Case Study: Vetfone 24 Hour National Pet Helpline

Hosted Call Centre Technology

Call Centre Technology Underpins Veterinary Call Answering Services

Vetfone™ are providers of veterinary advice and welfare services (including emergency telephone access) on behalf of some of the biggest names in pet welfare in the UK. The Vetfone service is provided to pet owners as a membership or policy benefit, and is used where there is a worry or concern about the pet and the client is unable to access or afford a Vet.

X-on are premier UK suppliers of hosted telephony solutions and supply the Call Centre services at the heart of the Vetfone service via their PhonePresence system.

In accordance with Vetfone policy, X-on process telephone calls to experienced RCVS qualified and registered Veterinary Nurses. The virtual call centre means Nurses can work flexibly from home offices using remote systems, allowing Vetfone to attract and retain the highest quality Vet Nurses.

Vetfone are passionate about delivering the highest quality services. They only 'do' Pets and Veterinary and the home-working model, coupled with the availability and quality of the telephony, underpins this drive for quality.

The Technology

The latest call centre technology distributes calls to the Veterinary Nurses and is supported by on-line information resources, databases and Veterinary decision support processes.

X-on's PhonePresence utilizes a comprehensive feature set, exceeding that of hardware systems, including voice call recording and skills based routing. Skills based call routing ensures the call is answered by the person with the most appropriate skill set.

Nurses can use a web interface to control their availability by logging in and out of PhonePresence, ensuring only available Nurses are called, improving the efficiency of call throughput. Nurses can easily transfer calls to colleagues, or other destinations, using PhonePresence.

Overflow operatives can stand by if needed and be quickly drafted into the pool of available Nurses when demand is exceptionally high. Supervisors and Managers can remotely access real time and historical reports to fully analyse the workforce and their efficiency.

PhonePresence provides a 'screen popup' of the database required by the Nurse, dependant on the number the caller has dialled. This facility is useful for Nurses answering calls from numbers publicized by different sources and saves time for both the Nurse and the caller, leading to an improved customer experience.

Additionally, Nurses may need to make follow on or follow up calls from their home locations. This facility is provided through X-on's 'Click to call' service - not only simplifying making the call for the Nurse, but ensuring that those calls are funded by Vetfone avoiding time consuming expense claims.

Business Continuity

Through X-on's multi-site facilites, Vetfone maintains a full business continuity action plan covering voice services for both inbound and outbound calls, and also for the Click to Call and Screen Popping functions.

Vetfone is the perfect example of an organisation harnessing the power of home workers and effectively simulating a fully working in-house Contact Centre. PhonePresence Call Centre affords the the same level of overview despite Managers and Nurses operating from distributed locations.