Fredrickson Collects the Benefits of Unified Contact Centre Operations

inancial services provider, Fredrickson Holdings Limited (Freds.com), has centralised its three disparate contact centres, introducing innovative technology to create a standardised and flexible customer service operation that is fully integrated with its underlying network infrastructure. The three-year managed service, designed, implemented and managed by Azzurri Communications’ Contact Centre Practice, combines hosted call centre technology with a fully managed network provision, consolidating spend to reduce costs and accelerate services across the business.

Darren Wright, director of group IT at Freds.com, explains, “Primarily, we looked to address our predictive dialler function. Previously developed and managed in-house we knew that with the right outsourced solution we would be able to dedicate our expert resource to further build innovation elsewhere in the business. With Azzurri’s hosted services option, we were able to achieve this, and at the same time, unify our entire contact centre operation and integrate network infrastructure services. Consolidating all these elements into one integrated services solution was extremely compelling, allowing us to concentrate on what we do best as a business.”

Replacing Freds.com’s end of life telephony platform and updating its disparate network services, Azzurri is hosting new predictive dialling software, IP lines and innovative analytic technology across two datacentres. This relocation of applications and technology immediately reduced operational costs for Freds.com, helping to fund the re-investment into the new infrastructure. Wright explains;

“Our productivity has increased dramatically through the use of best of breed contact centre technologies such as predictive diallers and analytics software, and by housing applications in the datacentre, we no longer have to worry about additional costs such as power, security and rack space.

“At the same time, the management headache of maintaining our infrastructure has disappeared. With Azzurri managing the ongoing provision of our network connections, we now have failover capabilities that provide us with maximum uptime without the associated management complexity.”

Freds.com is also taking advantage of an evolving technology platform in line with Azzurri’s Virtual Network Operator (VNO) model. Azzurri will continually refresh and review its service over the life of the contract as Wright explains:

“The flexibility and tailored approach of the managed service from the Azzurri Contact Centre Practice enables us to easily evolve our contact centre applications and core infrastructure to help keep pace with complex technology and compliance advances.”

Moving forward, Wright and his team are looking into the increased use of analytic technology within its business operations to further improve the quality of service provided to its client base. “All calls that Freds.com handle as a group are now recorded and analysed through the new software from Azzurri, saving us time and manpower,” comments Wright. “With identification of key words, phrases or even small changes in voice levels, the intuitive software provides us with the reasoning we need to dedicate manual assessment. With the increasing rise of compliance regulations, this is an area that we will be collaborating further on with Azzurri into the future.”

Rufus Grig, CTO of Azzurri’s Contact Centre Practice adds, “Freds.com is one of the first customers to benefit from the newly launched division at Azzurri, dedicated to providing genuinely integrated contact centres from the Cloud to the Desktop. By combining Azzurri’s managed network services expertise and its contact centre heritage, organisations like Freds.com are able to achieve greater value from existing assets, focus on critical business processes and respond rapidly to a changing customer environment.

“Successful customer service does not begin and end in the contact centre, like Fredrickson, an organisation must create a unified customer experience to fully remain ahead in an increasingly competitive environment. Only by truly integrating the necessary elements of the contact centre, business processes and infrastructure, will organisations harness the flexibility and agility needed for an effective customer contact strategy.”

About Azzurri Communications
Azzurri (www.azzurricommunications.com) is transforming the way organisations use communication and information technology. We are a leading managed services company delivering flexible voice, data and mobile communications. Ours is one of the largest independent network management and support teams providing converged solutions that are no-longer tied to technology and supplier.

At the core of our managed service is our Virtual Network Operator (VNO) capability. As a VNO, freedom and flexibility distinguish us from our competitors. We give you the flexibility to change and adapt to new requirements and technologies.

With increased agility our customers gain a competitive edge, and with dramatic savings and management information they have total control of their voice, data and mobile infrastructure.

Azzurri Communications was formed in June 2000 and is headquartered in the UK, offering global access to sales, service and support to customers in 130 countries.

About Fredrickson Holdings Limited (Freds.com)
The Freds.com Group provide a range of innovative business solutions. The Group includes debt collection agencies; Fredrickson International and SRJ Debt Recoveries; Credit Account Management, a panel and asset management specialist; PayOffline.com, a payment processor; FredMail, a mailing fulfilment company and Fredrickson Managed Services, an IT solution provider.

The Freds.com Group work on behalf of some of the largest Financial Institutions and Corporations in Europe. The Group manages a total debt portfolio in excess of £3bn. Additional information regarding the Group can be found at www.freds.com