Emirates Group selects BT for global contact centre virtualization

NEW DELHI: The Emirates Group and British Telecom (BT) have entered into a six-year deal, where the latter will provide global contact center managed services to support the needs of Emirates’ business growth.

This adds to a 2009 contract, where the airline consolidated its contact centers around the world onto a single, virtualized and globally managed platform using BT technology.

Through this new deal, BT will upgrade and manage the next generation of contact center technology enabling Emirates’ global contact center agents to interact seamlessly through different channels with customers across the globe.

Emirates serves more than 140 destinations worldwide across six continents with a modern fleet of more than 230 aircraft.

“To support its operations, Emirates runs seven global contact centres: in Dubai, Mumbai, Manchester, Guangzhou, Melbourne, New York and Budapest, staffed by more than 2,200 agents serving customers in 19 languages. Together, Emirates’ seven virtually integrated global contact centres support customers in 48 countries, handling an average of 35,000 calls and 6,000 emails per day. Calls are collected and routed through the cloud to an agent speaking the caller’s preferred language,” the company said.

The new virtualized global contact center will provide Emirates’ contact center teams with added functionality such as latest Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) technology, enhanced multi-channel support, single desktop user interface to efficiently handle voice, email, web chat interactions and enhanced management Information dashboards.

This enables the airline to provide additional services to its customers, which include a fully secure customer payments solution and personalized customer experience through automated voice response system, efficient interaction management and agent blending strategies whilst lowering operating costs and improving efficiency.

“The strength of the Emirates brand lies in delivering consistent, memorable customer service. By investing in progressive, cutting-edge technology, we are enabling our contact centre teams to take our customer service experience to the next level, and at the same time enhance work efficiency and effectiveness. We have a good working relationship and experience with BT, and we are confident that their technology and support team is the right choice to support our expanding business requirements,” said Gary Chapman, President, Emirates Group Services and dnata.

Emirates will also use a variety of services from BT’s portfolio, including BT Advise Contact to optimize efficiency of contact centers, data center services from BT Compute and network services from BT Connect. BT will also provide Emirates with project and service management.

Gavin Patterson, CEO, BT Group, said: “We are delighted to have again earned the trust of Emirates and to be chosen as a provider of their global customer experience platform. This latest deal is yet further recognition of our expertise in the aviation industry and cements our position as a leading global provider of contact center solutions.”