Case Study: Psytechnics Helps Friends Provident With Voice Performance Management

“We’re a forward-thinking company and want to ensure that we offer customers and colleagues the best possible telephone service. In 2004, we began to look at alternatives to the incumbent phone system being used in regional Friends Provident IFA (independent financial advisor) support offices. The existing system was incredibly expensive to run; even moving an employee’s extension number to a different phone cost upwards of £10 [$19]. We initially rolled out an IPT system in our Croydon office, quickly expanding the system to all our other regional offices across the United Kingdom as an alternative to an expensive and outdated phone system,” says Sharratt.

“Shortly after, in 2005, Friends Provident became committed to revolutionizing its customer service program to deliver enhanced and unprecedented customer experience. This became known as the Friends Provident six-star customer service program. We already had an IP telephony system part deployed and it made sense to expand this solution company-wide, to remaining branches and our four head offices. We could then offer our customers cutting-edge service via a flexible, next-generation phone system,” Sharratt explains.

During the initial stages of the IP telephony rollout, the IT team became committed to delivering on the Friends Provident six-star customer service program. The company-wide initiative made the team think about how they could monitor the IP telephony network better and in a more proactive way. This simple idea became integral to the success of the IPT system, by introducing a solution that could actually monitor individual phone calls for quality.