Service Personalisation in action at Call Centre Expo 2005 with Homeserve, Scottish and Southern Energy and Sky

Three household names to discuss how Sabio’s distinctive approach helps to deliver a joined-up and positive customer experience

London – 6 September 2005 – On the Innovation and Advice Centre at this year’s Call Centre Expo 2005, three Sabio customers will demonstrate how Sabio’s distinctive Service Personalisation approach has delivered real benefits for their organisations. Senior executives from Homeserve, Scottish and Southern Energy and Sky will be available on both days of Call Centre Expo to discuss how their innovative use of contact centre systems and applications are already helping them to make real improvements to their overall customer and agent experience.

Homeserve - delivering a joined-up customer service

Homeserve, the UK’s leading provider of insured repair solutions and emergency services to the home, has invested in an innovative end-to-end contact centre solution to provide a ‘joined-up’ customer service. The solution delivered by Sabio includes the virtualisation of its three contact centre sites, the use of speech recognition and CTI solutions to intelligently route calls, and a complete workforce optimisation strategy to ensure the right agents are in place.

According to Homeserve’s Head of Operations, Dean Cutler: “We had to invest in the latest contact centre systems and applications in order to drive change in how we served our growing customer base. Sabio has been a key factor in Homeserve delivering a joined-up experience for our customers.”

Giving Scottish and Southern Energy customers a positive experience

Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE), one of the largest energy companies in the UK, know how important it is to get its customer experience right. That’s why they invested in an innovative speech solution from Sabio. SSE’s Meterline application provides its customers with a positive experience when giving their meter reading.

“I firmly believe the key to business success is through providing customers with a positive experience every time they contact you,” commented John Turner, Scottish and Southern Energy’s Business Solutions Telephony Manager. “That’s what we’ve achieved by working with Sabio.”

Sky – saving £1 million a year from getting their WFM right

Sky has achieved a £1 million per annum saving by working closely with Sabio to evolve its network of large contact centres into an integrated resource with a single, automated Workforce Management (WFM) solution. This included fully integrating core HR functionality with the contact centre’s WFM solution. As a direct result, Sky’s overall productivity increased significantly, with the cost of overtime dramatically reduced and Sky benefiting from improved advisor availability.

“Sky needed more visibility over its contact centre operations and the intelligence to accurately match advisers’ skills and availability with customer demand. Due to the nature of our business, we experience substantial call peaks and spikes in inbound orders, for example around the time of a pay-per-view event, so effective forecasting and scheduling is essential,” added Penny Hicks, Sky’s Workforce Management Project Manager. “Sabio’s Workforce Optimisation consultants gave us the confidence we needed to embark on what we believe has been one of the UK’s largest WFM projects.”

Sabio is the host of the Innovation and Advice Centre at Call Centre Expo 2005, where its specialist contact centre consultants will also be on hand to provide visitors with free advice on their key people, process and technology issues. According to Sabio’s Founding Director, Adam Faulkner: “the different technology components are now in place to make Service Personalisation a reality, however what Homeserve, SSE and Sky all clearly show is that for a Service Personalisation approach to be successful, organisations need to also address the people and process issues that support such an approach, and it has to be looked at from a customer perspective.

“Although everyone would like to offer such a level of service, in reality most contact centres don’t come close. I’d encourage Call Centre Expo visitors to come along to the Innovation and Advice Centre and talk to Homeserve, SSE and Sky, and really see what a difference Service Personalisation could mean for their business,” he continued.

Sabio’s experienced contact centre consultants will also be on hand to provide Expo visitors with free advice on optimising their contact centre performance. Places are limited, so visitors need to pre-register for their appointment with Sabio online on the Innovation and Advice Centre pages at www.callcentre-expo.co.uk