National Bank of Abu Dhabi excels on customer service with HP and Altitude Software

HP's Services Division was responsible for the design, consultancy, and project management of the contact centre, which centers on Altitude software. The Altitude uCI suite is a Customer Interaction Management (CIM) solution that provides a full blended support for voice (inbound and outbound), IVR, email, Web collaboration and chat, providing full interactive services to NBAD's customers

With the largest branches and ATMs network in the country, NBAD has been serving the people of the UAE, offering them premier financial services and wide ranging banking facilities. "NBAD prides itself on striving to exceed client expectations for quality banking services and products," said Mr. Khalid Deemas, Head of the Retail Banking Group at National Bank of Abu Dhabi. "Our goal is to be the most accessible bank using the latest technology and dedicated professionals to deliver ultimate customer satisfaction."
To do so, National Bank of Abu Dhabi specifically needed a customer interaction management solution that would grow with them and their needs over time. The new contact center solution had to be able to:

- Enable customer service representatives to quickly and efficiently handle customers interactions and provide extensive real-time reporting capabilities
- Continuously improve customer service
- make its investment in the call center self-funding through increased customer numbers in recognition of enhanced services
- be reliable and improve the total customer experience

After a thorough review of contact centre software solutions, NBAD selected the Altitude and HP combination. "NBAD's core strategy is to deliver the ultimate customer experience. However, as a leading financial institution, our requirements for customer interaction management are unique, this is why we needed a flexible and reliable CIM system," commented Srood Sherif, Head of Information Technology at National Bank of Abu Dhabi. HP recognized the requirements of the bank and aimed to provide them with best of breed solutions that empowered back-end capabilities to the front-end user as well as "future-proofing" the system. Mike Smith, General Manager for HP Services, Middle East stated "it was important to us that we were able to provide to NBAD cutting-edge banking solutions, both in terms of superiority in tele-banking services and an ability to provide cost effective support to its growing customer base. With this in mind we chose to work with Altitude Software to help achieve greater customer satisfaction all round. He added "The new system has helped the bank improve the number of calls answered within 15 seconds by 41 percent and enhance the average speed of answer by 48 percent."

Deepening Customer Relationships
NBAD's Abu Dhabi-based contact centre today handles telephone interactions as well as requests made via e-mail. The first phase of the solution deployment consisted in identifying all incoming customer contacts and routing them to the most appropriate customer service representative (CSR). With Altitude's computer telephony integration (CTI) and desktop application capabilities, CSRs have all relevant account data, enabling them to see the customer's entire relationship with the bank and quickly pinpoint answers to customers' questions. In addition, Altitude IVR (Interactive Voice Response) enables NBAD clients to serve themselves using voice menus and touch-tone phone controls or at any time choose to be transferred to a live customer service representative. "Clients can be handled according to their individual needs, depending on their profile with the bank; and once a client's needs are identified, he or she can be routed to the best available CSR without frustrating transfers or long waits in queue" said Jehad K. Masoud, Project Manager at National Bank of Abu Dhabi.

"We are honored to have participated in NBAD's successful customer service operations," said Riadh Boukhris, Altitude Software Vice President Middle East, Africa & South Asia. "Building strong customer relationships has become a crucial step toward ongoing success, specifically in the banking sector where demands on customer retention and ROI are critical. It is very gratifying to see that such a prominent financial institution selected Altitude Software solutions to meet this strategic goal." In recognizing the powerful combination of HP and Altitude, Mike Smith concluded "Altitude's customer interaction management solution, together with HP's consulting and integrating capabilities, enables companies to effectively manage multi-channel customers while delivering significant revenue benefits and reducing operational costs. When forming our partnership solutions we are always looking to enhance the total customer experience of our clients and within the contact centre space we do so in partnership with Altitude."