Gwynedd Replaces 16-Server Phone System with Webex Calling and Contact Center
By replacing a decade-old, 16-server phone system with cloud-based Webex Calling, Webex Contact Center, and Cisco collaboration devices, the local authority for Gwynedd in north west Wales now manages 175,000 calls a month, keeps mobile staff reachable in the field, and serves residents in Welsh as naturally as in English.
Gwyn Jones, Infrastructure Systems Manager, Cyngor Gwynedd
“We’ve gained a lot of time back to be able to innovate. We are getting a lot more for the value of what we put in compared to the restrictive nature of our previous system.”
With more than 5000 employees Gwynedd Council is one of the county’s largest employers, delivering services from adult social care and education to highways, waste, and infrastructure, across coast, countryside, and mountains, and the phone is often the front door to the council.
Residents need to reach the right person quickly, and many of the people they need, such as social workers and highways crews, spend their days out in the community rather than at a desk. Language matters just as much: approximately 64% of Gwynedd’s citizens speak Welsh, so serving them confidently in Welsh is central to trust and service quality. Cyngor Gwynedd’s previous contact centre lacked the live insight managers needed to match staffing to demand.
The council recognised it needed a more responsive operating model: one that fit into the Microsoft Teams workflows employees already used, and served citizens confidently in Welsh or English.
Cyngor Gwynedd selected Cisco
Cyngor Gwynedd selected Cisco to bring calling, contact centre operations, devices, and centralised management together on one cloud platform. The solution combines Webex Calling, Webex Contact Center, Cisco collaboration devices, Webex Suite, and Cisco Collaboration Control Hub.
Working with partners Boxxe and Gamma, the council migrated from its legacy environment to Webex Calling and retired all 16 on-premises servers. Cisco Call for Microsoft Teams brings Webex Calling directly into the Teams interface, helping 1,700 users adopt enterprise calling in a workspace they already know. Welsh language localisation is centralised across the Webex app, Control Hub, and desk phone interfaces. Cisco Call runs inside Microsoft Teams, thus employees reach calling without learning a new tool.
The result is practical flexibility with a direct service benefit: residents are more likely to reach the right person the first time, while employees work effectively across offices, homes, and community locations.
Cisco worked with Cyngor Gwynedd to localise the Webex experience in Welsh end to end, from application and administration interfaces to the menus and buttons on desk phones. For employees, that means working in their first language every day. For residents, it makes Welsh-language service the default rather than the exception.
Webex Contact Center gives managers live visibility into call demand and performance, so they can respond during the day instead of waiting for retrospective reports. That insight supports faster staffing decisions, more effective queue management, and continuous improvement for the council’s answer rate.
New capabilities now arrive through cloud updates, so the council can improve services without waiting years for a major infrastructure refresh.
Looking ahead
Cyngor Gwynedd is now exploring AI-driven agents and citizen self-service. Workshops with 50 employees across education, social care, highways, and other departments are identifying high-value use cases grounded in real service needs.
With a simpler communications environment, a connected device and app experience, actionable data, and an extensible platform already in place, the council is ready to keep turning technology investment into faster decisions, flexible work, and inclusive citizen service. For Gwynedd’s residents, that means a council that responds to their reporting and queries and calls, wherever its people are working, and in the language residents choose.
