The M&T Call Centre Inbound Service is a powerful marketing tool that can win market share for a Brand. The Service enables the Brand Owner to focus on the Customer, while lending a perfect synergy to the Brand's overall marketing effort.

At M&T, we organise and manage the Customer Services Departments for many brands competing in the national market, offering a useful outsourcing service, based on the most innovative methods and technologies in the field of telemarketing.

Benefits & objectives

The M&T Call Centre has grown in importance as a competitive tool, a service to the Brand Owner which increases the Brand's strength in the market. It strengthens marketing management and communication, and expands the Brand's market share.

The Service brings Brand Owner and Consumer together into an inter-active dialogue, with many important benefits for the Brand Owner.

	It presents a customer-oriented image of the Brand to the Consumer.
	It offers an optimum, immediate avenue for Consumers to voice any problems with a product, and for Brand Owners to learn about the problems.
	It informs Consumers about product demonstrations and other events.
	It feeds the marketing database for the Brand with current and more in-depth information, by encouraging the consumer to speak directly to the Company by asking for information.
	It enables the Brand Owner to focus on its own core activities, by delegating the operation of this important marketing tool to an expert organization. While the Service is an indispensable tool in today's marketing environment, it is at the same time very technology-, labour- and logistics- intensive.
The M&T Call Centre Inbound Service can perform many functions, including the following:
	collecting and dealing on the spot with all Consumer requests regarding the product: information, usage, complaints,
	managing orders brought in by media advertising or catalogues,
	managing the logistics of promotional redemption campaigns,
	coordinating technical services for a product to the Consumer's home,
	transferring telephone calls and e-mail requests to the correct person within the Brand Owner's organization,
	managing competitions,
	activating product guarantees.

 How it works

The Project is initiated by establishing a Task Force (planning stages), and a telephone number is assigned to the project (for example: a “free phone number”) for publicising in the media or on product packaging.
The second step is the collection, structuring and organization of the information to be given to the consumer through the service.
Next, we define the procedures for managing every single event, as well as the mode of answering customers' requests.
Finally, we configure the technical systems; and give all staff who are involved, an intensive instruction on every aspect of the Brand, the committee's objectives, and the operational plan.

The M&T Call Centre supplies consumers with services as agreed within the Task Force Committee (distribution stage).
The Task Force that we assign to each project is typically composed of: a person in charge of the division, a team leader, an assistant account manager, and a number of Contact Centre agents shared with other projects.

The M&T Call Centre operates Mondays to Fridays from 8.30 am to 8.30 pm ; and Saturdays from 9.00 am to 1.00 pm and 2.00 pm to 6.00 pm , unless otherwise agreed by the Committee.

An additional support, an IVR automatic system, is typically dedicated to receiving telephone calls (welcome messages); managing queuing times; or announcing the Call Centre's working hours. This service can also be extended by travelling on the internet in an “information tree”, and containing such information as: addresses of points of sale; or the Call Centre's working hours; description of current promotions and where to find details on the internet; telephone/fax numbers of the company running the promotion; and other useful information.

To manage telephone contacts, both inbound and outbound, we use the “Syntesy” Call Management System (CMS). This is a software that is tailored to the committee's plans and detailed technical lists.

A monthly report is compiled for the committee following an analysis of the data obtained from the calls. The committee also has at its own disposal an internet reference that enables its members to check directly the total of daily incoming telephone calls.

We can also deal with informational materials, such as the dispatch of catalogues / product samples; or the activation of guarantees.

Since 2003, M&T is awarded VISION 2000 certification.

Organizational structure

The M&T Call Centre Service Team is specifically dedicated to this service, and operates in a multi-client mode.

Our clients are assured the highest quality services, because we operate only with carefully trained, permanently employed M&T staff. We never use any temporary personnel.

The service can be performed either by a toll-free number or a shared number. The number is normally the property of the committee and certificated at the Call Centre's ISDN, Marketing & Telematica, Arese, Milano.

For our Call Centre equipment, we use the latest “Awaya” technology. This is connected to the back bone of the carriers Colt Telecom & Fastweb with over 90 incoming lines, and is equipped with ACD functions (Automatic Call Dispatcher), IVR (Interactive Voice Responder) and CTI link (Computer Telephone Integration).

The Architecture of our computer and telephone systems are designed and maintained by our own in-house technical staff. This guarantees autonomy in system configuration, as well as continuity in the management and maintenance of all the equipment, both with regard to data as well as telephony.

Our Call Centre hall has some thirty specialist operators. They are organized into three shifts, and operate at posts equipped with Pentium Personal Computers on a local net with Internet connection and e-mail addresses.