BT launches business continuity offers to safeguard clients’ customer services operations

BT today launched a series of new offers to help companies and government organisations around the world avoid downtime hitting customer services operations, if faced with an outbreak of diseases, man-made events and natural occurrences.

Extreme weather conditions, industrial strikes and virus outbreaks have all unexpectedly affected customer service operations for a number of companies over the past year, and to tackle this BT Global Services has today outlined special offers, aimed at helping businesses prevent downtime in their contact centres.

Among the offers, BT has launched a new enhancement to its Next Generation Contact Centre (NGCC) service. As part of the service, called BT NGCC Protect, BT will help businesses ready themselves for any business continuity risks in their contact centres, by auditing their requirements and configuring systems so that agents can work from home, or other remote locations, if they can’t make it into the office. The service can work as a stand alone solution or alongside existing contact centre technology, with licenses held in reserve at a greatly reduced cost, and then when required they can become live immediately.

By hosting the service over BT’s 21CN global platform, contact centre agents will be able to access Unified Customer Communications features, a BT-designed desktop and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools quickly over the network, reducing the likelihood of downtime, while allowing businesses to reduce capital expenditure costs and benefit from greater flexibility.

Neil Sutton, VP Global Portfolio, BT Global Services said: “Businesses today face the dual challenge of ensuring excellent customer service, while keeping capital expenditure costs under control. But, as recent examples have shown, unexpected events – such as extreme weather conditions, travel problems or virus outbreaks – can quickly bring a contact centre to its knees. Advances in BT’s on-demand contact centre technology and self-service CRM tools, as well as trial offers, will put businesses in a stronger position to tackle any unforeseen events and benefit from cost savings.”

In addition, BT is offering business customers a free trial of its self-service CRM solutions, which allow businesses to offer a better service to customers whilst improving efficiciency.
In the current economy and with a growth in business continuity threats, self-service applications such as identity and verification, balance enquiries, account payments and booking lines offer businesses a cost effective solution to handle routine customer requests. In fact, some 67 per cent of consumers* say they would select voice self service over off-shored contact centres, according to recent research.

BT and the customer will work together to define a clearly measurable Return on Investment (RoI) model within an agreed timeframe and install the technology. If the RoI investment objectives are met then the customer can move to a full contract with BT if they are not the customer has no other commitment from the trial and can walk away. BT also has the capability to charge self-service applications through per-minute rates and per transaction and offer a risk-share and reward approach to its customers.