A growing number of the UK’s leading mobile phone operators,
internet service providers, financial services companies and travel
specialists trust Garlands Call Centres with their most important
assets – their customers.
To provide the highest service standards while handling over 36
million customer enquiries each year, the outsourced contact centre
operator needs a communications infrastructure it can depend
on.
Our reliable, cost-effective communications solutions have
supported Garlands through phenomenal growth – helping the company
to lead the way in the provision of innovative contact centre
services.
Achieving excellence through innovation
Serving many business sectors, Garlands employs over 3,200
people at locations in Hartlepool, Middlesborough, Stockton and
South Shields. From humble beginnings in 1987, the company has
grown to become the third largest inbound outsourced contact centre
agency in the UK*. As part of a fully resilient dual vendor
solution, our communications network continues to support this
expansion by enabling Garlands to meet and exceed customer
requirements.
Resilient network ensures 100% reliability
With communications at the core of Garlands’ operations,
reliability is critical. “It’s not just our business that’s on the
line – it’s our customers’ business as well,” explains Chris
Colyer, IT Director at Garlands. “Customers expect to get through
to agents, quickly and efficiently, every single time.”
Understanding that service loss is simply not an option,
ntl:Telewest Business has developed a communications infrastructure
with reliability in mind. “From day one, the solutions we’ve put in
place have been designed for optimum resilience,” confirms Carole
Wardrope, Account Manager at ntl:Telewest Business.
Evolving the network
Between 2005 and 2007, Garlands invested over £3m in advanced
IP-based communications. The company’s new ntl:Telewest Business
network provides secure, resilient and reliable connectivity,
enabling multi-channel customer contact and delivering significant
cost savings. It also supports a leading-edge IP contact centre
based on third-party software for contact and workforce management,
recording and speech analytics.
Our converged Metro Ethernet VPN network connects all of the
company’s contact centre locations and supports data, voice and
video communications. Using this network, Garlands has implemented
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony, enabling it to take
advantage of advanced call management functionality and reduce
costs. Our IP-enabled network has also enabled Garlands to create
cutting-edge multimedia contact solutions – such as a 3G video
calling facility and live web interaction – to help customers
complete self-service forms online.
In addition, a Managed Internet Access service enables Garlands’
agents to connect seamlessly to centrally-held client databases of
customer history and billing information, allowing them to answer
enquiries quicker and more efficiently.
Partnership for success
“ntl:Telewest Business has been our first port of call when
we’ve expanded our operations or added new services,” comments
Chris. “We’ve always found ntl:Telewest Business to be commercially
competitive and very responsive, delivering the highest levels of
performance and resilience.” “They’ve also taken a lot of time to
understand what drives our business and have provided high quality
planning, implementation and support services,” he continues.
What it has made possible
Garlands’ use of technology to deliver innovative customer
contact solutions has resulted in recognition across the industry.
In July 2007, Garlands won the Best Use of Technology category at
the 2007 National Business Awards, North East region finals for its
IP converged infrastructure and IP contact centre project.
