
Diabetes Victoria boosts contact centre capacity with QPC
Diabetes Victoria is a peak consumer body and leading charity representing all people affected by diabetes and those at risk of developing diabetes. They help all people affected by diabetes contribute to the search for a cure. Our work covers type 1, type 2 and gestational diabetes, as well as programs for those at risk. Diabetes Victoria has 40,000 financial members and provides support and services to more than 300,000 people across the state that are affected by diabetes.
The Challenge
As the number of people diagnosed with diabetes continues to rise, Diabetes Victoria is finding itself under increasing pressure to provide support. Staff are constantly seeking ways to improve productivity and ensure the standard of the services being provided remains consistently high.
During early 2016, it became clear to senior management that the organisation’s contact centre in Campbellfield, Melbourne, was in need of a capacity boost.
"We had reached the stage where our existing phone system was no longer able to provide the level of support required by the organisation.
The 17-seat infrastructure could not be expanded to meet increasing call volumes and had limited linkages to our Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, which made it challenging for agents to access the records and information they require when handling calls."Lalith Abeysena, Chief Operating Officer, Diabetes Victoria.
The Solution
Working with existing technology partner QPC, Diabetes Victoria reviewed a range of alternative telephone platforms that could replace the legacy telephony infrastructure. After undertaking a series of comparative tests, a decision was taken in mid 2016 to deploy PureCloud by Genesys.
"We could see that PureCloud offered all the functionality we required, both for our state-based activities and also for the potentially expanded role of a national contact centre"
Lalith Abeysena, Chief Operating Officer, Diabetes Victoria.
Working with the Diabetes Victoria in-house IT team, QPC configured the cloud-based telephony platform and integrated it with the organisation’s Salesforce.com CRM system. The entire project was completed and the new system went live within 12 weeks.
The Benefits
Once the contact centre’s agent team had been fully trained on the new telephony platform, the benefits provided by the new infrastructure quickly became evident. Agents can now readily access client details with screen pops displaying information as soon as calls are received.
“Records of previous interactions are instantly available, which means callers don’t have to explain past calls and requests for information.
The call blending and predictive dialling capabilities of PureCloud allow agents to make outbound calls during quiet periods, significantly improving productiity and the levels of customer service.”Lalith Abeysena, Chief Operating Officer, Diabetes Victoria.
The organisation estimates that overall productivity within the centre has improved by 25% as a direct result of the PureCloud deployment. Call abandonment rates, which had been running at more than 20%, have declined to less than 6%.
As an additional feature, QPC has also installed wall boards within the contact centre. These provide a visual representation of the facility’s operations by showing metrics such as call volumes, wait times and agent productivity. This allows managers to deploy resources in the most effective way, ensuring customer service levels are consistently high.
Because PureCloud is a cloud-based infrastructure, the contact centre’s resources can be quickly scaled up to meet increases in demand. This has put Diabetes Victoria in a strong position to become the location for the national contact centre later in 2017.
“QPC continues to be a very valuable partner for us,” says Lalith. “We are not experts in technology and so we rely on their knowledge to ensure our operations remain as efficient and effective as possible.” Lalith says the close working relationship with QPC will ensure the contact centre can continue to be expanded as the future requirements of Diabetes Victoria evolve.