Case Study: National Energy Services

Energy efficiency

National Energy Services (NES) has prevented increased costs and created a seamless link between its two offices thanks to technology supplied by Interactive Intelligence.

Based in Milton Keynes, National Energy Services owns and operates the National Home Energy Rating Scheme which provides technical and business support for individuals and organisations involved in domestic energy efficiency.

The firm is heavily involved in the introduction of Energy Performance Certificates which are used throughout the housing market (market sales, private and social rented) and the commercial sector. NES provides accreditation schemes, training, assessment and qualification for the energy assessors who put together the Energy Performance Certificates. As these certificates were required for every building in England, Wales as of the 1 October 2008 and increasingly in Northern Ireland and Scotland, the firm has been extremely busy over the past few months.

Working out of the National Energy Centre, a building which itself is designed to meet high energy efficiency standards, NES employs approximately 100 staff.

Communication Capacity

The problem the company faced was that its existing Avaya Index phone system consisted of obsolete equipment that had exceeded its capacity and was beginning to fail. With every port in use, and some twinned, the firm had simply run out of space.

NES’s decision to upgrade its phone system coincided with the opening of its second office, meaning that the firm also required the functionality for the two offices to work together as one integrated operation.

Andrew Spencer, head of software and systems development at NES had been aware of Interactive Intelligence’s solutions for a number of years. After learning that it would be exhibiting at Call Centre Expo, Spencer visited the exhibition with the aim of discussing how Interactive Intelligence’s solutions could meet NES’s needs.

The firm also considered a range of solutions, but established that Customer Interaction Center (CIC) from Interactive Intelligence was best suited to its requirements. Spencer explains, “We were particularly impressed by the comprehensive nature of the CIC solution and by the fact that it offered a pure IP telephony solution rather than a hybrid platform. Interactive Intelligence offered us not only the best solution, but the best value which is a rare thing to find!”

Freedom of Choice

By selecting CIC from Interactive Intelligence, NES benefits from the fact that it is not tied to a single hardware vendor and by working this way it has been able to save a considerable amount on the cost of its hardware. Prior to working with Interactive Intelligence NES was paying around £250 per proprietary phone purchased but since the move to Interactive Intelligence, is paying as little as £71 per unit. Therefore, if the company was to purchase 100 proprietary phones a year it would be making a saving of £17,900 annually, a significant cost reduction.

CIC has now been rolled out throughout the company’s two offices with staff using the CIC soft phone and handset. During the implementation process, Interactive Intelligence delivered seven days of completely interactive training sessions to the firm. This helped NES to compile a comprehensive training plan for its end users, something that Spencer found particularly beneficial.

Practical Benefits

As a result of CIC’s pure IP architecture, NES has been able to introduce call centre capabilities and supervision to both of its offices allowing them to work together seamlessly as one operation. Presence management has played an important role, allowing workers to know the whereabouts and status of their colleagues, even if they are in a different location, thereby making communication more transparent and streamlined. The ability for voicemails to be delivered direct to users email inboxes has also helped to improve response times and productivity.

Aside from the significant savings in hardware costs outlined previously, NES expects to see increases in productivity and time savings. In the meantime, NES has been impressed by a number of other benefits that the software has delivered. For example, without CIC the opening of the second office would have been much more problematic and costly.

“NES had a second office in the past which was located in a managed office complex that had its own telephone system,” explains Spencer, “We found this system to be very chaotic and unproductive. This time around we have a much better network and integrated phone system, thanks to Interactive Intelligence, and this has made the transition to a second office a lot easier. Now we feel as though workers in the other office are simply in another room in the same building.”

Future Plans

In the future, Spencer confirms that the company may look to take on further modules such as the Interaction Client Mobile Edition, allowing the firm the capability to employ mobile workers. The company’s main goal for the medium term is to integrate its telephony and Customer Relationship Management systems to deliver a better quality of service to its customers.

The regular training session that the firm has invested in will also help to improve customer service, refreshing existing knowledge and teaching the firm’s employees how to use the new features of the software. Working closely with Interactive Intelligence, NES can look to build on the savings it has already experienced in terms of hardware costs and can soon expect to see reductions in its operational costs as well.

19 Nov 2008

Filed under Call Centre News , case study, Interactive Intelligence