Company background
Direct Contact Centres was founded in 2007 as the
telemarketing operation of Motorway Direct, the UK’s fastest growing
provider of warranty products to the motor industry. They had previously
outsourced their telemarketing but felt they could facilitate greater
control by bringing the function in-house. Direct Contact Centres work
alongside AA Warranties, offering warranties on behalf of the AA motoring
organisation. In terms of their position within the contact centre industry,
they operate within a niche – growth is expected within this niche over the
next few years. The telemarketing operation has been created to ensure the
company retain a competitive position as it looks to future expansion.
The Business Challenge
The business challenges faced by Direct Contact
Centres predominantly involve finance and control issues. In terms of
finance, the company wanted to eliminate outsourcing costs and reduce
overall costs to a minimum. In addition to this, by bringing the
telemarketing operation in-house, it provided a much higher level of control
than the previous outsourced arrangement. A further business challenge is
presented with the AA needing full details of all campaigns delivered so
reporting is of primary concern.
IT Director, Andrew Brown explained: “As we are operating within a sector
that is unique to the contact centre industry, the challenges we face are
also quite different. Direct Contact Centres was set up to save money but to
obtain real optimisation in terms of finance, the technology had to be
right”.
The Direct Contact Centres telemarketing operation commenced with eight
agents and at this stage, they realised that to obtain maximum efficiency,
software would need to be purchased to ensure that value would be added.
Why Did Direct Contact Centres Choose TouchStar?
The original objectives in sourcing a new system for
the telemarketing operation were based mainly around cost minimisation as it was
a new business. With this in mind, the company directors purchased what was
considered the cheapest product on the market – an NMS Adaptive power dialler
from one of TouchStar’s competitors. However, it quickly became clear that the
system did not have anything like the functionality a call centre required to
obtain maximum efficiencies.
Andrew Brown stated: “From the outset the system was not right. We simply could
not get anything out of the system. In this business, the ability to produce
real time and historical statistics is very important and as the telemarketing
operation developed, it became apparent that this kind of reporting was required
and the purchased system could not achieve this. We didn’t know what our agents’
performance was like and we could not manage campaigns effectively.”
Andrew was equally dismayed with the system’s ability to handle large quantities
of data: “Importing and exporting data was a complete nightmare. We could spend
all day trying to sort this and wasted valuable time that should have been spent
on other activities.”
Direct Contact Centres were also very unimpressed with the call recording
facilities. Andrew went on to add: “The dialling system we bought did not have
any recording so we had to use a third party system. And this became very
‘hit-and-miss’. Finding calls could take time and this was not acceptable if we
had to deal with a complaint. If the system went down, it could take days to
find out what the cause of the problem was.”
By the end of 2007, Direct Contact Centres decided to look for a system that
could deliver to their requirements. And at this point, Direct Contact Centres
contacted TouchStar and a number of competing companies. Obviously value for
money would remain a key objective in the new software purchase but more
importantly, it had to be demonstrated that the solution would have all the
functionality that was previously missing. It seemed that if they were to expand
to more than 10 agents, a ‘predictive dialling’ capability would be desired.
Andrew was very impressed with the presentation from TouchStar: “From the
initial demonstration it was apparent that TouchStar Connect offered everything
that we had been lacking with the CTI Power Dialler – the reporting, the
recording, the ease of data importing, etc was all there. I also felt the guys
who came over from TouchStar were extremely knowledgeable but just as
importantly, were really friendly and down-to-earth and felt I could do business
with them.”
TouchStar’s offer of 24 hours support, 365 days a year was something Andrew felt
was a major point of differentiation: “None of the other companies offered this
– it seemed to us that TouchStar were the only solution provider that was really
interested in us developing our business. Everything in their presentation was
all about how different features on the system would be of benefit to us, not at
list of every single feature the system had.”
Our Solution
TouchStar implemented the fully compliant TouchStar
Connect blended call centre system complete with ACD & IVR, intelligent
scripting, call recording and reporting at Direct Contact Centres in a matter of
days.
Andrew was immediately impressed with the productivity gains that resulted after
implementation. Andrew added: “TouchStar Connect was everything and more in
terms of what I expected from a dialler – and had the vital robust reporting and
call recording features that had been missing from our previous solution.”
The scalability of TouchStar Connect was made apparent when Direct Contact
Centres increased their operation to 30 agents soon after the initial
installation. They are already planning to use the blended capability of the
system to integrate inbound customer service elements of the business into
TouchStar Connect.
TouchStar have also provided network services (LCR) for Direct Contact Centres
as part of the overall solution. TouchStar provided the expertise of a network
services manager who gives advice and tips on how to maximise efficiencies and
save money on calls. Andrew agreed that having all their call centre needs
served by a single supplier helped streamline their business processes and as
time has progressed, the relationship has been solidified to a true partnership.
Implementation
Implementation was completed within the agreed
timeframe without the need for any agent downtime. Andrew was impressed with the
technical expertise of the team responsible for the installation: “I really felt
straight away they knew what they were doing. They quietly went about their work
which meant there was no disruption for the agents and very little downtime”.
Once the system was up and running, the TouchStar engineers trained key staff
and agents on how to use the relevant parts of the system. Andrew added: “The
fact they didn’t just up tools and go once the system was installed was of real
benefit to us as we needed to have things in place immediately. Since then, we
have been on one of the monthly TouchStar training courses to fine tune our
skills and have a monthly visit from a TouchStar Business Development Manager to
make sure we are using the system to its full capability.”
Features and Benefits of TouchStar Connect
Direct Contact Centres have experienced the following
results and benefits since implementing TouchStar Connect:
- Their agents’ talk time has trebled.
- A huge increase in sales meant a very quick return on the investment.
- A system that fully complies with and exceeds all OFCOM, DMA and FSA
regulations.
- The ability to report with detailed statistics from all campaigns in
real time has made management of the call centre business more focused.
- Flexibility to build campaigns in a variety of sectors has allowed new
products to be introduced.
- A seamless integration with their current customer service functions
which meant streamlined business processes.
- Free training on an ongoing basis, has continually updated staff
expertise.
- 24 x 7 x 365 UK based engineering support proving invaluable when
requiring advice at any time of the day or night.
- An appointed expert business development manager to optimise use of the
technology.
- A suite of value added services (including network services, cabling,
headsets, data backup, data management, etc) has meant they have to make one
single phone call to one supplier.
- Ability for further developments as their business grows.Business by
150% in just 4 weeks after full installation
Andrew Brown concluded: “We thought we could achieve
our objectives with a cheap Power Dialler but it became clear that would never
be the case. Since we implemented TouchStar Connect, we have gained the
functionality that we needed to operate our business in an effective manner. We
feel that TouchStar provide the most cost effective, value-for-money solution on
the market.”
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