Siebel Systems and Siemens Business Services Deliver Best Value Public Services to the City of Cologne
Germany's Fourth Largest City Transforms Quality and Efficiency of Citizen Services Using Advanced Call Center Solution
SAN MATEO, Calif.-November 12, 2003-Siebel Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SEBL), a leading provider of multichannel business and government applications software, today announced that the City of Cologne is using Siebel applications to deliver high-quality public service to residents and visitors. As part of a program designed by Siemens Business Services, The City of Cologne has launched a technologically advanced call center based on Siebel Call Center in just four months. First-call resolution has improved significantly, as agents are now successfully resolving 80 percent of the 100,000 inbound telephone inquiries received per month (5,000 per work day) at the time of the initial request. As a result, Germany's fourth-largest city is transforming the quality and efficiency of its citizen and visitor information services.
With more than one million inhabitants, the City of Cologne receives up to 50,000 inbound telephone inquiries from citizens every day. Prior to the Siebel Systems and Siemens Business Services call center implementation, 50 percent of citizen calls failed to connect with the city's local government offices. Calls either reached an inactive line, or in the instance an active line was reached, the line was often busy or the representative was unavailable. When a call did reach the appropriate person, the caller was often switched between departments in search of a response.
"Citizens have a right to expect high quality of service from the public sector," said Katrin Koerdt, Head of the Call Center, City of Cologne. "The contact center system empowers the city to provide citizens and visitors with fast, accurate, and personalized service. The immediacy of the response also means our citizens benefit from best value public services."
The city's eGovernment solution was implemented in only four months.
Currently it enables 70 call center agents of the City of Cologne either to directly respond to inbound inquiries by telephone or email or to forward these inquiries to the relevant office in charge. The city plans to increase the number of agents using the system to 250. Siebel Systems' market-leading, next-generation contact center solution, Siebel Call Center, together with Siemens Business Services public sector experience, are transforming the city's service delivery quality and efficiency.
Unified information regarding the city's local government services, transport, events, and attractions, together with an integrated knowledge management system, enables the city's information services call center to respond immediately to most of the inquiries. More complex inquiries are efficiently managed using automated workflow and escalations and agents can notify callers at any time about the status of their request.
About Siebel Systems
Siebel Systems, Inc. is a leading provider of business applications software, enabling corporations to sell to, market to, and serve customers across multiple channels and lines of business. With more than 3,500 customer deployments worldwide, Siebel Systems provides organizations with a proven set of industry-specific best practices, CRM applications, and business processes, empowering them to consistently deliver superior customer experiences and establish more profitable customer relationships.
Siebel Systems' sales and service facilities are located in more than 30 countries.
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Ezra van Tiel
Text 100 Public Relations
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E: ezra.vantiel@text100.nl
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