The JD Group implemented a contact center solution from Spescom and Presence Technology to centralize its debt collections operations across two sites. This increased agent productivity by 200% by automating outbound dialing and integrating scripts. The solution also improved reporting, management oversight, and customer experience. It provided benefits like reduced sites, lower costs, better collections success, and a strategic advantage for JD Group.

1. presence technology
JD Group
The JD Group increases productivity by 200% within its
Contact Centre utilising technology from Spescom and
Presence Technology

2. presence technology
Client profile JD Group, a mass consumer financier, is South Each chain is positioned in the marketplace in
Africa’s leading differentiated furniture retailer a differentiated way with a specific focus on a
operating through eight chains in southern Africa market segment, own brand identity and store
and one in Poland. It is listed on the JSE in the layout, merchandise range and market profile.
Cyclical Services: General Retailers – Hardlines
Sector.
Needs of JD Group The JD Group took a strategic decision to de- continuity in the event of technical failures, or
couple Financial Services from Traditional Retail, a disaster recovery scenario.
which would see debt collections moved away
from the retail outlets and centralised under the The JD Group was looking for a world class
JD Financial Services division, in a green-field solutions provider, with a proven track record.
contact centre. The solution had to integrate closely with the
corporate standard telephony platform and had
For strategic reasons, the contact centre was to be easy to manage but dynamic enough to
centralised across two sites, Durban and make dialler campaign changes quickly when
Randburg. Reducing the number of collection required. With debt collection a critical function,
sites from more than 1000 to 2, the split automated outbound dialling was a major
architecture still allowed provisioning of business requirement.
The solution Spescom DataFusion was selected to provide a comes to integration, since it supports standards
solution to meet the requirements, being a long based integration methods such as Web services
standing technology partner of Blake & Associates and ActiveX. Unlike many other manufacturers
and Maravedi, both of whom fall under the New who have a closed database, the Presence
Business Development Arm of the JD Group. database is open; Presence publishes the
Spescom DataFusion proposed a comprehensive repository information on all the fields. This is
solution to the JD Group, consisting of a Presence very useful as it allowed the JD Group to access
Outbound Dialing Solution on top of Avaya CM and manipulate this information through standard
platform and DataVoice recording. interfaces such as ODBC.
Spescom DataFusion implemented the outbound The JD Group uses a debt collection application
and scripting modules of the Presence Suite, a in a decentralised environment. Information
multi-channel All in One Solution Suite that provided in this system was accessed manually
integrates all contact channels between the by agents before a dial attempt was made. The
customer and the contact centre. This maximises integration into Presence now provides the
and improves the cost-effectiveness of every information automatically to the agents.
form of contact with customers, regardless of
the communication methods customers choose. An important facet of any collections application
The Presence solution is very open when it is its ability to automate the collections process

3. presence technology
through the utilisation of scripting. Spescom connecting to a customer for a given service
DataFusion implemented the Presence Suite’s and allows them to enter relevant customer
powerful scripting module which provides the details as required. The agent is forced to follow
JD Group with unprecedented flexibility and the script so that no points are missed. Using
power when managing their campaigns. the scripting tool also dramatically reduces the
time to train an agent, from many weeks to less
Scripting can be used with any outbound campaign than a day.
as well as debt collection and is often useful in
the running of sales campaigns which are very The modular solution of Presence allows the JD
dynamic and need to run quickly. The scripts Group to gradually extend functionality to suit
can be created quickly by personnel with limited their business model. It integrates tightly with
technical knowledge, such as supervisors or the Avaya CM platform and enhances its
administrators. It also allows changes to the capabilities without replacing any of its
script to be made on the fly, without having to functionality.
stop and restart the service. A script contains
all the information that the agent requires when
Challenges and • Time scales for the implementation were very premises, implementation of generic IT
Obstacles in the tight – only 4 months between order placement infrastructure and transfer and recruitment of
Implementation and live production start. suitable staff for the 820 seat contact centre.
Process This required intense and frequent interaction
• Implementation of technology in a green field between the various role players.
contact centre, from facilities to people and JDG appointed program and project managers,
processes. In parallel with the technology while Spescom had a project manager in each
implementation, JD Group embarked on the region as well as a program manager, who
process of securing and preparation of these oversaw the work across the sites.

4. presence technology
• The virtual contact centre had to be • The debtors follow up application had to be
implemented across two equal-sized sites, 650km integrated with the new technology to ensure
apart. This required two separate implementation an effective feed of data to the outbound dialler
teams, including project managers, technology and dialler processes with the required loads.
implementation specialists in the appropriate
disciplines, as well as trainers and support • Due to the size of the planned outbound dialler,
technicians. It was also very useful to have significant database management challenges
experienced technical people and support ensued. Oracle as a database had to be set up
personnel in both the associated regional offices. in such a way that high availability across the
virtual environment could be achieved at a
• Management and control of the two sites were reasonable cost.
separated. This aspect required frequent and
in-depth communication between technical and
business representatives from the customer
organisations, as well as the various technology
vendors and specialists.
Results after the • The tight deadline was met. Spescom e x c e e d e d J D G ro u p ’s e x p e c t a t i o n s .
implementation DataFusion’s and Presence's highly competent
implementation teams, leaning on the experience • A substantial increase in productivity was
gleaned over many years on many similar projects, realised. Comparing productivity numbers,
using sound project management strategies, between distributed and centralised contact

5. presence technology
centres, a huge increase in productivity has been campaigns. In the event of a DR scenario
realised as well as telephony and staff costs being occurring at one of the sites, the agents at the
reduced in excess of 15%. other site would seamlessly carry on with the
campaign with no service disruption. For
• Accurate reports could now be drawn providing example, if a customer has been scheduled to
up to the minute information. be rung back at a specific time, by rescheduling
the call any agent that is available would be able
• Supervisors were able to focus on key areas to answer this rescheduled call, ensuring
of responsibility. To quote one: ”Rather than continuity.
spending all day scrolling through reports, I can
now manage my agents to ensure they have my In stark contrast with the previous manual system,
support, and are doing their jobs effectively.” the Presence solution provided different dialling
options, i.e. Preview, Progressive and Predictive
• Collections were previously done manually in options. Any of these dial modes can be used
each of the 1000 stores. This made it hard to simultaneously in multiple campaigns. In
monitor and measure from a management Progressive and Predictive modes only live calls
perspective. Centralising the collections service are passed back to agents, therefore calls that
into the newly created Financial Services contact result in busy, no answer, unobtainable or answer
centre provides consolidated and centralised machine statuses are not passed to agents,
reporting on agent activity with accurate therefore productivity is increased. Non-live
information on the success of every campaign. calls can have different business rules applied
which can be different for every campaign, which
• Improved collection success rates. Reports ensures that the best possible success rate is
can now be drawn on agents’ activity from achieved to connect to live customers. Multiple
average call length, after call work, breaks taken, numbers can also be entered for each customer,
etc. through to business metrics of each call e.g. home, work and mobile. Different business
made. These reports provide management with rules can be applied to each of these numbers
information on successful calls, like Promise-to- to determine the best time to dial.
Pay information, and on unsuccessful calls, like
reaching a wrong person, etc. The availability of
this information allows management to see the
collection success rate for each agent and each
campaign and with the information gathered can
understand how to successfully launch campaigns
going forward.
• Enhanced customer interaction continuity.
Since the Presence solution is used as a single
instance across the sites in Durban and Randburg,
agents in both centres can work on the same

6. presence technology
Benefits to The implemented solution provides the following optimisation of customer interactions and
JD Group benefits to the JD Group’s operations: the resultant customer experience.
• Reduction of collections sites from 1000, to 2. • The Scripting solution automates and
embeds complex business processes and
• Significantly improved collections, with the makes sure that these are followed by the
corresponding direct positive impact on the JD agents and human errors are avoided. In
Groups’ profits and commensurate credit risk addition to that, training time of agents is
reduction. Most of the campaigns in JD Group’s considerably reduced.
Contact Centre are focused on debt collection
and the implemented system not only increased • Reduced management resources – only 2 sites
agent productivity but also allows definition of to be controlled and managed from a central
priorities in dialling records depending on the point with the corresponding increase of efficiency
amount and age of the debt. This considerably and control.
improved the amount of money collected from
customers. • Strategic competitive advantage - all these
benefits allow the JD Group to run a more cost
• Large scale streamlining and automation of effective and comprehensive operation than their
processes, with the following benefits competitors in the market.
• Increases the productivity of agents (in Also agents benefit in several ways:
excess of 200% compared to previous manual
dialling) by dialling records in the background • Indirectly, because supervisors have more time
and only sending live contacts to the agents. available to manage, motivate and coach their
team, which substantially increased the agent’s
• The system allows the JD Group to build satisfaction and decreased the absentee and
up a consistent KPI system to define and attrition rate.
measure all relevant performance indicators
in the organisation. Especially important is • Directly, for the following reasons:
that interaction data can be combined with
business data and therefore can provide • The embedding and automation of business
important information that is used to make processes decreases the number of human
correct and qualified business decisions. errors, which reduces friction with their
supervisors and increases the agent’s
• This consistent and detailed statistical satisfaction levels
information allows the JG Group to
implement a methodology to continuously • The ease-of-use of the agent client
improve their business processes and application makes life easier for the agents
therefore achieve continuous optimisation and especially with new agents, reducing
of productivity in the contact centre and an training time.

7. presence technology
"The solution offered by Presence adds value to our "Working with Presence’s solutions allow us to offer
agents, because it gives them the chance to devote our clients much more flexible services, higher
their time to be focused on serving the customer, customer satisfaction and major cost optimization"
leaving the routine piece of the process to be affirms Johan Claassen from the JD Group.
automated by Presence. It is important to us that
our agents can rely on the finest tools on the market"
explains Johan Claassen from the JD Group.
• One-to-one customer relationship management.
Benefits to The better understanding and availability of
the customers
qualified data about JD Group’s customers is
used to interact with them in a more accurate,
proactive and consistent way.
• Specialist and inbound departments have been
populated with highly skilled and knowledgeable
staff to provide customers with first line
resolution to any queries, questions and
complaints. A single contact number is published
on all correspondence and statements in support
of the above.
Barcelona (HeadQuarters) E-Mail address:
Comte Urgell, 240 3-A General Information:
08036 info@presenceco.com
Barcelona - Spain
Marketing:
Ph: (+34) 93 10 10 300 marketing@presenceco.com
Fax: (+34) 93 10 10 333
Support:
EE.UU. support@presenceco.com
Contact: John Franco Alliances:
400 Perimeter Center Terrace N alliances@presenceco.com
30346
Atlanta, Georgia Sales:
United States sales@presenceco.com
Tel: +1.800.847.3309