Duncan Guy Email & Phone Number

Biel, Switzerland

Peter Josika (MD Conduit Europe) convinced me to lead the IT department for the new 1818 Directory Enquiries that he was about to launch.On 1st January 2007 directory enquiries in Switzerland went through the final part of de-regulation. This was less than 2 months after I started with the company. Within 3 months of deregulation we had taken the call centre from a 40 agent, 2 million calls a year to 170 agents, 11 million calls a year. By 2010 we were taking about 16 million calls per year with the same number of agents.Throughout 2007 and 2008 we took the IT infrastructure from 5 servers to 23 (including redundancy) and from 7 outages a month to zero. We achieved the magic 99.998% up time in a 24*7 call centre. In 2008 we converted the platform from traditional TDM over to VoIP without interruption to service.We also geographically moved the location in 2012 within Biel again without interruption to service.Regrettably by 2015 the market was in steep decline (~30% pa) and the decision was made to offshore the remaining calls to Austria and Morocco. The decision to close the Swiss Call Centre mean the loss of about 60 jobs including mine.

As Business Engineer I was responsible for the interface between the business, the developers and the project managers. My position enabled me with the assistance of the various project managers to ensure smooth product introductions with minimum impact on the call centre. This was achieved in various ways including outsourcing, semi and fully automated IVR solutions and specially trained teams. While a major part of the position was interfacing, there was also a chance to show my creativity and influence the direction of the call centre. One project was a no-frills prepaid mobile telephone which was introduced for a non-Swisscom Company in 120 days.

I accepted the position of as the Head of Technical Customer Support in Swisscom Mobile in Customer Care. I introduced several efficiency enhancing changes in the call centre, raised the motivation and enthusiasm of the team. Additionally the new technology introduced were seen by management and team as positive changes. This position allowed me to continue to stay intimately connected with current technology and develop my business and staffmanagement. I managed to improve the service level from the lower 50% to the upper 70%.Technical Customer Support is a key aspect of customer satisfaction and with my leadership it achieved one of the highest rated departments in customer satisfaction surveys. This is more remarkable when it is recognized that Swisscom Mobile is consistently the highest rated network provider in Switzerland. I also demonstrated that when it is necessary to confront unpleasant issues I address these issues directly and promptly.

I worked for NewVoiceMedia as a Senior Consultant and Chief Solution Architect. I have my name on one of the Patents owned by this inventive company in the area of Network Based Call Centre.UK based NewVoiceMedia provide partners and customers with ground breaking value added telephony services that are unique, easy to use and implement, and are cost effective. Its network based computer telephony platform enables VoiceXML applications to monitor and control calls and communicate with the callers at any time throughout the conversation.NVM specializes in applications and application development but have a close working relationship with network providers in the UK. In fact NVM makes most of its revenue comes from calls generated to VAS provided to SME’s over the partner networks.I was the principle consultant for call centre, CTI controlled speech recording systems, IVR integration and VoIP. This consultancy ranged from customer solutions to business strategy.

I accepted a contract as a world-wide Senior Consultant for Encompass CRM Solution. This expanded my role far beyond Europe to Central America, Africa and in particular Asia. The position was demanding and required exceptional flexibility. Often there was little more than a few days or even hours notice that I would be needed half way around the world. Far from being a negative aspect of the job I found this to increase the interest andexcitement of the position and found that this became Something to look forward to.With Cincom I was able to apply my voice skills to a Windows NT based environment and I was able to expand my skill base while at the same time being able to continue development of my Voice based knowledge. I spent much time as a trouble-shooter, the most glamorous part of the job, but also spent significant amounts of time on project management, pre-sales, installation and development support. I was also active giving training courses and speaking at conferences.

Due to my extensive knowledge in the call centre environment I was approached by Versatility to become a CTI specialist for the international channel of Versatility. I very quickly found myself travelling throughout Europe and beyond. This position was demanding in self-motivation and self-discipline as well as self-reliance. It required a flexible working attitude and the ability to react quickly to circumstance. Being principally a voice specialist in a software company I rapidly found that my expertise was sought after all over the world. I found myself supporting not just European companies but also companies in Australia, Taiwan, Hong-Kong, Kuwait, South Africa and Thailand. However, most of my work was in Europe.

I developed my role of a voice mail expert into that of a more broad based ACD engineer was able to expand my role to become Ascom’s technical expert in new call centre products, enabling me to re-use my existing knowledge in Personal Computers, ISDN and private networking. This development also allowed me to work closer with both customers and suppliers. My responsibility ranged from introducing the products to training our field staff about the products and giving technical support for the more difficult problems.

In August 1991 I started my first full time position outside the UK working for Ascom Business Systems AG in Bern, Switzerland.PABX's were not new to me, but the use of voice messaging systems was at this time very novel. It meant that I needed to be totally conversant with all aspects of voice messaging and the host PABX. I needed to understand the detail and the system working of every component of call handling. My position quickly made me the foremost technical authority of voice messaging in Switzerland. My job took me beyond installation, testing and quality assurance and I spend much of my time with existing and prospective customers taking time to ensure that the product can fulfil their requirements and that they are aware of the limitations of the current product.My work was not restricted to voice messaging alone however. I also became a valuable technical authority on data and video communications through the Meridian PABX.

I accepted a short term contract as a resort manager in Austria, working for a ski holiday company called Winter World who specialise in school parties. In addition to my general management duties, I was able to view the considerable difficulties communicating overseas with few employees and very small budget and make suitable recommendations. I was also able to develop my German language skills with when dealing with hoteliers, ski school managers, ski hire companies and other suppliers. I was also able to practice my negotiation and problem solving skills when school parties had expected something different that that delivered. It is vital that problems are solved immediately in this type of situation because 7 days later is too late. They will have gone home by then!

I was promoted to the Head of Communications and Computer Services for British Telecom Communications System Division (CSD) UK Sites and other Headquarters' Buildings outside of London.This included the provision of voice, data and text communications at major headquarters sites and BTRL, Martlesham, and co-ordination of communications of all UK non-district sites outside of London.Although this boundary blurred significantly and responsibilities extended both into London and overseas.Provision of technical consultancy to the ICPA core team on issues of strategic importance, in particular the PABX DPNSS node numbering scheme, the PABX Megastream backbone network design, the Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) portfolio and the Trans-Atlantic E1circuit. Production of budgets for the above services and control of their expenditure. Supervision of 22 staff who perform the engineering management of the above systems and co-ordination of the efforts of staff in systems installation.

I was promoted to International Products Division (IPD) Technical Communications Manager. I was responsible for the development and implementation of IPD communications strategies. This included providing the following services in Anzani House, Felixstowe, Suffolk and Rochester Row, Victoria, London;All aspects of Voice, Data and Text CommunicationsVax Computer Services, utilising 5 DEC Vax superminiManagement Information Services AccessTelex & Fax provision and administrationVarious Electronic Mail System ManagementCellnet TelephonesDirectory AdministrationRadio Pagers AdministrationInternal Billing and Cost Recovery

I was promoted to Assistant Executive Engineer and accepted a post with British Telecom Merlin at Anzani House in Felixstowe where I was involved in several projects. These included; Evaluation, testing and support of the insurance broker vertical market (MerlinBroker). MerlinBroker was a British Telecom Merlin badged software product, which ran on the M2200 PC.Research and Development of the Felix Information ManagementServer Project. This advanced voice and data system was theforerunner to the Mezza system. Marketing, development and support to major account sales staff of the M5000 range of PC's, providing the technical input to the project.The M5000 provided to British Telecom its first fully IBM XTcompatible personal computer. Responsibility included technical development and support of all communications interfaces to the computer.

Sponsored by British Telecom I began a 4-year thin Sandwich Degree course, which involved three periods of 6 months of industrial training.This training was held at BT Factories Division (Birmingham), Plymouth Area MAC, BTHQ (London), BTRL (Martlesham)

I was promoted to T2A on power and accommodation maintenance in the Plymouth area. My duties included;Accommodation maintenance for several exchanges and officeblocks, including maintenance of goods and passenger lifts, various types of central heating, fire and bomb alarm systems, air conditioning and ventilation plant, garage equipment and staff restaurant equipment. Maintenance of various power plant equipment from UAX 50v power plant equipment to the GSC 11KV sub-station.