South Wales Police revolutionises 999 service with IP telephony and collaborative contact centre

MILTON KEYNES, England, June 26, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- South Wales Police has consolidated all call handling to a single Public Service Centre which now handles both non-emergency and emergency calls. The Centre, which is one of the first to do so, has already generated internal cost savings on South Wales Police's entire voice estate and its contact centre estate.

Siemens Enterprise Communications' OpenScape Contact Center and the underlying OpenScape Voice technology ensures that all calls are handled effectively and efficiently by a single scalable core platform. Enabling technology cost savings, property consolidation and other efficiency savings, the new contact centre has resulted in the force meeting reduced public spending. Contributing millions of pounds of savings over a four year period.

Agents were previously expected to pick up the call, handle the enquiry, dispatch and resolve the issue without access to real-time information. Now, integrated with the force's existing OpenScape Voice infrastructure, OpenScape Contact Center has improved 999 call response times and effectiveness. First call resolution rates have increased through intelligent skills-based routing as calls are now graded according to priority and directed to the appropriate, specialised agent in the first instance.

Siemens Enterprise Communications worked in partnership with South Wales Police during the transition phase, resulting in a positive public experience through intensive training and an on-going train-the-trainer approach, leading to higher skill levels in all staff.

Tracey Cook, Public Service Centre Manager for South Wales Police, says: "Emergency 999 calls are our number one priority. This means we need guaranteed performance and scalability from our infrastructure.  We cannot have technical failures impacting our service to the public, and we are extremely impressed with the reliability and resilience of the OpenScape Contact Center.  Siemens Enterprise Communications' faultless support was essential to the success of the project.  The professional changeover was essential, as an emergency service can't have any periods of outage or disrupted services."

George Aristidou, Sales Director, Public Sector, Siemens Enterprise Communications, comments: "We are proud to support South Wales Police and to be at the forefront of emergency services calls. With OpenScape Contact Center, based on IPT softswitch technology,  agents are now equipped with the best tools possible to do their job, and the public are receiving the highest quality and critical customer service, all from one centre. It is only a matter of time before others follow."

About Siemens Enterprise Communications

Siemens Enterprise Communications is a leading global provider of unified communications (UC) solutions and network infrastructure for enterprises of all sizes. Leveraging 160 years of experience, we deliver innovation and quality to the world's most successful companies, backed by a world-class services portfolio which includes international multi-vendor managed and outsourcing capabilities.

Our OpenScape communications solutions provide a seamless and efficient collaboration experience – on any device – which amplifies collective effort and dramatically improves business performance.

Together, our global team of UC experts and service professionals set the standards for a rich communications experience that empowers teams to deliver better results.

Siemens Enterprise Communications is a joint venture of The Gores Group and Siemens AG, and includes Enterasys Networks, a provider of network infrastructure and security solutions, creating a complementary and complete enterprise communications solutions portfolio.

For more information, please visit:
www.siemens-enterprise.com or www.enterasys.com

Siemens Enterprise Communications GmbH & Co. KG is a Trademark Licensee of Siemens AG.

SOURCE Siemens Enterprise Communications

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