Alcatel-Lucent's IP Solutions Strengthen The NEC Group

Alcatel-Lucent today announced that its Internet Protocol (IP) and contact center solutions have been adopted by The NEC (News - Alert) Group, which owns and operates convention centers in Birmingham, England.

 

Alcatel-Lucent (News - Alert), in association with its business partner Amillan, completed the deployment of the solutions at The NEC venues throughout Birmingham, including NEC Exhibition Center – the UK’s largest exhibition center, the company said.

 

Alcatel-Lucent’s IP telephony solutions are based on the OmniPCX Enterprise platform and OmniTouch Contact Center Premium software. These solutions provide The NEC Group with a new converged voice and data platform providing 2,000 employees with improved access to colleagues and free internal telephone calls.

 

The NEC Group, which welcomes about 2.3 million people yearly, has also installed an 80-seat contact center designed to streamline and manage call handling at peak periods and improve ticket sales through The Ticket Factory.

 

OmniTouch Contact Center Premium from Alcatel-Lucent helps NEC to share knowledge amongst its agents and provide critical real-time information on operational support status. This facility enables the company to allocate additional resources wherever necessary and maintain high level of customer service at all times.

 

As part of its Venue Improvement Programme, The NEC Group wanted to relocate all of its offices to the center, allowing its staff to work in closer contact with customers by basing them at the heart of its ongoing events and exhibitions.

 

“The evolution of The NEC Group box office into national ticketing agency The Ticket Factory last year meant that we required a more advanced approach to contact center telephony,” said Andrew McManus, IT director at The NEC Group. “Given the obvious cost-savings and efficiencies that could be achieved through convergence, it made sense to transform the entire network and migrate to IP.”

 

“We were looking for close integration between the ticket office and other facilities at The NEC, and had a tight timescale for deployment. Alcatel-Lucent and Amillan were able to meet these requirements exactly, delivering the project on time and on budget,” McManus continued.

 

“The NEC Group’s new network supports the company’s overall improvement strategy, while it also differentiates The Ticket Factory from many rival event sales outlets, through the increased flexibility that it can now provide both clients and customers,” said Martin Ratcliffe, business development manager at Amillan. “The deployment will also give the organization a platform on which to make further improvements to its communications infrastructure, supporting its growth objectives in both the short and long term.”