Networking systems firm Cisco has successfully deployed Ireland’s first fully-enabled internet protocol (IP) contact centre for outsourced customer relationship management (CRM) specialist Gem.
Gem, which provides multimedia services to customers such as Amazon, Microsoft, United Airlines and Royal Bank of Scotland, was recently named Best Multimedia Contact Centre in Europe is a specialist provider of outsourced CRM services.
Its services include handling inbound customer service enquiries by email, phone, short messaging service (SMS), web chat and fax as well as outbound marketing and sales services. Project-based campaigns have also been provided for Lastminute.com, Boots plc, BSkyB’s attheraces.com, British Telecom, Barnardos and Irish Life.
Gem chose to be the first deployment for Cisco’s Architecture for voice, video and integrated data (AVVID) technology, making it the first contact centre in Ireland to have a true IP contact centre. This involved Cisco building a resilient local area network (LAN) to support IP telephony and Cisco’s intelligent contact manager platform that provides intelligent call routing for data and voice.
The new platform will enable Gem to have a single management platform for multiple channels that will allow it to manage its workforce as a whole rather than different channels, as well as facilitate business continuity by spreading the workload across different sites.
“This technology provides high performance and scalability, two critical features that have allowed us to provide enhanced services to existing customers and expand our customer base,” said Kieran McGowan, chief technology officer at Gem.
By John Kennedy
