Connecting Wales: the shared communication & contact centre platform for the Welsh public sector

1. Connecting Wales: the shared
communication & contact centre
platform for the Welsh public
sector
Sharing Technology, Skills and Resources across Wales

2. Backed by the Welsh Government, Connecting
Wales is a framework which enables any Welsh
public sector body to procure the latest
communication, collaboration and contact
centre capabilities via the cloud.
What is
Connecting Wales?
Headsets
Telephony
Softphones
Audio
Conferencing
Multi-media
Agent
Workforce
Optimisation
Contact
Centre
Supervisor
Unified
Communication
Voice Agent
Video-
con
Workforce
Management
Call
Recording
Quick & easy to roll out. Best in class, tried & tested
Choose your own level of functionality.
Enable your digital transformation strategy

3. How Connecting Wales Helps
Connecting Wales arose from discussions among the ‘Customer Focus
Wales’ network of local authority professionals, who realised that
fresh public sector thinking was required.
The Vale of Glamorgan Council and Wrexham Borough District Council
took the lead and built a business case for a shared technology and
customer-facing contact centre platform. This led to a framework
agreement which simplifies the procurement route and enables all
councils and all public sector organisations in Wales to procure
services through Connecting Wales.
The platform provides a contact centre solution, capable of handling
calls and multi-channel communications through voice, email,
webchat, SMS and social media in a shared service, across multiple
geographic locations.
It allows public sector bodies to test out new technology in a less risky
manner, with shared costs and collaborative working and greater
flexibility to share the burden of new technological and
communications developments.

4. Remote Working The New Normal?

5. Remote Working
The New Normal?

6. New Ways of Working,
How Can FourNet Help?
We’d love to hear customers thoughts on how
they have been affected during lockdown and
the challenges they are currently facing.
We can schedule a remote readiness workshop
with one of our cloud experts to discuss how
we can help them adapt to this new way of
working
Community
Cloud
Secure Audio &
Video conferencing
Secure
Collaboration
Tools
Quality
Management
Intelligent
Managed
Services
Workforce
Engagement
Tools
Flexible UC &
Desktop Agents
Gamification

7. COVID Case Studies
How FourNet have helped during lockdown?

8. Effect of Coronavirus crisis on
headcount (early April 2020)
April 20th 2020 Channel Doctors survey – 77 contact centres UK wide
Comments

9. Effect of Coronavirus crisis on
agent absence (early April 2020)
April 20th 2020 Channel Doctors survey – 77 contact centres UK wide
Comments

10. Effect of Coronavirus crisis on
remote working (early April 2020)
April 20th 2020 Channel Doctors survey – 77 contact centres UK wide

11. Effect of Coronavirus crisis on
customer contact (early April
2020)
April 20th 2020 Channel Doctors survey – 77 contact centres UK wide

12. 92%Reported increased
interaction volume
62%Reported increased
digital interactions
66%Planning to accelerate
move to cloud
70%Plan to keep more
agents working from
home
April 2020 NICE inContact survey – 779 contact
centres decision makers UK & US

13. 92%Reported increased
interaction volume
62%Reported increased
digital interactions
66%Planning to accelerate
move to cloud
70%Plan to keep more
agents working from
home
April 2020 NICE inContact survey –
779 contact centres decision makers UK & US

14. Respondents
Already using homeworking
Introduced homeworking during COVID
No use of homeworking
Survey: April/ May 2020 156 contact centre professionals
53%Short term measure
47%Long term strategy

15. Biggest Homeworking
Challenges
Survey: April/ May 2020 156 contact centre professionals
23 per cent said Pastoral Care (i.e. isolation/mental health),
22 per cent Motivation/Productivity
17 per cent Telephony/Technology Services
14 per cent Communication with Remote Workers
12 per cent Staff Management
Training, IT Security, and Recruitment were also identified. Only 2 per cent of respondents
thought that they ‘had homeworking nailed’.

16. Business Benefits
Survey: April/ May 2020 156 contact centre professionals
54% Absenteeism
75% Attrition
61% Productivity
% of organisations stating that Home
Agents performed better than bricks
and mortar contact centre agents in
each of these areas.
Source: 2020 UK HomeAgent Survey

17. Homeworker Benefits
Survey: April/ May 2020 156 contact centre professionals
74% Better Work-Life-Balance
% of organisations stating that
they benefitted in these ways
Source: 2020 UK HomeAgent
Survey
86% No Travel To Work Costs
81% Removed Travel Time

18. ONS survey showed 49% of adults in
employment in Great Britain worked
from home during lockdown,
compared to a similar survey which
showed that just 4.4% of the
workforce in Wales worked mainly
from home during 2019.
Between January and December
2019, less than 25% of the workforce
in Wales said they’d worked from
home at any point.