The University of Winchester case study

Every day, Universities receive a colossal number of phone calls from individuals ranging from students and staff members to marketing agencies and donors. It is crucial therefore, that the telephone systems of Universities are specially adapted to manage and deal with such a high number of calls in the most efficient and effective way possible; satisfying the caller, the call-centre staff, and the University.

The University of Winchester recognised the importance of developing and maintaining this type of service. They invited HeadChannel to develop a more personalised service that would allow staff to access more information about the caller. This, they hoped, would enable them to deal with telephone requests more successfully.

How did they do this?

The solution

HeadChannel was brought in to resolve the technological issues faced by their client, the University of Winchester, and boost the efficiency and productivity of their telephone service and business needs. This was achieved by integrating the University’s Mitel-based phone system with their Radius CRM system, as well as developing a combination of desktop and web applications.

In order to appreciate the benefits of this integration, it is important to first understand the nature of the systems involved. The Mitel-based phone system is a cloud-based service, allowing multiple users to connect and collaborate remotely using the same telephone system. In a University setting, this allows callers to connect with a range of University representatives that might be physically separated, across the University site. In addition, the Radius CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system allows users to store and manage contact information. Using the Radius CRM with the telephone system therefore, allows staff members to access information about incoming callers.

By integrating the Mitel-based phone system and the Radius CRM system, the University of Winchester was able to automate many tasks previously completed manually that took up valuable time. This transformed the use of their phone system; improving the productivity, personalisation, efficiency, ease and collaborative potential of staff at the University.

How did HeadChannel benefit the University of Winchester?

Greater productivity

By removing a large bulk of administrative duties, the CRM frees up time for staff to engage in more important and challenging work. Further, the staff at the University of Winchester can now assign short notes to each phone conversation; demonstrated by the image below. This allows them to respond quickly to the needs of the caller.

Greater efficiency

Instead of manually recording new contacts, the call-centre staff at the University of Winchester can now more efficiently add a caller’s details to a blank contact form that pops up when a caller is not associated with an existing contact.

Greater collaboration

Different teams, physically separated, are able to work together using a shared online platform. This improves the opportunity for better communication and collaboration. For the new system, if a caller’s name is not recognised then staff are able to search the Radius contact database for the caller’s name. Where the number is associated with more than one contact, staff have the opportunity to select the caller’s name from the list. The image below demonstrates how easily this can be done.

A more personalised service

If a caller’s details are recognised by the system, their personal details will be displayed as soon as the call comes through. Further, whenever a call comes in, staff can now access information about any previous history of communication with the caller. The type of information available for staff is demonstrated below. This allows the staff to better understand the context of the call, even at the start of the conversation. This, in turn, makes the caller feel valued. Better understanding increases the likelihood of the caller’s needs being met more effectively and efficiently, and this increases the chance of higher caller satisfaction.

Greater ease

The use of a cloud-based CRM system removes the need for software to be installed on each computer simply to access contact information. Data becomes easier to share, update and move between teams as and when required by the service.

Outcome

By integrating the University’s Mitel-based phone service with a Radius-CRM system, as well as developing a number of applications, HeadChannel was able to effectively meet the needs of the University, and help them to build an improved and effective telephone service.

Project facts

• Team – Developers 5 (Team leader 1, Mid backend dev 3, Frontend developer 1), QA 1, BA 1, PM 1
• Project management – Waterfall
• Technology – central point of system is HRPI server. ASP.NET MVC application, VS, SQL Server, JDK, NetBeans, Softphone (Xlite/Ekiga), PacketSender