Croft Technology has completed Bernicia Group’s new multi-site call centre as part of the merger of two of the north of England’s major housing associations.
The Bernicia Group was created to provide support services to Cheviot Homes and Wansbeck Homes, previously the housing department of Wansbeck District Council. The partnership provides 8000 rented properties across the north east of England.
Based on a Mitel VoIP system, Croft was responsible for the implementation of intuitive call centre facilities which direct people straight to the relevant department or advisor, a full call-recording facility, and legacy system integration. The backward compatibility of the new system allowed Bernicia to benefit immediately from the efficiencies and cost savings of the system. A gateway between the merging organisations’ phone systems all but eliminated the need for extensive staff retraining.
Gary Hind, head of ICT, Bernicia, said, “Critical to the process is good communications between multiple sites and the ability to provide a single point of contact for our tenants and stakeholders. As Wansbeck Homes will occupy council premises for the foreseeable future, it made sense to use the established voice and data infrastructure.”
He added, “Being able to dovetail the existing telephony systems with the latest in call-centre technology has enabled the group to realise efficiencies and savings on several fronts. The virtual nature of our systems has meant that we have been able to take the contact centre to our customers, allowing them to benefit from efficient call handling in a much shorter timescale.”
