Background
IN-telegence, a well-established telecommunications service provider based in Cologne, Germany, focuses exclusively on larger enterprise customers. With 80 to 90 employees, they provide services such as toll-free and shared call numbers and contact centre services as a cloud product. Their clientele includes businesses in the insurance, banking, energy, and utility sectors, mainly in Germany.
In 2019, Gamma acquired Telsis, a company that developed the contact centre software under the Telsis Cloud Contact (TCC) brand, which is now part of Gamma’s product range. The developers of Telsis are now part of Gamma, and the Telsis brand remains in Germany, the Netherlands, and Italy. IN-telegence has had a long-standing relationship with Telsis for almost 24 years.
Holger Jansen, Managing Director of IN-telegence, shares his perspective on the relationship:
“Our relationship goes way back. We started in 1999, nearly 24 years ago. We were all much younger then, but many of the same people are still involved today, like Peter Ritzmann, Managing Director at Telsis GmbH. It’s a long and familiar relationship we have.”
The Challenge
IN-telegence wanted to extend their Ocean routing platform in two areas:
- Capacity – to increase the throughput possible on the platform.
- Functionality – to deliver additional features for their contact centre platform that runs in parallel.
They also wanted to implement the brand new Telsis Cloud Contact (TCC) for use alongside with IN-telegence’s existing call centre product.
The Solution
IN-telegence utilised Telsis software, implemented into their private cloud, to provide the necessary extensions to the Ocean routing platform. This upgrade was performed with minimal disruption, ensuring that their customers did not notice any changes during the process. Also, the new TCC has been implemented and extensively tested by internal and external experts.
According to Holger Jansen,
“It wasn’t easy to transfer services to the OSP system because of the ECT node in between that we decided to replace with Telsis technology. Number routing was easy to implement on the new system, but some specific services for individual customers had to be rewritten from scratch, which took a lot of time at the beginning.”
The Result
The enhancements to the Ocean routing platform have resulted in:
- Increased capacity, allowing for higher throughput on the platform.
- Improved functionality, enabling additional features for the existing contact centre platform.
- Enhanced capabilities available on the new multichannel contact centre TCC that IN-telegence began offering to their enterprise customers.
Throughout the project, there was strong collaboration between IN-telegence, Telsis, and Gamma. Trust in Gamma was reinforced due to their long-standing relationship and partnership. Holger Jansen noted:
“There’s great teamwork between the Telsis technicians and our technicians.”
The migration process was smooth, and any challenges faced, such as misunderstandings on timing, were addressed quickly to avoid repetition.
Next Steps
There is potential for further collaboration with IN-telegence and Telsis in the future. The successful extension of the Ocean routing platform demonstrates the effectiveness of their partnership and opens the door for more growth and development. Holger Jansen mentioned their future plans:
“We are happy with the product because there are fewer errors, and everything works as expected. Our first customers are happy with the product too. Our plan is to extend the product with our own tools and have more features based on the TCC system. We want to differentiate ourselves from competitors who have the same product by offering additional tools for our own implementation.”
Key Takeaways
- Trust in Telsis and Gamma and the long-standing partnership was crucial for success.
- Minimal disruption during the upgrade process ensured a positive customer experience. Holger Jansen confirmed this by saying: “From my perspective, it’s been pretty good.”
- The project team collaborated effectively, addressing any challenges that arose. Jansen highlighted the collaboration, stating: “It’s very close, and as I mentioned, the people have worked together for many years. We have a direct connection to the English people, but lately, most work can be done remotely, which is good. The UK located Solution Architects are a good connection to the English engineers.”
- The enhancements to the Ocean routing platform resulted in increased capacity, improved functionality, and cost savings.
- The implementation of TCC created a significant milestone and advantage for IN-telegence, helping to move into a leading player in the European service provider landscape.
Overall, the successful enhancement of the Ocean routing platform for IN-telegence showcases the value of a strong partnership, clear communication, and a shared commitment to customer satisfaction.
When asked about advice for other customers, Holger Jansen shared his perspective:
“Our strategy has always been to run old and new systems in parallel and make the transition step by step. We migrate one application at a time, testing everything before moving the rest of the numbers to the new system. This approach is better than doing everything at once, which could lead to disaster if some services don’t work. For the TCC, it was easy to implement because it’s a self-contained service. If customers are interested in buying the TCC, it’s easy to install and doesn’t require any migration or programming work beforehand, making it seamless to implement.”
