As an organisation offering advice and support to the needy, it’s vital to CAP that calls from those seeking help are answered as quickly and efficiently as possible and routed through to their dedicated caseworker or to an appropriate member of their team.
TeleWare supplied a communications server which was integrated with CAP’s Asterisk open source PBX via a SIP interface. The server provides Auto Attendant, Personal Numbering and Call Recording services, together with a reporting toolset. The system handles some 15,000 calls each month, of which around 1,600 are from new people seeking debt help and around 9,000 from existing clients.
All calls are answered promptly by the Auto Attendant and directed to the appropriate member of staff. Staff are able to log on and receive calls at the phone most convenient to them. If a caseworker is unavailable, the system will try to place the call with another member of their team before inviting the caller to leave a message.
“We found the TeleWare system has a rich feature-set with easy set-up, in contrast to our previous system which had the potential for a lot of features but a lot of bespoke development would have been needed,” said Martin Foster from CAP. “Since installing the TeleWare system, our call answer rates have doubled. We’re now able to offer a better service to clients whilst making best use of the charity’s finite resources,” added Foster.
CAP wanted a reporting mechanism to better understand how well they were performing in terms of their call answering and identify areas for improvement to ensure they provide the best possible service with finite resources. The system provides CAP with statistical information, real time & historical, giving them accurate management data on how well they are doing at answering calls. An added benefit is the increased awareness of what happens at each stage of a call. This has helped CAP analyse their Auto Attendant to see where callers are dropping out.
A further requirement was an affordable solution enabling them to record calls and store them securely, despite staff working across a wide geographic area.