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To manage the large volume of incoming phone calls the Centre’s telecoms provider Integra ICT installed a Siemens OptiPoint 500 phone system supporting 32 extensions. Although this provided excellent call management, it could not provide all the reporting information needed by the Centre, as business manager Stella Crookes explains. “The NHS conducts regular surveys to ensure that we are meeting our patients’ needs in all regards. A recurring issue in the surveys was getting through to the Centre by phone and the time taken to answer. The trouble was that the phone system could not provide me with the data needed to understand calling patterns, so I asked Integra ICT if they could suggest a solution,” she said. Integra ICT recommended the Akixi hosted call management and contact centre reporting service, which offers ‘cradle to grave’ call tracking, with comprehensive reporting via the Akixi 1000 Business Dashboard. Because Akixi is provided as a hosted service, there are no costly set-up costs; no need for capital expenditure on hardware; no implementation and upgrades to worry about; and no commitment to ongoing support fees.

“We wanted to achieve a situation where no caller to our main 0845 patient line was waiting more than three minutes for an answer. By analysing the calling patterns using Akixi we have been able to achieve that without increasing the number of reception staff. It’s allowed us to use existing resources more effectively,” explained Stella.

“I can display the system on my PC and see the calls in real-time. If it takes more than three minutes for a call to be answered an alarm sounds in my offce so that I know a queue has overrun. The reporting analysis also allows me to check the exact time taken to answer, if a patient comments that we have taken an excessive time to answer.” Having access to data on calling patterns has also enabled Stella to develop strategies to better manage calls. “We can let patients know when the quieter periods are to call. If a patient has a lengthy enquiry we can ask them to accept a call-back and log the nature of the query, so we can respond with the right information. Basically we try to move calls off the reception as effciently as possible, so that the main 0845 patient line does not become engaged.” She added: “Akixi hosted call management has met our needs balanced with reasonable ongoing costs. Employing more staff to answer phone calls was simply not an option, so Akixi has allowed us to use existing resources more effectively to meet patient needs.”

The CE Audit determines how much effort customers have to make to resolve a query by assessing factors such as blind transfers, repeat calls, repeating information, the number of channels used and waiting times. It then recommends what can be done to improve the customer experience.

Bruce Eidsvik, vice-president of Strategic Solutions at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, said: “Right now, too many contact centres and customer service departments are either measuring the wrong things or interpreting those measurements in the wrong way.We all know it’s more proftable to keep good customers than to have to replace them with new ones, but until now there hasn’t been a way to translate contact centre activity into a meaningful report about an interaction’s impact on loyalty.”

The market research organisation argues that growing demand for IP telephony and unifed communications will help the industry grow fve-fold from 0.9 billion euros in 2010 to 4.9 billion euros in 2016.

Frost & Sullivan Industry Analyst Dorota Oviedo said: “The hosted IP telephony and UC services market in Europe is witnessing rapid growth mainly due to the increasing awareness about hosted solutions and improved feature sets.”

She added: “The economic slowdown and limited capital availability for investments have encouraged many enterprises to consider alternative communications delivery methods.”

Frost & Sullivan argues that services are becoming more mature and now offer a complete PBX capability rather than the limited functionality of Centrex solutions. It suggests that once companies experience what’s on offer they become more comfortable with communications being delivered as a service.

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