Farmside stakes its future on new Spark Digital interactive call centre

Timaru based, rural operator Farmside has upgraded its customer capability by deploying an Interactive Intelligence call centre solution managed by Spark Digital.

The fully featured virtual solution is designed to enable Farmside customers to have their queries handled in multiple channels such as phone, email, web chat, text message and social media.

According to the telco, it also offers an enhanced voice response system, skills based call routing and call back capability - meaning customer queries can be prioritised to the most appropriately skilled contact centre agent.

Operations Manager Stefan Wilson says Farmside aims to maintain a point of difference in the call centre market, and is proud of its leadership in this area.

“The new system will better enable us to deal with customers in real time, with new capabilities to simultaneously engage with our customers by phone, e-mail, and social media,” he says.

“Our customers are the most important factor in our planning process and we now have the ability to scale and adapt to meet changing digital trends.

“This project had a complex requirements specification that needed to be delivered in a challenging three month period. Spark Digital presented us with the only solution that fully met our needs and matched Farmside’s future growth expectations.”

Spark Digital also provide a fully managed VoIP service solution for the 85 Farmside staff, including remote management and pro-active monitoring of call centre systems.

Spark Digital’s Head of Collaboration Leanne Buer says Farmside has sown the seeds for a great future.

“The solution is visionary and one of the fastest implementations we’ve delivered,” she adds.

“Our partner Interactive Intelligence inherently understands the value and rapid return on investment these type of contact centre solutions can provide.

“The shift away from voice calls to other methods of customer engagement is a key part of this solution, partly driven by the preferences of a younger generation and in part by changing service models.

“Communication channels such as web chat and email also have the added benefit of data collection which means Farmside can further analyse customer behaviour and address any systemic issues.”