Michael Kelly, Head of Operations, and Ciaran Moynihan, Systems Architect, Emergency Call Answering Service (ECAS), BT Ireland - Remote call-taking as a response to COVID-19

1. 1
Emergency Call Answering Service - Ireland
– EENA Conference, Riga 2021
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Remote call-taking as a response to
COVID-19

2. • Stage 1 PSAP only - Handles all voice Emergency calls and SMS to 112
• Handle 2.4m calls per annum from a population of c.5m.
• Approx. 80 staff support ECAS in two centres
2
Brief background on the PSAP (ECAS) in Ireland
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Problem statement – the need for remote working
• Covid struck in February 2020
• Government asked that we be prepared for 50% sickness levels
• Our approach was to avoid staff becoming ill as much as possible by:
• Avoiding staff mingling as much as possible
• Enforcement of social distancing of 2m in centres
• Banning all visitors to site
• Introducing remote working for at least 50% of staff
• Moving all data and evidence requests to electronic transfer

3. Needed an ‘instant solution’ when no calls were ever taken remotely
before
• Brainstormed a remote working solution on Wednesday, Designed it
including security on Thursday, Built and configured on Friday, tested
over the weekend with first calls taken remotely on Monday
• 60 laptops delivered and broadband ordered for all staff (if they did
not have it already).
• Supplemented with mobile broadband solutions as well as advice on
WiFi to staff
• Solution had to be totally secure with no impact on the caller
3
Plan of action – What did we do?
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4. • How to coordinate and manage a distributed contact centre
• Communicating with staff
• Dealing with issues on calls – use of Instant Messaging
• Coaching
4
Immediate challenges
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Medium term challenges
• Recruitment
• Training
• Coaching/performance management
Agreement/understanding with staff around their home facilities.
• Agreement included:
• Use of a spare room i.e. quiet uninterrupted environment
• Dedicated use of BB while on shift – we pay for it!

5. System Design choices provided the flexibility and adaptability
to quickly develop and roll out a remote working solution
• All IP Platform
• Network Connectivity is all we required to take calls – Anywhere
• Firewall infrastructure that was “VPN Ready”
• Single Screen/Single workstation required for call taking
• Only specialist HW required was customised keyboard and USB
headset
• Stock/Spares as well as Training and Testing facilities were “Raided”
to source headsets etc. to deploy to remote workers
5
Development and Rollout
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6. • No Data stored on remote workstation
• No real concern if lost/stolen – its just a box!
• Single User ID used for access – VPN + Call Handling system
• Easily managed and can be tightly controlled
• Multifactor authentication in development
• Geo-IP restrictions in place on Firewalls
• All access is logged and audited. – Particularly access to call
recordings etc.
• Logged-on users are visible “online” to other users – users logged on
outside of scheduled working time would be quickly highlighted.
6 Security classification. Published version. Owner's name.
Remote Working Security
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7. Basic Call handling was the initial development focus – i.e. answer and process an emergency
call remotely but there are additional requirements in order to run a “distributed” contact centre
operation
• IM Communication with Team and Supervisors
– Call takers need to be able to communicate with supervisors etc. while on calls. It became clear that
remote call takers needed an IM solution to communicate with the team – we quickly deployed an IM
solution and rolled it out to all call takers.
• Situational awareness, Updates and extra information
In contact centres, call takers have a view of the “Wallboards” for
• queue information
• other agent status
• service levels etc.
We developed a specific set of “Dash boards” for remote working agents to make all of this info
seamlessly available to remote call takers
7 Security classification. Published version. Owner's name.
Additional capabilities/Features required
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8. • We were able to maintain KPI performance
• Level of minor faults logged has increased – this was expected due to transient
connectivity issues
• Majority of faults/issues encountered are connectivity or broadband related
• Dealing with faults/issues on workstations is more challenging – support staff can no
longer simply walk up to a workstation and investigate
• Useful to have replacement laptops/kits on hand so that in the event of a fault they
can be quickly “swapped out” and rebuilt
• Have had to work with a small number of individual operators to improve
connectivity
• This includes provision of mobile broadband devices in some cases
• Considering development and use of LTE Backup to reduce risk associated with a
large fixed broadband outage – this is a significant risk
8 Security classification. Published version. Owner's name.
Our Experience – 18 months in
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9. • Remote working has wider application
• Contingency response now better e.g. if travel is difficult (weather)
• Useful for overtime and on-call duty – staff can respond quickly
• We will never return to 100% on-site working
• Staff satisfaction increased and we kept staff safe
• Management of staff is more difficult
• Training of new staff is still done on on-site
• remote working does not work
• training group operates as a ‘bubble’ for the duration of the training
9 Security classification. Published version. Owner's name.
Lessons learned and What’s different now.
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10. © British Telecommunications plc
Go raibh maith agat
michael.kelly@bt.com +353 86 2413 851
ciaran.moynihan@bt.com +353 86 8228 684