Civica wins integrated VOIP and CTI contract from Pennaf Housing Group
Civica Connect–Mitel contact management and computer telephony integration will improve customer service for 5,000 housing tenants in Wales
Civica has won a contract from the Pennaf Housing group in Wales to provide an integrated customer contact management service to help staff and tenants communicate more effectively.
The contract - won by group company Civica Connect - is based on a Mitel VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) telephone system and further integration with Microsoft and Civica applications including Civica Contact Manager. The new platform will improve customer service for Pennaf Housing’s 5,000 group tenants who live in Mid and North Wales. It will also ensure a total business continuity capability for the housing group’s communications infrastructure.
When Pennaf Housing moved offices in the autumn, the group saw the opportunity to improve customer service and inter-office links using integrated multi-channel communications. The need for multi-channel service platforms across the public sector was underlined by the government-inspired Varney report called Service Transformation ¹ in December. SocITM’s Better Answered research² published at the same time highlighted gaps in local authorities’ customer service owing to website and telephone services operating in “silos.”
Pennaf Housing’s IT team specified a new integrated contact centre and computer telephony integration (CTI) platform to link its main contact centre in Rhyl with other key offices in North Wales. Civica Connect began work last autumn with completion scheduled for later this year.
Pennaf Housing - the parent company of Clwyd Alyn Housing Association and Tŷ Glas Housing Society - provides affordable, high quality homes and support services throughout North and Mid Wales. The group employs 330 people in the principality. Projects range from general family accommodation through to supported living and low cost home ownership.
The new Civica Connect-Mitel contact centre will be used by 13 staff at the Rhyl site. It will enable Pennaf to provide a single interface for all customer correspondance, telephone calls and e-mails. It will also bring cheaper telephone calls based on VoIP for the group.
The implementation comprises a Mitel 3300 ICP platform at Pennaf Housing’s St. Asaph head office and Wrexham records office, together with design and implementation of new local area network (LAN). The programme also includes set up of remote IP extensions to 15 remote office locations as well as call recording and call management integration to Microsoft Live Communications Server.
David Roots, managing director, Civica housing and social care, said: “Housing groups like Pennaf pride themselves on their expert customer service to tenants by bringing together different communications channels. Our ability to deliver the latest Mitel telephony platform alongside our fully scalable Contact Manager product to tight deadlines will further improve Pennaf’s service capability.
“This project also shows the type of flexible, service-led operational improvements which different public and third sector organisations can make. The Varney report built on the government’s Gershon agenda to show that service transformation and operational efficiency should go hand in hand.”
1 Service transformation: a better service for citizens and business, a better deal for the taxpayer, Sir David Varney, December 2006.
2 Better Answered ? Report by the Society of Information Technology Management, December 2006.