Airtel to Enhance Customer Experience Across Africa Through Avaya Solutions

Bharti Airtel and Avaya have today announced the signing of a 5-year partnership to enhance Airtel’s call centre capabilities across the continent. Through the deal, Avaya Communications Outsourcing Solutions will provide contacts center technology and managed solutions designed to better the performance and reduce costs to Airtel in all its 16 operations in the continent. Mara-Ison will provide services and applications plus infrastructure and training support to Airtel in Africa.

Mara-Ison will deploy cutting edge Avaya call-centre solutions which are superior and provides enhanced services like video calling and social media support seamlessly. Through these solutions, Airtel hopes to move from the previous capital-intensive to more utility-based solutions through a “pay-per-usage” agreement.

Commenting on the agreement, Jayant Khosla, CEO, Anglophone at Bharti Airtel said:

“Our partnership with Avaya is in line with the rapid evolution in data world,and will provide superior customer service experience and extends from traditional voice based to video and social media interactions. Additionally, Avaya Communications Outsourcing Solutions will enhance our service capabilities, and help us deliver superior customer experiences across our operations.”

Avaya will deploy its Proactive Outreach Manager (POM) and Proactive IVR systems to supplement the existing voice, email and sms solutions currently supported by the call centres. The system will equip Airtel call centres with video IVR systems which will enable agents to deliver video messages and other dynamic services to subscribers. Through these solutions, the Airtel call centres will be able to handle not less than 28,000 communications simultaneously in each of its 16 country of operations.

Nidal Abou-Latif, Vice President of Emerging Regions at Avaya, said:

‘With a custom-built solution for each client, Avaya Communications Outsourcing Solutions can help innovative companies like Airtel to get the most out of their communications infrastructure investments for the benefit of current and future customers”

Avaya will equip not less than 3,000 call centre seats in the first year of contract with a target of 6,000 by the fifth year. The solution will also see Avaya provide 10,000 IVR ports for both incoming and outgoing calls in each of the country operations.