Published on the 01/12/2009 | Written by Newsdesk
Software-based IP solution has allowed the council to integrate communications across 20 sites and reduce its ongoing telecommunications costs…
Unified IP communications solutions developer Interactive Intelligence has completed deployment of a 20-site, 500-seat unified communications solution for Hornsby Shire Council.
The Interactive Intelligence Customer Interaction Centre (CIC) application suite was selected following a competitive tender. The suite was deployed and is being hosted by Optus and maintained on the council’s behalf by CallTime Solutions, an Interactive Intelligence partner.
The CIC application suite has enabled the council to replace its existing PABXs across three sites and then integrate an additional 17 stand-alone sites including its work depots, libraries, childcare centres, aquatics centres, sports centre and other remote sites under a single wide area network which allows data and voice to use the network.
This has reduced ongoing telecommunications costs for the council and has introduced greater manageability and control in the way the system is administered and used by the 20 locations.
The CIC suite also supports the Council’s distributed customer service model across these sites. Rather than routing all calls via a single call centre or receptionist, the interactive voice recognition (IVR) technology channels callers to the most appropriate decentralised customer service area. Automatic call distribution queuing has been introduced to support staff decision making and to enable more efficient answering of calls.
“One of the main reasons we looked at Interactive Intelligence was because their design is completely computer software based and able to seamlessly offer integrated telephony and computer applications,” says Craig Munns, the council’s manager information systems.
“We saw this as important because it was able to provide us with a stable telephony platform which Council could develop based on future business needs. The end result is that we’ve extended our communication capabilities to an additional 17 sites and made it much easier for ratepayers and the community to contact Council.”
