Limerick Council plans €700,000 overhaul of its phone system
Company sought to lead revamp of telephony system in Limerick City and County Council
A TOTAL of €700,000 is the estimated price tag attached to Limerick City and County Council's planned replacement of its telephone system, new documents have revealed.
The local authority is seeking a company to upgrade its telephony service to a brand new system.
Installed in 2017, the council says its current routing system is "approaching end of life and no longer aligns with current organisational technology standards, operational requirements, or reporting and governance expectations”.
In documents advertising its bid for companies which may be interested to deliver the service, the local authority says the objective is “to provide a stable, scalable and fully supported intervention that improves service continuity, call handling, reporting accuracy and user experience.”
The figure of €700,000 may partly reflect the council's broad remit, including responsibility for Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) tenancies.
The successful bidder would be awarded a contract with an estimated value of €700,000, excluding VAT.
Council has stipulated the system will “provide high availability with no single point of failure for core call-handling”.
They have stated it should support both office-based and remote workers, as well as integrating with its current systems.
Tender documents show minimum requirements for the new telephony system will mean agents must be able to receive inbound calls through assigned queues and make outbound calls.
The system should allow the display of caller identification and provide the automatic logging of calls where required.
Call supervisors must be given access to real-time dashboards showing agents who are logged in, the number of calls in a queue to council staff, as well as calls handled, and abandoned.
Historical call data should be kept for audit, Freedom of Information requests and statutory reporting.
As part of the contract, any successful company will provide 160 standard user handsets and 150 headsets.
On top of this, 30 higher-specification handsets will be provided for use by senior management or executive staff.
Ten wireless handsets will also be provided.
This Friday is the deadline for companies to make enquiries on the process.
The deadline to present bids for the contract will fall on Monday, June 22 at 1pm.
In response to a query from this newspaper, a council spokesperson said: “In the interest of fairness and maintaining the integrity of the competition, we cannot comment on a live tender process."