Angus Council
Angus Council is committed to improving the quality of life for citizens across its 53,000 households, communities and businesses. With its telephony and contact centres fast approaching end-of-life, Angus Council approached Maintel to help implement a Ring Central solution, enabling a large scale transition to softphones to support flexible and agile working.
At a glance
Company name:
Angus Council delivers a broad range of services to its population of just under 120,000. Covering 842 square miles of the east coast of Scotland, the region includes 53,000 households across 7 historic towns and rural villages.
The issue:
End-of-life telephony and contact centre systems were limiting customer access to council services, with planned deactivation taking place within 3 months.
The project:
Maintel’s RingCentral solution enabled large-scale transition to softphones, supporting flexible and agile working. Streamlined call handling and routing would enhance the customer journey.
The outcome:
The council saved £100,000 per year moving to a fully cloud-hosted solution. Improved data and analytics enable data-driven decision making to further influence the council’s communications strategy.
The Background
Angus Council sits in an area of outstanding beauty on the east coast of Scotland. Known around the world as Scotland’s Birthplace, Angus enjoys the benefits of modern living, as well as tangible links with a colourful and historically significant past.
The council is committed to improving the quality of life for citizens across its 53,000 households, communities and businesses, while delivering greater efficiencies and reducing environmental impact.
The Challenge
The council’s existing telephony and contact centre systems – which connected the public to 100 sites – were approaching end of life. Supporting around 2,300 users and 200 call queues, the legacy solution was a combination of on-premise and cloud-hosted infrastructure. The 15-personcontact centre handled approximately 50,000 calls each quarter.
The council was facing increased demand and reduced budgets. Additionally, the infrastructure struggled to support the more agile and flexible working model introduced following the Covid pandemic. A new updated communications platform was required to improve customer service, as well as operational efficiency.
An additional challenge was the project’s tight timescale. The existing system would be deactivated just 3 months later.
Why Maintel
The council ran a tender process to select the most appropriate solution and technology partner, and Maintel was chosen to identify, deploy and support a new communications solution.
Maintel’s submission was a fully cloud-hosted telephony and contact centre system. The proposed RingCentral solution offered a reliable, secure and feature-rich platform which enabled easier and more efficient communication between the community and vital local services. Intelligent call routing and handling streamlined the customer journey and improved reporting, ensuring high levels of call responsiveness were upheld.
The enterprise-grade cloud platform was efficient, cost-effective and future-ready, and offered a secure digital workspace to keep residents’ personal data safe yet available to remote staff.
Improved functionality would include internal file sharing, video meetings, task management and messaging within a single, user-friendly system.
The Solution
Maintel’s RingCentral solution delivered cloud-based telephony and contact centre functionality with easy integration into the existing MS Teams system. Users could access calls, chat, video and customer information within a single pane instead of multiple applications.
Migration was straightforward, and the new telephony system was implemented within 6 weeks, with all users transitioned effectively before the legacy system was disconnected. Downtime and disruption to council services were minimal.
Around 1,000 users were transferred to softphones, and the other 935 physical handsets were remotely configured. Provisioning of users and handsets was straightforward, and minimal site visits were required. 99% of user setup was completed using MS systems automatic push out, with step-by-step documentation for the simple VOIP to VOIP transfers.
The new solution supports the council’s new flexible home-working policies, allowing remote staff to securely connect to the network
What are the benefits?
- Improved data analytics and reporting: Data from telephony and contact centre systems enable data-driven decision-making and support transformational change within the council.
- Reduced call volumes: Analysis of the 800K calls on the new platform in the first 6 months enables intelligent process change. Promotion of digital channels offers better end service to the customer.
- £100,000 per annum savings: By transitioning to a fully cloud-hosted solution, the council cut costs of around £100,000 per year – a 50% saving.
- Flexible remote working:Â The rollout of softphones removed the need for 1,000 physical handsets, and supports remote working for contact centre staff, allowing the closure of back-office buildings.
- Enhanced customer journey: More efficient call handling and routing enables faster issue resolution, and availability of call data assures optimal team performance.
- Single point of contact:Â The council chose to work with a single partner to provide both the telephony and contact centre, for easier support and problem resolution.
Angus Council’s cutting-edge communications system will allow easy integration of new features and emerging technologies in the future.
In the short term, Maintel is undertaking Discovery Sessions to help the Council team benefit from more of RingCentral’s existing features, including AI and automation. Website chat has been initiated, with email and workforce management functionality being introduced to further improve streamlining and efficiency.
The additional data gathered from the new solution will be used to create both internal and external dashboards detailing average call length and wait time, enhancing the contact centres’ operational visibility. Moving forward, the wealth of new data and analysis will be a critical component of the council’s developing telephony and digital roadmap and strategy.
Client Testimonial
This solution enables us to connect with our local community and engage with residents on their channel of choice. By partnering with RingCentral, Maintel has helped us transform how our team communicates both with service users and each other – and all within our budget.
Alistair McLeod, Team Leader of Innovation, Digital Enablement & IT, Angus Council.
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