American Express has installed Avaya Internet Protocol (IP) Telephony solutions at its Middle Eastern HQ and contact center in Manama, Bahrain. The new solutions have increased the contact center’s productivity by 30 percent and cut call response time by 20 percent as the 30 agents at the Manama customer care center are now able to provide 24/7 service to American Express credit and charge customers around the region. The new Avaya IP solution enables American Express to make available highly personalized customer service via multimedia channels including e-mail, the Internet, chat, phone and fax. American Express has also migrated the communications network at its Bahrain headquarters to Avaya IP telephony, bringing opportunities for the company to reduce costs and boost productivity. American Express has announced that it plans to link the new Bahrain contact center with its existing customer contact centers in the region, further extending multimedia services for its customers.
Trevor Stokes, president and CEO, American Express Middle East (AEME), explained, “Through Avaya’s IP telephony, we are tapping into very powerful communication features boosting our productivity and allowing us to be much more responsive to our ever-changing business environment. We will be able to build on our existing investment in the other contact centers across the region by enabling the communication platform, based on traditional telephony, to integrate seamlessly with our new IP-enabled call center in Bahrain. The system will then automatically route Cardmember calls to an agent located either at one of our offices across the region or to our Manama contact center enabling our Cardmembers to communicate with our agents through a secure channel and at their convenience.”
The solution is based on Avaya’s S8700 Media Server, running Avaya Communications Manager software. The staff has Avaya 4610 and 4630 telephone handsets, while the contact center uses Avaya Elite Contact Center.
Nidal Abou-Ltaif, MD for Avaya Middle East and North Africa, stated, “The project with American Express demonstrates how our technology is truly transforming the way businesses in this region can tap into innovative communication solutions to improve service, enhance productivity and achieve a competitive advantage over their competition.”