Press release
ntl’s automated customer response solution takes off in BAA
airports
- Three year contract to deliver solution to Edinburgh,
Glasgow, Aberdeen and Southampton airports
- Delivering real time flight and airport services
information
- Enabling BAA to improve efficiency and customer
service
19 May 2004 – ntl’s business division, a
leading provider of communications services has won a three year
contract to deliver an automated customer response solution to four
of BAA’s busy UK airports.
ntl has installed Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology in
Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Southampton, enabling passengers
to call up for real time flight information. In addition, calls can
be routed to any of the airport business partners, including car
hire companies and hotels, and other airport services. ntl is
already working with BAA to provide communications infrastructure
to Heathrow’s Terminal 5.
Over 19 million passengers every year use the four BAA airports
that have installed the automated system, which is based on ntl’s
Customer Contact Management (CCM) solution. Before installing IVR,
staff handled all calls at three of the airports and the fourth had
a single site automated system. Now staff can concentrate on being
more traveller-focused and dealing with complex telephone queries,
whilst the ntl solution handles the simple calls.
Information requested by a caller is delivered via concatenated
speech, a synthesised speech system that splices and rearranges
recorded words and phrases into sentences. BAA can also elect to
play a specific message at the start of every customer call, for
instance to announce weather conditions or news of a major event
that might affect all travellers, which can be removed or updated
instantaneously.
Hugh Aitken, Head of Strategy and Business Performance at BAA said:
“ntl’s technical solution was head and shoulders above others we
considered, not just in terms of meeting the requirements of our
passengers, but in terms of the resilience it could offer and the
contingency built into the system. Since installing at the end of
February we’ve been able to improve our customer service in two
ways; firstly staff that previously spent time dealing with simple
phone enquiries have been freed up, and they can now focus on
travellers on-site and more complex calls. Secondly customers that
phone in with simple queries are being given real-time
information.”
Simon Tse, Business Services Director, ntl Celtic Region, said: “We
all strive to deliver excellent customer service, and automated
customer response solutions play an important part in that delivery
- they’re an every day part of business nowadays. Our customer
management solutions offer leading edge functionality such as
concatenated speech systems, IVR technology and advanced reporting
tools, and because they are flexible we can specifically meet our
customer’s requirements. And as someone that frequents Glasgow
airport in particular I’m delighted ntl is providing the IVR
solution.”
ntl’s Customer Contact Management services provide advanced inbound
voice number translation for non-geographic number services
including Freephone, Local rate and National rate calls. Customers
can enhance their service by selecting one of five optional
packages, including functionality such as time of day routing, area
code routing and Network IVR, plus a range of new features provided
by Cisco’s ICM platform