Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Sep 24, 2013: Smart Link BPO Solutions & Contact Centers, a member of Al Khaleej Training and Education Group, announced on the 83rd anniversary of the Saudi National Day that it has successfully launched and completed the first phase of the National Contact Center - NCC project (also known as AMER) for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s e-Government program (YESSER). Smart Link successfully deployed the latest technologies and multi-channel state-of-the-art contact center systems for the mega distributed infrastructure project in two facilities located in Riyadh and Jeddah operated by highly qualified workforce consisting of male and female Saudi youth exclusively.
After a thorough assessment and vetting of proposals that took more than a year, the Supreme Supervisory Committee, which was mandated by the Supreme Supervisory Committee of e-Government Program (YESSER) in Saudi Arabia selected Smart Link from amongst some of the highly reputable global and local companies, to implement, establish and operate the Kingdom’s most ambitious AMER project.
Commenting on the project, Al Khaleej’s Senior VP and Smart Link’s Managing Director, Eng. Safwan Al-Khatib said, “We are very proud and honored to be chosen by the Supreme Supervisory Committee to be a part of this prestigious National Program for e-Government, which is a huge achievement for us. Our primary goal was to achieve and realize YESSER’s vision of providing a multi-channeled service platform in accordance with highest international quality standards in unprecedented levels, for which our team spent a lot of time and effort to understand and accurately define the project requirements and configure an advanced solution with technologies from major international companies. As a starting point of project implementation and in accordance with the highest international standards and the aspirations of the National program for e-government, Smart Link has led a technical and strategic alliance of world's leading companies in the field of multi-channel contact centers solutions development. Additionally we are also working with group of prestigious international quality control organizations, which are qualified in identifying operational and administrative performance quality standards for service interactive facilities.”
The National Contact Center (AMER) will be a Tier-1 support center for beneficiaries of all contracted Saudi government agencies’ services through various channels, which is in line with the government’s directives to adopt e-government concepts and applications through the latest effective communication techniques between government institutions and all beneficiaries of their services inside and outside the Kingdom including the Saudi nationals and expatriates.
With the launch of phase 1, the National Contact Center (Amer) will respond to public and e-government beneficiaries’ inquiries where beneficiaries of theSaudi e-Government Portal, Ministry of Civil Service, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Zakat & Income Agency, Saudi Post and National Program for e-Government (YESSER) will now be able to avail of the technical support for services and electronic transactions provided by these government entities. This center will serve all e-services beneficiaries depending on the various communication channels in order to communicate with users of electronic services and aims at providing advice, assistance and technical support rapidly and reaching them through more than one channel.
Smart Link adopted networking technologies and data distribution and transfer from Cisco and high-end multi-channel enterprise edition call center solutions from Avaya to transfer voice and data over fiber optic lines of the global network “Internet”. In order to supplement the project with the best applications and support systems, Smart Link designed a CRM System relying on the best organizational communication tools and software development from Microsoft to provide Active Directory solutions, e-mail, users databases, integration and collaboration with highly sophisticated Microsoft Dynamics CRM solutions to build Communication Processes Management System and standard operating procedures between all members of the center’s work team and general beneficiaries of National Contact Center services.
Al-Khatib pointed out that Smart Link will follow the government’s vision and guidelines to recruit qualified and professionally trained Saudi youth to provide communication services to users of government agencies’ services and at the same time boost governmental efforts aimed at improving employment opportunities of Saudi qualified graduates. The company also promised that the services will be in accordance with the highest standards of performance quality and the project will be managed according to the criteria of World Institute for Projects Management PMI to ensure that all technical and operational outputs. It will also work within the desired time frames so that it can launch the National Contact Center services on the specified date after completing the establishment phase, slated for around six months from the date of commencement. Smart Link will then run the center and manage all relevant vital events within a period of three consecutive years at the end of which, National Contact Center (AMER) as envisioned will be serving beneficiaries of upto 183 government agencies and entities.
The project aims at providing 6 new channels to reach e-Government excellence in services where users can avail of the National Contact Center – AMER’s services through Web Support, Live Chat, Email, SMS, Fax and Telephone Support through http://www.199099.gov.sa or through telephone, fax, SMS through the Contact Center’s support on the unified number 199099.
It is worth mentioning, during the last (INSIGHTS – Middle East Contact Center - MECC13) Smart Link and its success partners scooped various excellence awards of the highly prestigious event where Smart Link won the Best Business Strategy Implementation Award and other winners were the company’s partners RICC (McDonald’s Arabia) that won Best Small Contact Center and Best First Call Resolution awards and the Saudi Post Contact Center that won the Best Government Service Contact Center award (Monopoly).
