West Yorkshire Combined Authority (WYCA) works with the local authorities of Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees, Leeds and Wakefield, and alongside the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP), to develop and deliver programmes and services which benefit the people of West Yorkshire. Its call centres are an important tool for connecting easily with its local community and providing easy channels of communication.
WYCA had migrated to Microsoft Teams and invested in Microsoft Azure Cloud and a Microsoft Enterprise agreement. It had been using on-premises Skype Contact Centre and had invested in hardware and licences up front. It wanted to migrate to a new, flexible, cloud contact centre which would fully integrate with Microsoft Teams and the wider organisation. It planned to deploy a Voice channel first and then add further channels as needed. Integration with Dynamics CRM was a potential future requirement.
Following a competitive tender process, Redcentric was engaged to deliver a solution. Redcentric’s omnichannel contact centre solution was identified as meeting the current and future requirements of WYCA. The cloud platform identified is hosted in Microsoft Azure and enables intelligent consumer-to-business and business-to-business interactions over multiple channels, including voice, chat and email.
The Redcentric solution consisted of:
- Number migration from the existing number range holders to Redcentric
- Omnichannel Contact Centre
- Microsoft Teams Call Recording
- Microsoft Direct Routing
Deployment began with the porting of existing phone number ranges – for both the call centre agents and the customer-facing numbers, which are used to contact WYCA, from the existing supplier to Redcentric. Microsoft Direct Routing enabled calls to be received within Microsoft Teams. The omnichannel contact centre enabled call centre functionality to be offered to Teams users giving them the future ability to handle email and chats (via webchat, SMS, WhatsApp and selected social media, such as Facebook Messenger and Twitter direct messaging).
WYCA now has a future-proof solution which will allow further communication channels to be rolled out in line with its development plans.
The Redcentric solution provided:
The contact centre service provided increased performance and reduced costs. Management overheads were reduced, and greater control achieved. A smooth migration from the existing solution was achieved, ensuring vital continuity of service and ensuring no disruption to internal users or customers within the WYCA area.
