Lafarge gains productivity with CPS Technology call centre system

Monday, 12 February 2007

Lafarge Plasterboard Australia needed to streamline and centralise its call centre system to improve efficiency and customer service. With CPS’s TeleVantage system Lafarge reduced costs, increased workloads and achieved value for money.

Lafarge Plasterboard Australia is part of the Lafarge Group’s Gypsum Division; a world leader in building materials. It has production facilities in Melbourne (Altona) and Sydney (Matraville) with the capacity to supply more than 35 million square metres of plasterboard each year. Plasterboard is distributed through a network of Lafarge PlastaMasta Centres.

The primary objectives of the customer service centre, based at Altona, are to answer calls received nationally from wholesale and retail customers and to process fax or e-mail orders. Lafarge Plasterboard needed a new system that presented excellent value for money and catered for the altered demands of today, whilst accommodating future business changes. The existing call centre system did not support current business needs. Lafarge had the following requirements:

Ability to support five PlastaMasta centres and the customer service centre, with calls easily routed between sites;
Handle quick changes in real time, for example 100 per cent call recording for verbal contracts from phone orders;
Flexibility to support new campaigns designed and executed by the customer service centre and call routing on a self-management basis;
Ease of use and intuition.

Lafarge customer services manager Karen Quinn said TeleVantage had all the features of a major corporate package, but an economical price tag.

“With the implementation of TeleVantage we now have total in-house control of our call centre operation and our customer service supervisors can set up a new call queue within 20 minutes.”

“TeleVantage is not just a piece of call centre technology; it is a true business tool designed for ease of use by the customer service staff without the need to involve theIT department when changes take place in the customer service centre,” Ms Quinn said. SolutionLafarge reviewed one other system that proved cost prohibitive and ill suited to its telephony structure. TeleVantage had the necessary functionality within budget and CPS staff had extensive call centre management knowledge. ResultsLafarge increased its workload productivity and gained more effective utilisation of resources. Customer service staff administer queues themselves through real-time online queue monitor screen. While increasing business control and agility, staff can monitor theirs, as well as the team’s, performance and now take a much higher level of ownership, increasing morale. Favourite functions include “call parking” and Instant Message (IM) to tell another busy agent a call is waiting for them, resulting in exceptional personal service. Customers can now choose to be serviced directly by their local PlastaMasta store, which has improved productivity by routing calls to the store and making better use of ‘quiet times’. Total call recording has reduced customer misunderstanding by playing back the “verbal contract” and freight and goods replacement costs have dropped. Benefits

More than 30 reports can be automatically generated and extracted to Excel for further manipulation;
Customised reporting options compress required information into one easy report;
Simplified reporting saves the customer service manager around two hours per week.

“TeleVantage has enabled us to increase our workload potential whilst achieving better utilisation of all resources,” Ms Quinn said. There has been significant cost savings for Lafarge Plasterboard as budgeted staff numbers in the call centre have reduced by 40 per cent. TeleVantage has been launched at all five Lafarge company-owned PlastaMasta stores and is working extremely efficiently. This system provides the foundation for future business expansion in the customer service arena without having to increase the existing head count. About CPS Technology Group

Founded in 1989, CPS Technology Group is a leading provider of voice and data software solutions in Australia. More information www.cpstg.com

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