Experian Case Study

The Business Information division within Experian®, the global information solutions company, identified the need for a number of communications solutions to support key objectives: increasing efficiency, improving customer service and reducing overhead costs. Any solutions chosen had to integrate within the company’s existing Meridian PBX network and had to meet stringent information and systems security requirements given the nature of the company’s high profile business.

• TeleWare was chosen as the supplier for this deployment within Experian for four key reasons:
• TeleWare’s ability to offer the three identified solutions as standard products.
• TeleWare’s ability to support a wide range of proven communications solutions on a single scalable platform. This would allow future requirements to be met whilst protecting the company’s initial investment.
• TeleWare’s credibility within the marketplace – 20 of the FTSE 100 use TeleWare.
• TeleWare’s ability to satisfy Experian’s integration and security requirements.

Effective Use of Offshore Outsourcing

Experian’s Business Information division has been successfully outsourcing data processing for 12 years. As a part of its continuous improvement measures to reduce overhead costs and to focus employees’ time on value-added tasks, a decision had been taken to outsource a range of transactional / repetitive support services. To ensure that the potential gains were maximised, it was essential that the working interface between Experian’s own staff and its outsourced resource was as efficient as possible, bearing in mind differences in time zones. In many cases, one-way communication, to allocate a task to the support service, is all that is required and it was decided that the use of VoiceForms provided an ideal solution, available 24/7.To raise a request for support (e.g. booking of travel arrangements or hotel accommodation), staff dial a specific number to access the required VoiceForm service from any telephone. The user then responds to a series of recorded prompts by speaking the response e.

g. “Please speak your name and press the star key to terminate.” [response] “Please enter your cost centre code, terminated by star” etc.The series of responses are strung together and held in a voice mailbox for subsequent retrieval by one of the appropriate outsourced personnel. Mailbox password protection guards against unauthorised access while at the same time enabling new messages to be retrieved by any one of a team of authorised support staff from any location.

Customised VoiceForm applications can be readily implemented by the customer using the TeleWare intelligent Application Builder software package (previously known as Visual TeleWare). A range of options to notify the arrival of new messages is supported.

Voice Activated Dialling Increases Efficiency

When needing to phone a colleague, particularly if away from their desk and unable to access a company telephone directory, staff would often call their secretary or the switchboard operator first, simply because they didn’t know the telephone number of the person they needed to contact.Staff can now dial the NameDialler number and speak the name of the person they want. The system announces the name of the person it believes is required and asks the caller to confirm this is correct by answering yes or no. If correct, the caller is connected to the appropriate number.

If incorrect, they are asked to repeat the name of the person required.The NameDialler solution provided by TeleWare has a very high accuracy rate and can be ‘educated’ to deal with particularly difficult names or strong accents. Not only has the solution proved very popular with users, it has virtually eliminated the time spent by the operators and secretaries handling internal phone number queries, freeing their time for more productive work.

Intelligent Office™ Empowers Flexible Working

The Business Information division employs some 80 sales staff and 20 other ‘mobile’ staff who spend a significant percentage of their time away from their desks, for example – in meetings, at other offices, travelling between sites. Previously, callers might have to try several numbers – their normal extension number, a secretary’s number, another extension or external number, a home number or mobile phone number – before finally reaching the person required.

Intelligent Number (iN), the TeleWare Personal Number component of its intelligent Office solution, allows staff to be always contactable on the same number, irrespective of their current location, whilst avoiding the unnecessary use of mobile phones with their comparatively expensive call charges. With iN, each user ‘pulls’ their calls to their current location by dialling into the service, from any landline or mobile phone, and entering their user number and password. Calls can be automatically routed to any telephone device that can be dialled directly, without the limitations of normal extension divert facilities typically provided by traditional telephone systems.If the intelligent Number user is unavailable, busy on another call or fails to answer within a designated number of rings, calls may be rerouted to a secretary, nominated colleague or support team member. If no other option is available, calls pass to the user’s personal voice mailbox and the user can be notified of the arrival of new messages in a variety of ways.Web Assistant enables users to control call routing, view details of missed calls, access voicemail and faxes sent to their intelligent Number via an intuitive graphical user interface using a standard browser such as MS Internet Explorer – no special software is required on the user’s PC or laptop.

A further TeleWare component deployed by Experian enables a user’s email to be ‘read’ to them using text-to-speech technology. Emails can now be read and replied to using any landline or mobile phone.

Customer-Hosted Solution

TeleWare software applications are offered as an On-Premises solution, where TeleWare normally supplies a suitably configured hardware platform at the customer site, or as a Hosted Service.In this instance, to satisfy Experian’s stringent IT policies, the TeleWare software was installed on a suitable hardware platform, specified by TeleWare but sourced by the customer. TeleWare provided a range of Professional Services to help ensure a successful implementation and rollout.