The solution operates on the Ericsson MD-110 Convergence Communication System and provides 1,600 customer-service agents with full IP capabilities. This enables staff to manage calls from a PC via an IP soft-phone feature or over any device in any location connected to the WAN. An additional 400 employees will have remote or roaming capabilities with the help of Mobile Extension. The latter is a unique Ericsson feature that offers full PBX feature transparency that gives mobile users full access to switchboard services, such as answering services and call forwarding to other colleagues.

Folksam Contact Center Manager Per Ardehed says the implementation is a logical step that will provide the company with new opportunities to further develop its operations, in particular customer service and claims settlements: "This solution will contribute to our external efficiency by enhancing customer accessibility and cutting response times, and internally by making better and more flexible use of our entire organization."

This is the single biggest installation of Solidus eCare so far, says Peter Nilsson, Key Account Manager at Ericsson Enterprise. "The way in which a company interacts with its customers is very dependent on what kind of systems support is available," Nilsson says.

Folksam has over 60 offices spread out across the country, all of which will form part of the new contact center with the help of the new solution. Ardehed says this will enable Folksam to be regarded as a local company, but with the strength and resources of a nationwide operation.. "The solution lets us continuously reroute call traffic between our offices according to needs and available resources," he says.

To support its purpose as an insurance company that offers a wide range of products to many different people, including those from diverse ethnic backgrounds, Folksam offers customers multi-lingual support as well as contact channels through a variety of media, including phone, e-mail, SMS, fax and web-based chat. Solidus eCare is able to route incoming calls and other messages according to a wide range of pre-selected agent competencies and skills, a technique knows as skill-based routing.

"Ericsson's Solidus eCare solution offers IP and mobility-enabled virtual customer-service contact centers across multiple sites, for enterprises of all sizes," says Anders Larsson, Channel Manager at Ericsson. "It enables dispersed customer service organizations to behave as one single unit. Customers can be guaranteed access to the most appropriate agent – wherever they are located and by whatever communications medium they prefer to use."

Solidus eCare is a platform, on which additional functions and features can be introduced at a pace that suits an organization. Examples include the possibility to integrate a contact center with a customer database, allowing agents full access to customer data such as previous transactions and current case status. The information appears in a pop-up window on the agent's PC screen as soon as the system has identified the caller. Other functions include a voice-recognition feature that provides a caller-friendly interface and subsequent transfer to an agent or department best equipped to handle a particular customer.

Solidus eCare also provides statistics on traffic volume, call queuing, response times, elapsed time, and other data that enables continued monitoring and fine-tuning of the contact center to match the changing preferences of the customers – both in terms of when they contact the organization and by which communications medium. "Our solution lets Folksam allocate staff at precisely those times when calls reach their peak," says Larsson. "Solidus eCare also includes an optional call-back function, which gives queuing callers the option of being called back if they find estimated waiting time too long."

Compared with completely outsourced call-center or contact-center solutions, the fact that Solidus eCare is fully integrated with MD-110 provides the added benefit of redundancy, which guarantees that customer service will not suffer in case of server problems.

One of the differences between a call center and a contact center is that the latter usually provides a framework for how the entire organization may respond to and interact with its customers. "Theoretically," Larsson explains, "every single employee may be part of a contact center, depending on his or her special skills and availability to take on different tasks in times of resource scarcity or other reasons."

Read more about Ericsson´s enterpise solutions at: http://www.ericsson.com/enterprise/