Guildford, Surrey-based Britannic Telecom Ltd has launched an entry-level automatic call distribution system, on the back of its call managememt system, MINC. Delegate, the automatic call distribution system, uses MINC hardware but has new software, dedicated to automatic call distribution. As such, it’s aimed at firms which rely on answering calls promptly for their livelihood, such as busy property brokers. The system can handle up to 32 lines. Delegate has all the usual ACD facilities, designed to get maximum effort out of the employee. Features include force feeding users – giving them no choice about whether they answer a call – personal identification numbers, so users can log on to any phone, and barring, which prevents users calling out on certain numbers, 0898 entertainment lines for example. Status information about each employee is displayed on a personal computer for the supervisor, and updated in real time. Britannic prides itself that the system can make users account for all the time they are not on the phone. There is, for example, a paperwork facility, so that supervisors can judge how long it is taking employees to fill in the forms – and employees cannot use the lots of paperwork excuse to completely log out of the system. Wrap up is a predetermined amount of time after a call is completed for which an extension is kept free of incoming calls to enable the user to write any notes or send information to the company database. Information is imported to the company’s database via ASCII files. Delegate does not have any relational database or even spreadsheet facilities of its own, it can only print out collected information from the supervisor’s terminal in tabular form. Despite this, Britannic is hoping to sell Delegate not only as a call distribution and management system, but as a marketing and advertising information aid. An enquiry feature enables users to collect market research information from the client such as where in the country they are calling from or where they saw the company’s advertisement. Britannic maintains the system for a fee of UKP1,000 per year. As well as basic maintenance and fault clearances, the Guildford centre can emulate information sent from internal modem in any system, so Britannic can see what the problem is. If neccessary the supervisor can be locked out while problems are dealt with. The system is UKP18,000 for 10 lines, rising to UKP30,000 for 30 lines.
