Exclusive: Vodafone plans cross-platform support

Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) has unveiled plans to consolidate all lines of customer support under a new infrastructure project believed to worth up to $10 million.

The 'One Connect' program, set to go live in March next year, will monitor support requests from customers over the telco's social media channels, emails, forum postings and calls to the company's centres in Tasmania and Mumbai, India.

Requests will be automatically routed to a specific department or the first available representative and prioritised based on urgency.

The deployment includes software worth up to $5 million from Alcatel-Lucent subsidiary Genesys that is expected to replace some existing support infrastructure and hardware PABX switches.

Integrator Dimension Data has picked up the "design component" of the software deal, a spokesman confirmed, though other aspects of the deployment remain open for tender.

The entire project could be more worth more than $10 million, according to sources. A spokesman for VHA refused to confirm the dollar value citing confidentiality.

The software will ultimately be used by approximately 5000 retail, call centre and social media staff once fully deployed.

"Ultimately the service expectations of our customers have changed in terms of how they contact us, and we want to ensure we can meet that service expectation," Cormac Hodgkinson, director of customer service and experience at VHA, said.

"It intelligently reviews each enquiry to make sure customers reach the right customer service advisor. In turn, the advisor will have everything at their fingertips to help resolve the customer's enquiry."

Vodafone's move toward an integrated support offering comes as the Communications Alliance this week issued a revised consumer protection code which would include requirements for telcos to track customers throughout the complaints process with unique reference numbers.