Auckland Council signs TelstraClear for call centre solution
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Contract will bring together eight call centre operations
By Sarah Putt | Auckland | Tuesday, 4 December, 2012 | 9 Comments
TelstraClear has won the contract to standardise Auckland Council’s call centres, it was announced yesterday.
The contract is intended to bring together the customer call centre operations from the eight councils that were amalgamated to form the Auckland Council two years ago.
“The systems we inherited at the time of amalgamation no longer serve an organisation of Auckland Council’s size and we will replace it with a single cost-effective model that’ll serve our needs for years,” says manager of customer services Nigel King.
The council estimates that “investing in this call centre solution will have an overall benefit of $7.3 million as well as making its customer contact systems more efficient.”
Computerworld asked how much the contract is worth but has been told this is commercially sensitive information.
In a Request for Expression of Interest for a city-wide contact centre operation released by the council in December 2011, it said there were three core call centre platforms at Grey's Ave, Henderson and Manukau, each with intelligent links to the Cisco Unified Contact Centre Enterprise hosted by Gen-i. Telephony in eight contact centres located around Auckland was supplied by Nortel, Ericsson, Cisco and Avaya.
The document also said it is expected around 300 agents will work in contact centres around the city, handling an annual volume of work that includes:
- around 3 million calls to the call centre team
- 164,274 written contacts to the written communication team
- 77, 235 calls to IS Service Desk.
In a statement welcoming the deal, TelstraClear notes that it was bought by Vodafone last month and that Vodafone has been delivering mobile voice and data services to the council for two years. “When added to the call centre partnership, Auckland Council is enjoying the benefits of TelstraClear and Vodafone combined.”
Comments
so many calls,...
wow,... so many calls. I wonder how many of them are complaints?
work takes way to long to get done, so countless callbacks (ever tried subdiving your section?). futile calls trying to get out of over zealous parking wardens,.... (sigh)... when will the next data centre be built?
Posted by Anonymous at 9:03:21 on December 5, 2012
work takes way to long to get done, so countless callbacks (ever tried subdiving your section?). futile calls trying to get out of over zealous parking wardens,.... (sigh)... when will the next data centre be built?
Posted by Anonymous at 9:03:21 on December 5, 2012
Someone please grab the purse strings
I expect this will become yet another complete bollocks of a project. Technology first, people and processes last, as usual. They will rush the techies in to provide the perfect solution, without considering what the actual problem is. Cue budget blowout, happy consultants, sad ratepayers.
The simple fact is that Auckland Council don't have the intellectual horsepower at any level to make sensible decisions around IT. Someone please stop them from pissing my rates away!
Posted by Anonymous at 18:37:38 on December 4, 2012
The simple fact is that Auckland Council don't have the intellectual horsepower at any level to make sensible decisions around IT. Someone please stop them from pissing my rates away!
Posted by Anonymous at 18:37:38 on December 4, 2012
Information request lodged
Computerworld has lodged a request for the dollar value of the TelstraClear contract under the Local Government Official Information and Meeting Act.
Posted by Sarah Putt at 14:40:13 on December 4, 2012
Posted by Sarah Putt at 14:40:13 on December 4, 2012
Cost
"An overall benefit of $7.3 million". In other words, cheaper than it was. "As well as making its customer contact systems more efficient". So, better too.
Value for money is what matters. To argue otherwise guarantess you the product or service that you deserve - lower cost but even less value.
Posted by Anonymous at 16:12:21 on December 4, 2012
Value for money is what matters. To argue otherwise guarantess you the product or service that you deserve - lower cost but even less value.
Posted by Anonymous at 16:12:21 on December 4, 2012
Cost
Auckland Council have just got back to me to say this is commercially sensitive information. Have updated the article.
Cheers Sarah.
Posted by Sarah Putt at 12:07:05 on December 4, 2012
Cheers Sarah.
Posted by Sarah Putt at 12:07:05 on December 4, 2012
Cost
Didn't Len say something about openness? Nice of him to spend my money without telling me how. I'll just dig deeper into my pockets...
Posted by Anonymous at 14:12:52 on December 4, 2012
Posted by Anonymous at 14:12:52 on December 4, 2012
Cost
Aren't the rate payers entitled to know what their money is being spent on? Time for an Official Information Request?
Posted by Kit at 14:08:11 on December 4, 2012
Posted by Kit at 14:08:11 on December 4, 2012
Cost
Are ratepayers entitled to know?
Good question.
There is fine balance between being open about the cost and commercial sensitivity.
TCL may have quoted a really low price on condition that it remains confidential because they don't want competitors and / or other potential customers to know just how low they are prepared to go.
If this is the case then ratepayers benefit from the confidentiality clause.
Posted by Andy at 13:15:38 on December 5, 2012
Good question.
There is fine balance between being open about the cost and commercial sensitivity.
TCL may have quoted a really low price on condition that it remains confidential because they don't want competitors and / or other potential customers to know just how low they are prepared to go.
If this is the case then ratepayers benefit from the confidentiality clause.
Posted by Andy at 13:15:38 on December 5, 2012
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