Contact Central breaks into local government

Contact Central - BT's integrated contact centre solution - has made two breakthroughs into the local government sector: Copeland Borough Council in Cumbria and Surrey County Council.

Copeland needed to get started quickly with a fully integrated electronic customer realtionship management (eCRM) solution, to implement its electronic government strategy. It was impressed with the approach adopted by BT local government in terms of the documentation it received and the product demonstrations.

Following on from the initial installation, Copeland is expected to grow its capability by adding more front line and back office users.

Surrey County Council is piloting CRM with its Contact Central product. The council's existing call centre operation has been very successful in serving the local community but as a part of the authority's programme of network modernisation and the desire to introduce voice over IP (VoIP) technology, the call centre is to be replaced with BT's Contact Central.

BT's local government e-CRM specialist Peter Winsche said: 'When we incorporated the Contact Central solution into our portfolio, we quickly realised that while we had a world leading product, we had to focus on our marketplace and the product's ability to add value for our clients.

'This entailed much market research and listening to the specific requirements of clients within the sector. We had to display a flexibility and focus in our approach which complemented the clear technical advantages offered by Contact Central."

Nick Turner, another BT local government e-CRM specialist, said: 'With Contact Central, BT is able to offer the council the ability to advance significantly its planned CRM trial.

"The new system will have a 17 seat call centre supporting Surrey's own IT helpdesk and a 29 seat contact centre with CRM capability managing citizens' enquiries."