Adelaide fundraiser upgrades contact centre, moves to the cloud and buys Australian –
for improved productivity and supplier responsiveness
Media release. Sydney: May 7th, 2019
With no financial support from government, The Epilepsy Centre – the leading provider of services for epilepsy sufferers in South Australia and the Northern Territory – is almost totally dependent on charitable donations sought through its customer contact centre.
“This being the case,” says Robyn Wakefield, the fundraising organisation’s CEO, “It’s obviously vital that our contact centre system is always available to us. When it isn’t, not only are we paying agents who are left idle but more importantly, our income stops flowing. It can be very stressful for us.”
With some 20 years’ experience of customer contact centre operations, Robyn Wakefield is quick to address even minor operational disruptions and was frustrated by frequent technical issues with her then current system, and the failure of its supplier – with whom she had been for eight years – to promptly respond to calls for assistance.
“Their help desk was overseas so I asked myself if there might be a local customer contact centre specialist who could serve us faster. At the same time, our current provider was regularly hitting us with costly upgrades we didn’t need. So for a variety of reasons it was time to test the market.”
Her investigations turned up Lake Corporation which, in addition to major banks, retailers, telcos and other large commercial organisations, is a company whose customers have also long included not-for-profits and other charitable organisations such as her own.
She explains, “I called them up and they were very quick to respond. Two of their technical people came down from Lake’s Sydney head office to spent time thoroughly understanding our needs and suggesting ways forward. They were very thorough and left no stone unturned. We negotiated back and forth and then decided to switch to them.”
Based on her past experience of switchovers – she called an earlier one, when shifting to a new location, a month-long “absolute nightmare”– she was understandably anxious to minimise disrupting the Centre’s core fundraising activity.
Switching this time, however, was accomplished in the course of a single weekend. “Lake was here to see everything through with barely a hiccup and one of their people came over earlier to test everything and train our back office people. They were very thorough. They don’t compromise.”
Lake Corporation, which is wholly Australian-owned and was founded in 1992, provided The Epilepsy Centre with its proprietary XCalibur® Unified Agent Desktop for multimedia customer communication. The system encompasses automated data retrieval, database updating, embedded business rules, script consistency, central reporting, PCI compliance and more. Remotely deployed in the Lake cloud, the complete solution also includes Lake’s secure and scalable IP Phone and Unified communication capability.
Speaking of her new system, Robyn Wakefield says, “We are very pleased. The agents have everything they need right in front of them, without going off to access information kept elsewhere. Everything is much more streamlined and the agents like its ease of use and stress-free flow.
“Whereas they previously had to go through five or six screens to take any action, it’s now just two, with drop-downs for scripts and email templates. For cost-effectiveness and time-management, it’s wonderful. Also, reporting is very thorough.”
She added, “Importantly, If we call them for anything they respond virtually immediately. I really can’t recommend them highly enough.”
Announcing this new business, Lake Corporation Managing Director, Pushkar Taneja, said, “It gives me great pleasure to welcome The Epilepsy Centre to our base of customer contact clients, and I look forward to a long and mutually rewarding relationships between our organisations”.
News ends
About The Epilepsy Centre:
The Epilepsy Centre is a professional organisation committed to providing quality caring services to people living with epilepsy and improving community awareness and attitudes. The epilepsy Centre has been the leading provider of epilepsy services in south Australia and the Northern territory since 1976,and is dedicated to providing high quality support, counselling, training, practical assistance and advocacy on behalf of epilepsy. We also work continuously to reduce stigma, and create a more welcoming and inclusive society.
About Lake Corporation:
Lake Corporation is a customer interaction and security specialist company which has been at the forefront of business solutions since 1992 – from yesterday’s cost-saving way of communicating with your customers, to today’s vital contributor to the bottom-line, and customer loyalty. We deliver the complete contact centre, unified communications, desktop automation and cyber security solutions from leading technology partners and in-house development. We consult with clients through the complete lifecycle – from discovery through concept, design, implementation, consulting, workflow and performance optimisation, and full application support.
