Cheshire Peaks & Plains Housing Trust

Achieving value for money and improving tenant access with the Help of Britannic Technologies

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Cheshire Peaks & Plains Housing Trust (CPPHT) are a 'local' company that provide high quality, affordable homes in Macclesfield and the surrounding areas. With almost 5,000 properties from Knutsford to Disley, they offer the widest choice of locations and properties across the Macclesfield district.

The Trust provide a range of high quality housing for people in housing need - from one bedroom studio apartments to four bedroom family homes. Their aim is to provide homes and services to help local people build strong and united neighbourhoods. They are a Trust that cares about improving local communities and providing what their customers want.

"Britannic's services have been benchmarked against other companies and have been found to be up to 60% cheaper than competition. Britannic have always offered advice on alternatives available, including valuable contributions on business continuity measures to ensure 100% operation and access."

Simon Penaluna, Assistant Director of ICT CPPHT

Requirements & Objectives

The Trust had a number of telecommunication requirements as they also run a 24 hour call centre for their customers and are always seeking ways to improve the service. These improvements included enhancing visibility of vulnerable callers whilst in the queue, a need to increase the number of call backs made and to improve disaster recovery planning. All requirements have to be assessed throughout the purchasing procedure by strict 'Value for Money' principles.

These requirements are required by The Trust as historically they did not have full visibility of performance by the call centre team and so full statistical information was required on call traffic allowing management to know when peak times would occur to be able to allocate appropriate contact centre staff to handle the calls and disperse where needed. Call recording was an added feature for this team and has seen many improvements to staff training and performance since implementation. Allowing customers to know where they are in the queue and expected time of answer would enhance and improve customer access via telephony to The Trusts services.

"We have seen a 50% reduction in costs associated with our 0800 number and have benefited from increased control supporting our business continuity planning. BT also used to charge for changes to our routing, Britannic provide them free as part of the service!

The NGN Statistics have also helped us recruit staff for our peak times. We have seen a big improvement in our call centre with approximately 85% of calls now handled within 30 seconds."

The Solution

Britannic Technologies worked with The Trust to undertake a complete review of their previous telephony system and call centre in order to recommend a solution that would take into consideration all of the aspects in which they required and provide a clear roadmap for future applications which would benefit them further in the future.

The system chosen was based upon a Mitel 3300 IP platform, this would provide the telephony and foundation for the contact centre. The call centre solution included both historic and live management reporting, call back and position in queue.

Britannic also provided Oak call management software and ComputerTel call recording. These applications provided clear views of relevant statistics across the wider solution and have helped to improve staff coaching and development within the contact centre.

Britannic delivered a range of network services as part of the managed solution, this included the management and call distribution of the primary 0800 contact number, the introduction of a next generation network link (supporting voice and data) usage and SIP Trunking to enable the cancelation of the ISDN 30 lines and reduce outbound telephone call charges.

"Britannic Technologies delivered excellent value for money by consolidating our previously separate internet connection and ISDN lines into a single managed Ethernet circuit. This has delivered more than 50% saving on rental charges and reduced our call charges as well."

The Benefits

The Trust have achieved significant financial savings by consolidating their separate ISDN (voice) and Internet (data) connectivity into a single multipurpose next generation network connection. This has delivered savings in excess of 50% on the line rentals alone.

The Trust have greatly improved their own control and management of the primary 0800 contact number. In addition they have achieved more than 50% saving on inbound call costs with Britannic versus BT.

The new contact centre solution has enabled The Trust to greatly improve the management and corresponding service they deliver to customers.

Call handling has reduced significantly from an average 60 seconds down to 16 seconds. The solution delivered by Britannic provides The Trust with a solid, scalable platform for future growth and introduction of new technologies such as Britannic's CTI links into The Trusts CRM system, web chat and web collaboration.

"Since 2006 Cheshire Peaks & Plains Housing Trust have worked together with Britannic Technologies updating and replacing the telecoms infrastructure throughout the company. Britannic Technologies have provided an end to end solution that has assisted The Trust in improving customer care and access to its services throughout. These improvements included increased visibility of the volume of call handling, a customer call back solution, and complete call recording"

Simon Penaluna, Assistant Director of ICT, CPPHT