X terminal and printer manufacturer Tektronix Inc has given the Merchant Group its customer support to manage. The Merchant Group was created from a marriage between two UK consultancy companies, Corby, Northampton-based Programmes’ telebusiness consultancy and London-based Merchants management consultancy, in a #10m management buyout by Merchant from Dutch parent company ISTE BV. Tektronix’s 30 employees, dedicated to providing global customer support, will move to the Merchant Group’s newly opened support site in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire; they will be linked to Textronix’s database at the company’s UK headquarters in Marlowe, Buckinghamshire, via a central Unix hub, enabling them to access information that will help solve users’ problems. The centre offers multi-lingual support to Textronix customers world-wide. Incoming calls are processed by an Automatic Call Distribution and PABX system. Using a AT&T Global Information Solutions Definity G3i PABX, the country of the call’s origin can be identified and the call directed to the first available operator able to speak the appropriate language. The operator will be alerted to the call by a ‘pop’ that appears on the screen, and can pull up the caller’s details and a script in the relevant language. Basic queries are scripted in the appropriate language. According to Tektronix, 60% of customers’ calls centre on one or other of 10 basic questions. Unanswered questions are referred back to the company via the link to the headquarters database. Operators can also use the database to flag broken equipment and to activate services calls in the relevant country. According to David Cullen, strategic manager for The Merchant Group, Tetronix has led what he predicts will become a growing trend towards facilities management from computer peripheral manufacturers.
