Weco, Cisco deliver contact solution to Access Bank

Systems integrators, Weco System International is partnering with Global inter-networking service provider, Cisco Systems and Oracle Corporation to deliver contact centre solution to one of the nation’s leading bank, Access Bank plc.

Mr. Richard Edet of Cisco Nigeria, said that the decision by the management of the bank to go for a full scale multimedia internet protocol contact centre was to re-position itself for the challenges ahead and create a competitive advantage through excellent customer service delivery.

This, he also said, would enable the bank to focus on wholesale business, while harnessing opportunities in the retail banking market segment in the nation’s financial industry.

A contact centre is a central portal in an enterprise from which all customer contacts are managed and is flaunted generally as part of an enterprise’s overall Customer Relationship Management (CRM).

He explained that typically this kind of CRM is equipped with software that allows contact information, enquiries or service requests to be routed to appropriate people, contacts to be tracked and data to be gathered.

Although he noted that Cisco does not deploy its solution directly to customers’ sites, it, however, has relevant local partners like Weco Systems to deliver this solution at the door steps of the customers.

Weco, he said, was recently awarded the highest Cisco certification for the sub-Saharan Africa, hence they were at home with what they have been doing for the industry.

Edet said this explains why Cisco was confident that Weco could deploy and deliver the right solution to assist the Nigerian financial institutions including Access Bank to achieve global relevance.

Head, Public Relations at Access Bank, Mr. Austin Edoja-Peters, said in a press statement made available to ITRealms Online that the state-of-the art contact centre, was launched in August last year, as a multi-channel service-enhancement platform that is already facilitating un-restricted interaction between the bank and its valued customers.

He revealed that the solution has enabled its customers the option of reaching it through several customer interaction channels like live telephone-based interaction, telephone self-service tone, telephone self-sales, e-mail management, SMS, live chat and fax.

The solution, involves the installation of Interactive Voice Response (IVR), telephone banking, which accepts a combination of voice telephone input and touch-tone keypad selection and provides appropriate responses for effective and efficient telephone banking services.

The world-acclaimed CRM application, he said, facilitates customer resolution processes; wall board solutions and other monitoring tools to display real-time activities in the contact centre; inspiration pro compact application which enables real time voice and screen monitoring, in order to ensure delivery of excellent customer services; automatic call distributors, which is a telephone facility that manages incoming calls by routing them to the available operators as well as live chat application, which facilitates the communication process between customers and the company real time via the website.

Edoja-Peters said the benefits of the solution over its competitors since the launch of the solution have been enormous. According to him, the bank is now proud of convenient 24/7 telephone banking service to carry out transactions like balance enquiry on all customers accounts including the visa card account, mini statement enquiry, funds transfer between accounts and third-party accounts within the bank, booking term deposits, cheque book requisition, draft requisition, account statement requisition among others from the comfort of the bank’s customers’ homes, offices or cars.

Affirming this development, Executive Director and chief technology officer, Weco Systems, Mr. Obinna Ekwonwa, explained that this solution is indeed the first in Sub-Sahara Africa, where there is a live and full integration of Oracle Siebel CRM solution with Next Generation CISCO IP Contact Centre.

“We are indeed proud to have provided the systems integration practice across this deployment with our OEM partners, Cisco Systems and Oracle,” he said.

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