Datapoint: Datapoint underpins O2’s customer service strategy

• £10 million managed service contract to create virtual, multi-channel IP contact centre, centralising over 80 million calls & SMS messages

• One of Europe’s largest IP contact centre migrations

Datapoint, a leading communication systems integrator for businesses announced today a £10 million, five year managed services contract with O2, a leading communications company for consumers and businesses. Datapoint has created a virtual, multi-channel contact centre linking all of O2’s UK core contact centres. It provides O2 customers with a fast, efficient service via phone and SMS messages and, in the future, will offer the ability to integrate other communication channels such as social media.

Datapoint, with its expertise in enterprise communication and customer service systems, will be integral to supporting O2’s customer experience for implementation of O2’s strategy by developing new communication channels. Providing the communication framework, Datapoint has created a virtual, IP-based contact centre for O2 in the UK for the first time. This links 6,000 agents in O2’s six contact centres across: Warrington, Leeds, Bury, Rotherham, Manchester and Glasgow, managing over 80 million phone calls each year.

As part of the contract, Datapoint has not only implemented the virtual contact centre but will now provide a 24 hours a day, seven days a week managed service to eliminate any bottlenecks before they impact customers. A key element will be the provision of consultancy services to help O2 shape its customer contact and management strategy. This includes quarterly ‘Customer Service Innovation Workshops’. In the workshops, Datapoint will support O2 to evaluate new communication technologies for the virtual contact centre such as natural language speech recognition. This will help O2 to improve customer service in the future by increasing the use of such technologies to give customers a greater choice of communication channels.

Jim Kent, CEO of Datapoint said, “O2 is investing in what is one of the largest and most complex, virtual IP contact centres in Europe as part of its vision to differentiate the customer experience. Our team has spent over 3,000 man days to implement the IP contact centre which enables O2 to be even more agile in communicating and rolling out new services to its customers.”

Gareth Turpin, head of Strategy and Operations, Sales & Service, O2 added, “Datapoint’s communication and customer service infrastructure will help us double  the number of our customer ‘fans’ by the end of 2011 as we step up service for our customers regardless of which channel they communicate with us – whether it’s via the phone one day or Facebook the other.”

Datapoint’s dedicated, ten-strong services team will monitor and manage what is one of Europe’s largest IP contact centre installations. The open-standards based system will provide business continuity across two data centres and integrate the following: Nectar proactive monitoring and managed services software; existing Genesys call routing, workforce management and customer interaction management systems; Avaya interactive voice response and switching; Qfiniti voice and data recording; HP and Sun enterprise servers; NetApp storage;  and an Oracle database.

In the future, the system can integrate Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) to further increase flexibility.

Also, other European contact centres and communication channels can be integrated easily to enhance customer service (from SMS to social media with Twitter and Facebook; webchat; and instant messaging). This is part of O2’s vision to give customers a greater choice of channels with which to communicate with O2.

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Notes To Editors

About Datapoint
Datapoint is a communication systems integrator for businesses. It specialises in providing contact centre, unified communication and IP telephony systems for enterprises, supported by the most comprehensive services portfolio in the industry.  Differentiating Datapoint is its unparalleled understanding of voice communication – and its ability to integrate, implement and service communication applications that underpin its customers’ business processes.

The company is an Avaya Platinum Business Partner and an accredited partner of, amongst others, Corebridge, Genesys, Nexidia, NICE, Nuance, Polycom, Presence, Sipera and Verint. Datapoint serves more than 550 customers operating from 5,000 locations from 40 different countries in conjunction with the ‘Intelligent Communications Alliance’ which it founded. Headquartered in London, the company has 10 offices in Europe and the Middle East.

http://www.datapoint.com/News.aspx

About O2

• Telefónica UK Limited is a leading communications company for consumers and businesses in the UK, with 22.3 million mobile customers and over 700,000 fixed broadband customers, as at 31 March 2011.

• Telefónica UK Limited is part of Telefónica Europe plc, a business division of Telefónica S.A. which uses O2 as its commercial brand in the UK, Ireland, Slovakia, Germany and the Czech Republic, and has 56.9 million customers across these markets.

• O2 is the naming rights partner of The O2, the world-class entertainment venue.

• O2 employs around 11,000 people in the UK and has 450 retail stores.

• In October 2010 O2 was voted the UK’s best mobile network by the readers of both What Mobile and Mobile Choice magazine.

• O2 was ranked highest in customer satisfaction for both UK mobile and fixed broadband customers according to the J.D. Power and Associates UK Mobile and Fixed Broadband Studies 2010.

• O2’s UK 2G mobile network provides voice and data services which are available to 99% of the UK’s population.

• O2’s UK 3G (HSPA+ 900 / 2100 MHz) network currently provides voice and high speed data services of up to 14.4Mbps (21Mbps in the coming months) which are available to over 84% of the UK population.

• O2 was the first UK operator to deploy a 4G/LTE trial network which has demonstrated peak speeds of over 100Mbps to a mobile device.

• Telefónica Europe also owns 50% of Tesco Mobile, which operates in the UK and Ireland, and 50% of Tchibo Mobilfunk in Germany. 

• For further press information about O2 go to www.o2.co.uk/news 

For more information please contact:
Daniel Bausor 
Famous4 Communications
Tel: +44(0)7701 094980  
Email: dbausor@famous4comms.co.uk  

Neil Pattie
Famous4 Communications
+44 (0)7784 086530
npattie@famous4comms.co.uk