Azzurri Communications announces it has won a contract to provide Hastings Direct with a new contact centre solution. The three year contract is based on Avaya's Aura platform, delivered via Azzurri's application development and integration capabilities. Azzurri will then support the solution via an ongoing managed service.

Hastings Direct is one of the UK's insurance brokers. Its business success has seen an increase in its headcount by 50% over the last year to meet customer demand, but this created significant pressure in the existing call centre. Hastings took the decision to procure a new contact centre solution, with three key objectives: to gain a single, integrated platform for the business, to increase compliance controls and to improve customer experience and satisfaction.

Since going live in January 2011, the performance against objectives has been:

Single integrated platform: The Avaya Aura platform built and integrated by Azzurri uses Callmedia CTI (computer telephony integration) which allows Hastings to integrate its contact centre with other line of business applications. This ensures agents can always gain a full picture of their customer, no matter where the information resides.

Increased compliance controls: The quality management and auditing capability of the solution has meant Hastings can now meet its PCI-DSS requirements (regulation that impacts any firm that stores customer financial data). The improved capacity and capability also means Hastings can effectively monitor quality and compliance across the whole business with 50% less management overhead, making direct bottom line savings.

Improve customer experience and satisfaction: The unique ‘Callmedia Desktop Toolbar' application built by the Azzurri Innovations team gives the agent an intuitive experience when using the solution for inbound as well as blended multi-media and outbound dialer operation. Since January 2011, Hastings has already seen reductions of up to 30 seconds on the average call handling time.

James Fairhurst, Director of Information Systems and Services for Hastings Direct said: "We chose Azzurri for this project as we actively wanted to work with a long-term strategic partner who could support us on our journey, rather than with a supplier who just turns up, configures a load of tin, and walks away leaving us to manage and maintain it ourselves."

Fairhurst continues: "Azzurri's entire approach from day one was very professional; they engaged well to help us build the Return on Investment (ROI) models that were submitted to our board. They've also brought an extra dimension of consultancy and insight which gave us comfort and security that the project would deliver. It has, and we're delighted to say we've now got an excellent telephony platform for the business."

Mark Quartermaine, CEO, Azzurri Communications, said "Azzurri has a very strong offering and deep industry knowledge of the highly competitive insurance sector. We're delighted to be working with one of the most successful insurance intermediaries in the UK market to help them achieve their business goals, through the delivery and management of an innovative and scalable contact centre solution."