5th November 2007 – Irwell Valley has chosen Redstone Converged Solutions, a leading provider of converged IP solutions, to provide an IPFX contact centre to save time, reduce costs, simplify processes and improve tenant service.

The £160,000 deal includes implementation across Irwell Valley’s sites in Manchester, Bolton, Sale and Denton.

Irwell Valley’s sites previously had separate telephony systems which were approaching their end-of-life. An internal review identified the need to improve technology in order to monitor call volumes and handle the traffic anticipated from introducing freephone lines for resident services.

The IPFX solution deployed at Irwell Valley includes IP handsets and interactive voice response. Functions include virtual queuing, allowing callers to log their query without losing their place in the queue, last agent routing which redirects a caller back to the last agent they spoke to, and the ability for agents to see when colleagues with specific skills are available or taking calls.

Tenant focus groups were involved in the telephony review and residents were impressed by the advanced functionality of the IPFX solution, particularly the call logging feature. Agents welcomed the managed call flow as a means of improving customer service.

Jill Clarke, Irwell Valley’s Network Manager, said: “We reviewed five alternative bids but the IPFX based system, coupled with Redstone’s expertise and understanding of housing associations, surpassed our expectations.

“Our 30 contact centre staff and 150 back office employees have found IPFX easy to use. For callers, last agent routing, logging their place in a call queue, and the ability to route calls to agents with the appropriate skills are features which have proven the value of our choice.”

Paul Kennedy, Managing Director, Redstone Converged Solutions, said: “Our intention was to advise and support Irwell Valley in improving tenant experience. By recommending a robust and flexible solution the association has integrated its four sites and can strengthen and grow its service offering.”

The Irwell Valley project is the latest step in Redstone’s work with housing associations, which includes Dominion Housing Group and East Thames Housing.

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Press Contact:
Neil Drake
Chameleon PR
0161 435 6450/ 07779 485116
neil@chameleonpr.com