Developing an IVR solution and in-house expertise
“Working with Square Systems on this project gave us the ability to make rapid progress at the same time as developing our in house skills” - Chris Andrews, WPD Project manager
The company
Western Power Distribution (WPD) is the power distribution company for the South West of England and South Wales with 2.4 million customers.
The challenge
WPD required a system that provided regular updates to incident-affected customers, reducing the need for customers to pursue contact with a live agent over the telephone. The system therefore needed to interface directly to the fault management and maintenance systems that monitored the major sub-stations on their distribution network. WPD were also particularly keen to be able to maintain and support the resultant systems in house.
The solution
The consultancy provided by Square Systems resulted in the development of an IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system that was able to meet high demand whilst providing accurate and current information. By working side by side with WPD development staff, Square Systems were able to help develop a system that could be maintained, supported and onward developed in house.
The benefits
• Rapid progress towards a solution
• Substantial knowledge transfer to WPD's technical staff.
• System developed that could be maintained, supported and further developed in-house
The full story
Western Power Distribution (WPD) is the power distribution company to the South West of England and South Wales with 2.4 million customers. The quality of their service is measured by a reliable and consistent supply of power. However when supply is lost service is measured by the ability to respond rapidly to an individual clients requirement or in the worst cases to large numbers of customers in entire geographical areas generating increasingly large call volumes.
Square Systems were able to help WPD to successfully overcome the joint problems of providing an effective inbound operation during major incidents whilst achieving service levels. WPD required a system that provided regular, informative updates to incident affected customers. This would reduce the need for customers to pursue contact with a live agent. The system would therefore have to interface directly to the fault management and maintenance systems that monitored the major sub stations on their distribution network. WPD were also particularly keen to be able to maintain and support the resultant systems in house.
Square Systems were able to provide a consultancy service that included substantial knowledge transfer to WPD’s technical staff. By working literally side by side with WPD development staff, Square Systems where able to help develop a system that could be maintained, supported and onward developed in house.
The consultancy provided by Square Systems resulted in the development of an IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system that was able to meet high demand whilst providing accurate and current information. The intelligent IVR system recognised customers by their CLI (Caller Line Identifier) and compared it with existing fault information before determining which route the call should take. This ensured that Customers of WPD could receive a relevant and current status report for their specific area during an incident, passed directly to an agent if unrelated to an incident or their call was about a 'life or limb' emergency.
Chris Andrews, WPD project manager said “One of our key objectives was to remove our dependencies on external organisations to provide information to customers. With help from Square Systems we now have a system that is effective and totally under our control.”
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