IQI supported Business Finland in procuring an integrated contact centre system

The organisation aims to make Finland the world’s most attractive innovation environment and investment destination, with a focus on economic growth, sustainable development and stronger competitiveness.

Business Finland employs 760 experts across 40 offices worldwide and 16 locations in Finland.

The collaboration originally began with First Goal, which has since become part of IQI.

Expert support for contact centre system procurement

In 2021, the contract for Business Finland’s customer service telephone system was approaching its expiry date, and the organisation decided to launch a new procurement process. Business Finland wanted an independent expert to support the contact centre system procurement.

Its ten-person customer service organisation manages two telephone lines. One provides information about Business Finland’s services, while the other assists customers with questions about the organisation’s online funding service.

“We wanted external support for the procurement process because contact centre systems are not part of our core expertise.”

Anna Alasmaa
Senior Director, Customer Care

“Another equally important reason was that we wanted to find a contact centre system that could, if possible, be integrated directly with our existing Microsoft Dynamics CRM platform.”

IQI provided the required expertise, combining extensive experience of contact centre solutions, CRM environments and customer experience development.

An integrated solution brings the complete customer history together

“We knew that integrating the telephone system with the CRM platform was not a standard approach, but we wanted to explore the possibility. Our objective was to have all customer service calls and other interactions recorded directly in the CRM so that the complete customer history would be available in one place,” Alasmaa explains.

The project progressed from an assessment of the current situation and future requirements to a customer service development plan and the procurement of a supporting voice channel solution.

“It was important that IQI quickly gained a comprehensive understanding of our customer service operations. The procurement process included a market dialogue. IQI’s in-depth understanding of both CRM and contact centre systems gave us a significant advantage and enabled sufficiently detailed technical discussions with potential service providers.”

Business Finland ultimately selected a Genesys contact centre solution that could be integrated with its Microsoft Dynamics environment.

Straightforward collaboration and a comprehensive perspective

The integrated voice channel solution is now close to production launch. IQI continues to provide expert support in designing the operating practices for the CRM and contact centre integration and in delivering implementation training.

“I can already say that IQI has provided tremendous value during both the procurement and implementation phases. I do not know how I would have brought the project to completion without them. I have been extremely satisfied with how straightforward the collaboration has been from the outset. We have built a partnership based on trust,” Alasmaa says.

“IQI’s experts consider more than the technical aspects. They also understand how each decision affects the customer experience.”