Among 50 financial institutions from 15 countries across the Asia Pacific, Gulf region and Central Asia
Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. (KMB), one of India’s leading private sector banks, and its IT partner Cisco, the worldwide leader in networking, received the Asian Banker Award for Best Contact Center Deployment in the APAC region in 2011. The award was presented to KMB and Cisco for outstanding deployment for providing next generation customer experience, and enhancing agent productivity to be able to serve customers better.
Over 50 financial institutions from 15 countries across the Asia Pacific, Gulf region and Central Asia were evaluated as part of Asian Banker’s Technology Implementation Awards Programme 2011 and winners were selected basis a stringent three-month long process.
The call center implementation included amalgamation of all contact centers of the Kotak Group into a single virtualized, redundant and geographically separated contact center (for business continuity reasons) to currently serve 500 agents. It also included creating a rich Interactive Voice Response (IVR) to improve automation, backend integration with the existing CRM to improve the customer experience and contact center efficiency. Cisco has deployed Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise, Automatic Call Distribution Software, Cisco Customer Voice Portal, Interactive Voice Response System, Cisco Contact Center Reporting Solution, Cisco Unified Communication Manager, and Cisco IP Telephones along with the CRM Integration products to meet KMB’s needs.
On receiving the award, Shalini Mehta, Executive Vice President, Kotak Mahindra Bank said, “We are extremely delighted to receive this prestigious award from Asian Banker. The integration of multiple contact centers has translated in better business benefits in the form of higher agent call productivity and CRM integration, providing a 360 degree view of customer interaction resulting in improved customer experience. We have been able to create a virtual National Call Centre through geographically spread across cities to be able to meet needs of Business Continuity Planning as well as better resource utilization. Our association with Cisco has been rewarding and we intend to continue the partnership to exceed our goals.”
“We have been able to fulfill our vision of implementing a State of the Art platform for increased call centre agent productivity, which has been leveraged by all Kotak businesses across the group” said Kotak Group Chief Technology Officer, Aruna Rao.
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Mr. Parag Arora, Vice President, Banking and Financial Services Industry, Cisco India & SAARC said, “At Cisco, we pride ourselves on our ability to move beyond the realm of technology and become business partners for our clients. This is a testimony of our partnership with Kotak Mahindra Bank and I am indeed honored to receive this award. As a pioneering private bank, Kotak Mahindra had some unique requirements which were well understood by our experts and we are confident that this will result in increased savings, productivity, and a better customer experience.”
Key Facts / Highlights
- First virtualized IP contact center deployed in India which handles calls seamlessly from any location. This also allows Kotak to virtualize the contact center operations across the various lines of business.
- This implementation allows Kotak to collect calls across any point of presence in India by just adding a Cisco router at that location with a PRI connection and data link to the data center.
- It lets Kotak provide an interactive voice response at the edge of the voice network and drive down costs by reducing utilization of bandwidth and toll charges.
- CRM integration with Cisco contact center allows a 360 degree view of the customer to the agent thus improving the caller experience and agent productivity.
About Kotak Mahindra Bank
www.kotak.com
Established in 1985, the Kotak Mahindra group has been one of India's leading financial services conglomerate. In February 2003, Kotak Mahindra Finance Ltd, the group's flagship company was given the license to carry on banking business by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). This approval creates banking history since Kotak Mahindra Finance Ltd. is the first non-banking finance company in India to convert itself in to a bank as Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd.
Kotak Mahindra Bank offers complete retail financial solutions for varied customer requirements. The Savings Account goes beyond the traditional role of savings and provides a range of services through a comprehensive suite of investment services and other transactional conveniences like Online Shopping, Bill Payments, ASBA, Netc@rd, ActivMoney (Automatic TD sweep-in and Sweep-out) etc. The Bank also offers an Investment Account where Mutual Fund investments are recorded and can be viewed in a consolidated fashion across fund houses & schemes. One can purchase, redeem, switch and even make systematic investments in Mutual Fund Schemes of over 20 Indian Mutual Fund houses. All this can be availed through Internet or phone banking services. The Bank also offers loan products such as Personal Loans, Commercial Vehicle Loans, etc. Keeping in mind the diverse needs of the Business Community, Kotak Mahindra Bank offers comprehensive business solutions that include Current Account, Trade Services, Cash Management Services and Credit facilities. Kotak Mahindra Bank has over 321 full fledged retail branches and over 711 ATMs spread across 183 locations in the country. The Bank has the products, the experience, the infrastructure and most importantly the commitment to deliver pragmatic, end-to-end solutions that really work.
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