"Trained agents are on standby around the clock to give Waterforce customers an immediate emergency helpline in the event of an incident"
Emergency cover on tap
Waterforce was formed six years ago and is a consortium of 14 water companies based in and around Great Britain. It was set up to produce a stronghold of smaller water companies who did not have access to a large call centre facility.
In a typical week Waterforce member companies may receive anything up to 5000 calls per day and during times of a crisis that number can double. Typical crisis scenarios may include burst mains, water shortages, discoloration and contamination.
Even though Waterforce company members have their own call centres which handle day-to-day enquires, it was decided that to cope effectively in a crisis it would need to draft in an outsourced call centre to handle the overflow.
Objective
Waterforce was looking for a call centre facility that could answer all their calls within a given number of seconds of the phone ringing, day or night and especially in times of high call volumes. To satisfy new guidelines of the Office of Water Services (OFWAT) calls must be answered to a high standard of customer care - companies are now measured on customer satisfaction through a series of surveys carried out by OFWAT over the year.
Waterforce turned to Prolog Connect to provide overflow and contingency call handling services. A key part of Waterforce's crisis planning was conducting regular crisis simulation exercises in conjunction with Prolog Connect to ensure all the agents were properly briefed in how to deal with any emergency situations.
The simulation exercises are conducted monthly and involve Waterforce employee's acting as customers in a crisis situation calling into Prolog Connect's call centre. The situations vary and are held on a pre-agreed time and date. The only people who are aware of the simulations are the contact centre manager and duty manager at Prolog Connect and, of course, Waterforce.
The Project
Prolog is on call for Waterforce 24 hours a day, seven days a week. To deal with this level of service, Prolog has three teams who are rotated to cover shifts during a 24-hour period. When a crisis arises the duty manager is notified and he in turn organises his crisis management team.
By the terms of the agreement between the two companies, Prolog must provide any of the companies with the Waterforce group with up to 100 agents within four hours.
Although there have been no major disaster situations since the two companies began working together, there have been numerous crisis incidents. One of the companies within Waterforce recently used the Prolog facility. During the winter months, a burst pipe in that company's area meant that Prolog was called into action. Within hours the call centre line had been diverted to Prolog's Nottingham location and their training was put to the test.
But it is not only crisis situations when Prolog is called up: During a recent company training exercise, Prolog handled Scottish Waters day- to-day call centre facility whilst the training sessions took place.
The Requirement for Waterforce
Outsourced, round-the-clock emergency support to handle, in the short or long term, large customer call volumes resulting from a major incident affecting Britain's water supply.
The Solution
Prolog Connect's campaign hardened contingency support teams able to offer 24x7 back up whenever it's needed.
The Results
Security for one of Britain's leading consortia of water companies, and peace of mind for their customers who will always have an open line for information, help and advice when they need it.