The Office of National Statistics has selected a hosted contact centre management system from UK telco BT.

The ONS, which compiles and analyses economic data for the UK government, hopes to reduce software and hardware costs by replacing its existing on-premise contact centre solution with BT's pay-as-you-go Cloud Contact system.

The platform brings together contact channels including voice, email and chat into a single system. It will integrate with ONS's existing telephony system, applying call-routing rules based on the nature of each incoming call. 

The Cloud Contact solution will also allow ONS agents to connect and work from home for the first time. 

"Technology plays a crucial role in our mission to provide trusted, comprehensive statistics that serve the public good," said Colin Shaw, service centre director at ONS.

"Our contact centre teams must be able to support and manage multiple channels of enquiry, so we can give stakeholders the information and advice they need quickly, in the way they want it."

Andrew Kingston, BT's Cloud Contact government sales lead, said that the on-demand nature of the service will help ONS scale its IT spend according to demand.

"All contact centres have seasonal peaks," Kingston said this morning. "This solution is a different way of solving a traditional problem, as the old way is to spend money on kit that rarely reaches full capacity."