Parseq has secured a five-year contract with the UK’s largest energy supplier Centrica to handle its incoming mail, nearly 20,000 items each month.

Building on its existing contact-centre relationship it won a competitive tender to manage and digitally index correspondence including legal, financial documentation, cheque processing, general correspondence and processing cash payments processing.

Craig Smith, divisional managing director at Parseq said: “Because each piece of post Centrica receives needs to be acted upon immediately it needed to be confident that changing supplier wouldn’t impact on service delivery. There is no margin for error.

“Although this contract hasn’t been awarded to a new outsource provider for a number of years, we’re proud to say that our expertise and proven experience demonstrated we could not only do the job, but also add improvements and efficiencies to it.”

To ensure a smooth transition Parseq focused on five key areas:

1. Understanding how the current model works
2. Approach – It used all its skill sets to create a process covering all bases including the in-house development team, business analysts, finance department, client services, sales department and operations
3. Build – creating the technology to manage the process
4. Test – with the client to work out any issues, further develop and give Centrica complete confidence before the project went live
5. Robust project management – to underpin development and ensure the process was being overseen at every stage

Richard Parker, commercial strategy manager at Centrica adds: “The transition to Parseq couldn’t have gone better. For us outsourcing isn’t about freeing up in-house resource it’s about leaving a central part of our business in the hands of the experts and with this contract we feel that’s exactly what we’ve done.

“Parseq demonstrated to us early in the tendering process that they had the capability to not only take on this contract, but also the experience to enhance its delivery.”

Headquartered in Rotherham, Parseq processes over 100,000 documents per day, £2 billion of electronic payments a month and make and received over 70 million calls a year on behalf of its clients.

Its business and client footprint covers the top 10 international banks, a third of the UK’s utility sector, the charity sector and a significant presence in the UK insurance sector.