Driving increased customer service with robust, reliable telephony
Because of the complex nature of the project, the council had set a two-year target for the roll-out of the unified communications platform to its 10,000 users. Maintel actually achieved this full roll-out within 18 months, enabling users to realise the benefits of the new solution sooner.
Maintel removed the complexity of multiple legacy telephony systems and installed a fully resilient UC platform, centrally hosted in the council’s two data centres. This move to a centralised and virtualised telephony platform has dramatically simplified the process of maintaining, upgrading and provisioning services.
Since the full roll-out, Maintel has become a central point of contact for all of Durham County Council’s telephony-related issues. When faults or failures were previously discovered when the council had multiple suppliers, it was often confusing as to who was responsible and who should be contacted. Maintel’s position as a single supplier has removed this confusion and allowed queries to be solved simpler and faster.
The Council was so impressed with the efficiencies realised with the MiContact Centre deployment that 12 months later it invested in a second roll-out for additional call handling areas.
The second platform handles calls for the council’s leisure centres, theatres and other customer-facing services that aren’t part of the core council service. This has grown to approximately the same size as the first, approaching 350 agents across both contact centres.
Since winning the council’s retendered contract, the partnership with Maintel has allowed the council to extend its portfolio of telephony services to support partner organisations. Because of the robustness of the service that Maintel has delivered, the council has the confidence to offer partners like schools and housing associations with network, internet and telephony services. This
allows the wider collection of public services to benefit from the same efficiencies and cost
reductions that the core council has enjoyed.