North East IT specialist Croft Technology plc has completed a key telecommunications contract to support the partnership of two of the region’s major housing associations.
Croft worked closely with Bernicia – the group vehicle to accommodate the partnership of Cheviot Housing and Wansbeck Housing Association – to implement a new multi-site call centre, ensuring the association has the latest service facilities to effectively support regional accommodation issues.
Croft was responsible for the implementation of intuitive Call Centre facilities (which direct people straight to the relevant department or advisor); via a Mitel VoIP system allowing for an integrated, scalable and resilient telephony solution. In addition, Bernicia was also provided with a full call recording facility and legacy system integration. The backward compatibility of the new technology allowed Bernicia to benefit immediately from the efficiencies and cost savings of the system. A gateway between the merging organisations’ phone systems all but eliminated the need for extensive staff retraining.
Bernicia, based in Newcastle upon Tyne, operates exclusively in the North East, offering a wide range of accommodation for single people, families, the elderly and people with special needs.
Kevin Ramsay, Enterprise Account Manager at Croft, said: “Bernicia offers accommodation to people across the region so it is important that the organisation has the communication facilities to answer enquiries quickly and effectively. The investment in the intuitive call centre ensures people speak to the correct department or advisor rather than being transferred from department to department – we are all too aware how frustrating an experience this can be.
“Using the latest technology, Bernicia now has advanced facilities to deliver excellent Customer Service and support to people across the North East.”
Gary Hind, Head of ICT at Bernicia commented “The Bernicia Group was created to provide support services to Cheviot Homes and Wansbeck Homes - formerly the housing department of Wansbeck District Council. The partnership provides almost 8000 rented properties across the North East.
“Critical to the process is good communications between multiple sites and the ability to provide a single point of contact for our tenants and stakeholders. As Wansbeck Homes will occupy council premises for the foreseeable future, it made sense to make use of the well established voice and data infrastructure.
“Being able to dovetail the existing telephony systems with the latest in call centre technology has enabled the group to realise efficiencies and savings on several fronts. Capital investment costs were very competitive while re-training has been kept focused.
“The virtual nature of our systems has meant that we have been able to take the Contact Centre to our customers, allowing them to benefit from efficient call handling in a much shorter timescale.
“Croft has been providing IT related services to Cheviot for a number of years and their significant experience in data networks and communications made them the ideal partner for this project.”
