becoming a model telecommunications company in the West African region," says Oystein Bjorge CEO of Ghana Telecom. "We want to be seen by our customers as a caring organisation that continuously strives to meet their telecommunications needs through total customer care. The call centre project that we have awarded to the Intelleca consortium, with its emphasis on innovation and technology, is a major step towards achieving great customer service."
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