Digging for Disaster Management

March 5, 2007: The Australia non-profit Dial Before You Dig service, has taken on board Datacom to assist in avoiding potential engineering and construction related disasters.

Datacom has completed a number of call centre and IT services for the group and in January, commenced hosting their website and providing an outsourced call centre service.

With members such as Telstra, local government authorities, telcos, utilities and oil and gas companies, Dial Before you Dig works to ensure builders and developers locate services and assets buried in the ground before they start excavating. It’s a service that requires a high level of accuracy and timeliness and the ability to respond immediately to customer queries.

Scott Reid, director of Dial Before you Dig, says they went looking for a ICT provider that could cope with the online and over the phone requests, while also respecting the sensitivity and complexity of the information relevant to underground utilities.

“Datacom submitted a proposal that saw most of our existing call centre people go over to their facility in Melbourne and team expanded,” says Reid. Overall, it’s a partnership service that commenced in June 2006, with Datacom also supplying and hosting Dial Before You Dig’s IT, while creating and managing their website.

“Datacom is delighted with the results we have achieved for the Dial Before You Dig service,” says Craig Logan, general manager of Datacom’s contact centre in Melbourne. Logan says it’s been a real bonus for Datacom to design and fit to the needs of the client, rather than have them overhaul their operations to suit them.

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