Newport City Homes reduces abandoned calls with Aspect

Version 7 of Aspect's technology will enable full integration with Microsoft's Lync solution

Social landlord Newport City Homes says it has "significantly" reduced the number of abandoned calls to its call centre following the installation of version 6 of Unified IP, a customer call centre solution from Aspect.

The software was deployed in January this year.

The organisation is currently planning to upgrade to version 7 of the solution, with the new version allowing complete integration with the group's Microsoft Lync unified communications system as well as its Dynamics CRM 2011 platform.

Nigel Ward, IS developer for Newport City Homes, said: "We implemented version 6 of the Aspect software in January because of the Microsoft roadmap offered by the company.

"It was the integration of future versions of Aspect with Microsoft Lync and Dynamics CRM that convinced us to take on the solution in the first place."

The group had also been looking for call centre features such as call queueing, interactive menus, scripting and message-on-hold alerts, provided by Aspect version 6 but not provided by the available Microsoft OCS/Lync call centre solution at the time of looking.

And version 6 of the solution has already provided the company with benefits. Ward explained that the solution had already "significantly" reduced abandoned calls and meant that customers increasingly speak to an operator on their first call.

"Prior to the introduction of this call centre system we were fielding 1,000 calls a day, this has been reduced to 700 and is the result of callers getting through to an operator the first time," he said.

Version 7 will integrate with the Microsoft Lync unified communications system, offering a number of features, including immediate access to customer information, and "presence" information (enabled by both the CRM and Lync system) allowing operators in the call centre to immediately assess the status of relevant housing, and whether financial inclusion officers are in the building and online.

The Newport City Homes call centre is manned by 12 staff and serves over 10,000 residents.