Leeds City Council’s Sabio IP contact centre shortlisted for Best Service Award at 2006 Excellence in Public Procurement Awards

Sabio-designed contact centre helps Leeds citizens to access their council services using a wider range of communication methods using e-mail, voice and the Web

Sabio managed service provides ongoing support for all Leeds systems and applications for next five years

LONDON –8 May, 2006 – Sabio has announced that its major £1.8 million project with Leeds City Council has been shortlisted for the Best Service Award at this year’s Government Opportunities Excellence in Public Procurement Awards which are being held at a ceremony in London on 6th June. Based on the latest multimedia IP technology, Leeds City Council’s contact centre aims to resolve 80 per cent of Leeds citizens’ enquiries at the first point of contact.

According to Leeds City Council’s Head of Contact Centres, Paddy Clarke: “It’s great for Sabio to be shortlisted for the Best Service Award as it recognises how Sabio is working closely with our contact centre team here at Leeds to achieve a major step forward in terms of the service we can provide to our citizens. We were determined that we weren’t going to just throw technology at our project – that’s why we engaged with a partner such as Sabio who could help us identify and deploy the right technologies, identify how our new multimedia contact centre needed to interact with our existing processes, and work with us to help address the people issues involved.

The Government Opportunities Excellence in Public Procurement Awards are open to organisations of all sizes that have delivered a contract requirement in partnership with the public sector. Following the success of the initial project, the team at Leeds City Council are now working with Sabio to identify further ways that they can use their IP-based contact centre infrastructure to further improve services for local citizens. Examples include using IP technology to communicate more cost-effectively between council operations, a development that is expected to translate directly into positive outcomes for Leeds citizens thanks to the delivery of improved services.

“Our partnership with Leeds City Council has again shown how by adopting a ‘customer-focused’ approach, organisations can enable major service transformations,” added Sabio’s Consulting Director Ken Hitchen. “At Sabio we’ve built up a strong track record in delivering effective citizen access solutions, and we’re looking forward to a strong and lasting partnership with Leeds City Council.”

The Sabio-designed multimedia IP contact centre solution will provide Leeds citizens with multimedia access to key services, and houses some 250 agents and 70 back-office staff, capable of handling in excess of 30,000 inbound calls every week. Sabio openly managed the project so that the council could easily integrate seven customer contact sites into one and significantly improve the service provided to its citizens.

Sabio designed and project managed the implementation, and will support the integrated multimedia IP contact centre solution and applications for the council for the next five years as part of an ongoing Managed Service contract. As part of this, Sabio will provide on-site resource for the first 18 months to assist and train the council support team in the administration and optimisation of its contact centre systems and applications.

About the Excellence in Public Procurement Awards
The Government Opportunities (GO) Excellence in Public Procurement Awards celebrate the success of individuals and teams working within procurement. This year’s Awards have been reviewed with several more categories added to ensure that a broad range of public procurement professionals can enter. For more information on the 2006 event or to see details of the 2005 review, please go to www.n3pd.com

About Leeds City Council
Leeds City Council was established in 1974 and it is now the second largest metropolitan local authority in England. It employs approximately 35,000 people and delivers more than 500 different local authority services to the city of Leeds and its 715,000 residents. Visit www.leeds.gov.uk