Transparent Fulfilment - VoIP Call Centre

Harpenden, UK 31st August 2004

HHS Trading (UK) Plc was established in 1984 and provides a complete fulfilment service package, including full end to end data handling, merchandise supply and despatch.  Operating in Manchester from 100,000 sq. ft. premises with a dedicated call centre facility in India, they offer a comprehensive 24/7 solution for their UK and overseas client fulfilment requirements.

Predominately a mail order catalogue business, they also have dedicated slots and presenters on QVC, extensive newspaper and Sunday supplement advertising, and internet stores marketing everything from home and health to jewellery and wine. HHS provides a complete fulfilment solution from marketing, order processing, packaging, consolidation, home delivery and post sales customer assistance.

Their 80 seat call centre based in Manchester and the 30 seat centre in New Delhi receive between a thousand and two thousand calls a day from customers placing orders or seeking customer assistance. These calls are received into the Manchester headquarters via non geographic numbers through three primary rate ISDN pipes connected to their Telrad C400

“We had been considering the implementation of the VoIP side of the switch for the past eighteen months” commented David Dugdale, Head of IT at HHS “but held back until we could perceive some maturity in the technology. Calls were previously routed over to our call centre in India via fixed link, the downside being that once the call had left our switch, it had gone. We had little information about those calls and needed more overall control to help manage our SLA commitments.”

Britannic Technologies were consulted and recommended the implementation of a VoIP link to India complemented by Callview Call Centre Software. A 2MB leased line was installed in Manchester with a 512KB link in New Delhi to connect the centres over the internet. This link also supports the data across the WAN.  

“The installation of the IP interface card was a relatively simple process. Due to the age of our system we needed to perform some software and firmware upgrades to fully utilize the functionality and as with all new projects there were teething problems but these were quickly resolved.” said Kevin Beeley, Senior Support Technician at HHS. 

 “Using VOIP technology has allowed us to make more use of the investment made in the network infrastructure available within the company. The major benefit however has been the reliability, visibility and functionality of the transfer of calls between the UK and India. These quickly resulted in significant improvements to our customer SLA's. Agents in India can interact better with this system with no loss of functionality. Being an IP extension of our system, changes to the functions of the phone can be programmed and loaded hence limiting operator downtime” 

Agents can log in locally to the C400 call centre at Manchester or remotely from New Delhi. Agents from both branches can seamlessly be in one group and enjoy the features of ACD functionality. In addition Callview monitors, reports and controls if necessary the status of ACD agents on the C400 system either locally or across the internet. Agents can be placed into wrap up, made unavailable, shown as free state or automatically logged in or out depending on call volume.  

 “Callview has become invaluable in providing statistics on agents and customer calling models” continued David Dugdale, “detailed reports are available providing information needed to improve service to our customers. The RT wizard also provides us with a dynamic view of call volumes and agent activity, allowing us to react quickly and maintain our strict SLA's.” 

“Both Britannic and Iridiacom's support and knowledge of the system, and the turn around time of implementing the project and resolving issues has been excellent.”

HHS contact David Dugdale, Head of IT via d.dugdale@hhsuk.com
Britannic Technologies: www.btlnet.co.uk
Iridiacom: www.iridia.com
Telrad Connegy: www.connegy.com