All-in-one contact centre solution for SA
Ninzi-Connect Software (formerly Multi-Connect)
was one of the first suppliers of Automatic Call
Distribution (ACD) equipment to the South African
market, when the company was originally established
in 1989. This was followed up by introducing the
workforce management product now known as eWFM
(originally TCS) to the marketplace.
At the time, ACD was a business tool that took
the market by storm and it has since matured into
the advanced Customer Contact Centres that we know
today. MD Howard Haines had the vision to realise
that the contact centre industry in SA was a growing
one, and along with ACD, added an outbound dialler
and a call logging solution, to the organisation’s
arsenal, in order to be able to offer clients a total
package. "We have now come full circle from our
early days, as an "island of technology"
supplier - to our newest offering, Ensemble Pro, which
is an all encompassing solution that provides both
single site and enterprise level functionality and
effectively combines ACD, outbound, recording and
multi-media communications into a single reliable
and scalable package," he says.
"The evolution from ACD to Ensemble Pro
in some ways mirrors Ninzi-Connect’s evolution from
its humble beginnings as Multi-Connect, through 18
years of contact centre implementations, into an
experienced and fully BEE-compliant solutions provider."
According to Ninzi-Connect account manager Nic Loizides,
the company’s Ensemble Pro provides both inbound and outbound
dialling, as well as interactive voice response (IVR)
technology, full recording and application service-providing
functionality which will provide a total solution for an
in-house contact centre or BPO-focused organisation.
"Buying a unified product such as this benefits
these companies as they no longer have to purchase a
number of disparate products to make an entire solution,"
he says. "This is our flagship product, as it
encompasses all that is needed in a contact centre,
and by its nature it opens up a whole new marketplace
for the company, because it allows us to play in the
mid-range space as well as at the enterprise level."
He says that Ensemble Pro is the key differentiator
for Ninzi-Connect, as it provides the type of all-in-one
solution that the mid-size organisation requires,
adding that to purchase the different offerings found
within this product on a piecemeal basis would in all
likelihood be far too expensive for such a business.
"A lot of smaller organisations have budget
constraints and it would cost an arm and a leg to
buy all the products individually, but because our
solution is a unified one, it is much cheaper and
is also the type of product that can grow with
an organisation as its business grows."
He says a perfect example of a mid-range
implementation is that which was done for
Norton-Lambrianos Attorneys, a law firm that
specialises in the area of debt collection for a
number of major retailers and similar corporations.
"Since the nature of their business involves
a lot of telephone work, the company decided to invest
in its own call centre as it was of the opinion that
in order to offer a better service to its clients,
it needed a tool that could assist it with the
collection process," says Loizides. "Ensemble Pro
proved to be the right product at the right time for
them, since it offered the kind of functionality they
were seeking within the correct price range. Also,
the Norton - Lambrianos MD had previous experience with
our Davox predictive diallers, which is why he turned
to us in the first place."
Norton-Lambrianos MD, Dave Fisher, says that his
organisation had recently acquired a large retailer as
a client, and the volumes of collections had become quite
high. Thanks to his previous good experiences with
Davox and Ninzi-Connect’s service, he approached the
company with regards to implementing something that
could handle high volumes and a complex, blended
contact centre environment.
"The installation was well planned beforehand
and it went very smoothly. This was because we set
out a timeline to work to and stuck to it. Also all
the work was done offsite first, so everything
was ready by the time we came to install the
offering at our offices," says Fisher.
"The key to making this implementation a
success from our side lay in understanding the
newer functionality and this meant that training
our staff and getting them used to using the
product was critical, so training was conducted
beforehand both for normal staff and for our
supervisors."
Loizides says that Norton-Lambrianos now also
has the option to record calls - both for legal
purposes and for quality control - as this is
built into the product functionality and that
as their requirements grow so more functionality
can be switched on too.
"The real challenge for us was the fact
that this was one of our first Ensemble Pro
implementations, so it was a case of accurately
determining the most efficient call flows to meet
the customer requirements, which could nonetheless
be altered on the fly as the requirements
themselves changed."
He insists, however, that because Ninzi-Connect
had been performing similar sorts of implementations
for quite a long time, the business already had
the experience within it that was necessary to
make the operation flow smoothly.
"It was certainly trickier in some respects,
because it is an end-to-end solution, rather than
the individual solutions we had been offering before,
but then it was also easier in some ways because of
this," states Loizides.
"We had Norton-Lambrianos up and running within
three months - from the time we placed the order for
the equipment through to going live with it - which
is quite a remarkable turn around time for a full
contact centre implementation," he says, pointing
out that a lot of the installed equipment was shipped
in from overseas, and that had it not been for the lead
time on this, the project could have been completed in
as little as six weeks.
Fisher says that as far as his company is concerned,
the solution has done exactly what it was meant to,
which is to improve agent productivity in order to
facilitate more collections for the corporations
Norton-Lambrianos works for.
"From a quality point of view, we also have
a voice recording option, which means that we can
manage our agents properly, gather accurate statistics
such as how many calls are made, how many real
connects occur and so on," he says.
"The solution has also become a good marketing
tool for our business, as most of the large retailers
and financial institutions are keen on partners who have
this type of technology, so Ensemble Pro gives us a
competitive edge in the market."
Asked about the future for Ninzi-Connect, Loizides
says that he sees Ensemble Pro playing a role in driving
SA forward as an outsource contact centre destination,
particularly as it is a solution that offers
best-of-breed, all-in-one functionality. "This
is because Ensemble Pro allows customers to utilise
an ASP model to support multiple independent contact
centres off a single implementation."
"Whilst the product is undoubtedly world class,
it is also vital that the correct expertise is utilised
in the implementation process, and this is where Ninzi’s
more than 18 years of experience in the field comes
to the fore, ensuring an implementation that will
exactly fit the client’s needs and requirements,"
he adds.
|
