New World Stratford use OKI IP Keyphones to enhance customer service
BACKGROUND
New World Stratford is a key player in Taranaki’s highly competitive grocery industry. Aging telephone system technology was resulting in an increasing number of issues with in-bound customer calls, and was impacting negatively on customer service. New World decided to upgrade to an OKI IP Keyphone system to get customer service back on track.
THE CUSTOMER
New World Stratford employs a team of 130, of which around 20 use the company’s telephone system on a daily basis.
Issues with call reliability had meant the team was unable to consistently deliver on the company’s commitment to delivering outstanding levels of customer service. “The old phone system was a bit of a nightmare actually”, says Owner/Operator Craig Waite. “As calls were put on hold or transferred, customers often felt as if they had been cut off”, he adds.
THE KEY CHALLENGES
- Introduce a robust communications solution, to eliminate call failures and missed calls
- Improve customer service through fast and accurate transferring of customer calls
- Introduce new functionality to support company productivity and professionalism
THE SOLUTION
New World Stratford chose the OKI IP Keyphone system, for its ability to deliver on three key levels: Simplicity, Reliability and Affordability. “With the OKI we can now transfer calls with certainty, and thanks to keyphone hardware we have total ‘Presence’ of who is available to take calls”, says Waite. “We’ve also been able to introduce some small, but important improvements for our customers such as Music-on-Hold, where before we couldn’t offer anything”, says Waite.
RICH KEYPHONE SYSTEM FUNCTIONALITY
Introducing an OKI IP stage-SX phone system has allowed New World Stratford to realise the following benefits:
- Convenient Keyphone Simplicity: Improved customer service through an ability to identify at-a-glance who is available to take calls, and transfer calls seamlessly
- Voicemail & Night Mode - Professional and user-friendly facility for customers to leave detailed messages during and after normal working hours.
- Do Not Disturb/Call Reject - One touch facility to send all incoming calls directly to voicemail, so you can concentrate on important tasks without interruption.
Please click here for a FULL CASE STUDY - PDF 967KB
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Flowtech/Benjamin Moore use new OKI IP Keyphones to improve customer service
Flowtech-Benjamin Moore operates 2 businesses from a single New Plymouth location. With ageing Centrex technology, the team was finding it difficult to transfer calls and impossible to determine if colleagues were available to take incoming customer enquiries. Customer Service was suffering and it was starting to affect their business.
Flowtech-Benjamin Moore installed the new OKI IP Keyphone system and now use an ‘Auto-Attendant’ to greet all incoming customer calls, before directing them on to an appropriate department or team member. Staff can see instantly who’s on the phone and who is available by looking at their OKI Keyphone, and transfer calls or use voicemail accordingly.
“Our office is set up in a way that means you can’t see who’s here and who isn’t”, says Sharon Suter, Flowtech’s Administration Manager. “Having lights on your keypad lets you see immediately who’s online and who’s not” she adds. “The new OKI system has made transferring calls easier, and we’re now able to quickly transfer calls to a cordless handset to use in our back-office work spaces”, says Sharon.
“The Answer-Machine features are also better than our old Centrex system too, as it’s now easy to see at-a-glance if you have messages to attend to”, she adds.
Please click here for a FULL CASE STUDY
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Allied Work Force using VoIP technology to grow its business
Allied Work Force using Avaya VOIP to grow its business
Allied Work Force, a large labour hire company which provides temporary and casual staff to blue-collar industries, has recently completed a VOIP rollout to its 17 stores across New Zealand. According to Jassen Elliot, IT Manager at Allied, the roll out has been relatively seamless.
Allied worked with Avaya and ORB Communications Albany (formerly Comtel) to manage the project across many disparate sites, spread around the country.
Allied recognised an opportunity to upgrade their existing telephony system to one which incorporates VOIP, as a means to accommodate an increasing number of inter-branch calls, with a significantly reduced toll cost thanks to VOIP.
According to Elliot, the phased installation went ‘remarkably well’. The implementation team installed one system per week for 16 weeks. “It was a matter of flying to Nelson or Taranaki for the morning, installing the system, testing it, carrying out training for staff, and flying back in the afternoon.”
Mr. Elliot says the company is delighted with the easy transition to VOIP for Allied. “Staff are happy, we have had no training issues because the product is so easy to use, and we are seeing extensive cost savings on our lines. On top of that, the productivity enhancements are also noticeable”.
Please
click here for the full Case Study
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MoneyShop cashes in on new technology
Avaya IP Office adds efficiency and delivers cost savings to MoneyShop
MoneyShop was established in 1993 to provide New Zealanders with quick access to finance and has grown quickly to include seven branches in and around Auckland. Employing over 60 people, MoneyShop has branches in Auckland central, Manukau City, Albany, Takanini, Avondale, Otahuhu and Henderson and has plans to expand throughout New Zealand.
As demand for MoneyShop services grew, the need for a top quality and networked telecommunications solution became vital. “With different systems at each branch and no networking or integration facilities, I knew we were operating inefficiently. We were also facing rising Telecom line costs as new branches came online, because separate lines were required at each new site. This was further compounded with additional maintenance support costs for each new location.
The old system could not handle the increase in calls coming into the business and we were starting to lose potential income,” said Warren Cardno, Managing Director, MoneyShop.
Warren Cardno first heard about Avaya’s IP Office from a colleague and was so excited he contacted Peter Naylor, one of Agile’s business partners selling the product, and organised to see a demonstration of it the same day. No sooner had he seen the product, the deal was made and start dates were determined.
The first step was to install the new system at head office in Otahuhu, running a mix of existing analog phones and new key phones as well as IP handsets at the Quay St branch office. As the network infrastructure was rolled out, other branches were progressively bought on line running Avaya 4606 IP phones.
All incoming calls to Moneyshop are now routed from head office. Based on the incoming callers’ telephone number (CLI), IP Office automatically routes the calls to the branch that is closest to where they are calling.
“The changes were noticeable in a week. The call abandonment rate came down to less than one per cent and our sales have improved by ten per cent. It really wasn’t hard to work out why. The call centre has steadily grown to cope with increasing demand and we expect it to continue,” says Michael Gardner, MoneyShop's Marketing Manager.
“IP Office is now installed and operational at all Moneyshop branches,” said Peter Naylor. “The great thing about this product is that it allows you to combine traditional or existing telephony structures with the advantage of CTI applications" he adds.
Avaya’s IP Office is a converged product designed built and priced for small and midsize businesses and combines telephony and data infrastructure into one package.
For more details on how Avaya IP Office has helped MoneyShop to achieve its business goals, read the following PDF Case Study.
Please click here to read the FULL CASE STUDY
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Telular Removes Isolation For Remote Customer
Telular Removes Isolation For Remote Customer
A customer, living in the remote Baton Valley, near Motueka, required access to fixed line telephone and internet services. However, the location of the home meant that it was not feasible or cost effective to install a traditional land line. On top of this because the location was so remote, even if a phone line could have been run in, ADSL internet would have been out of the question and dial up would most likely have been significantly slower that it is on phone lines in the city.
Traditional mobile phones and data cards were trialled, however, the reception was weak in the area and neither was found to provide satisfactory performance. Knowing that there must be a solution to this problem out there [somewhere], Orb approached EDAC Electronics and the Telular Phonecell® SX5T was recommended.
Orb took a Telular SX5T-500C CDMA unit out on site and installed it for a trial. An upgradeable aerial (via TNC connector) meant that a high gain aerial could be mounted on the roof to get reception where normal hand held mobile phones and laptop data cards could not. The SX5T integrated seamlessly in the house, appearing to the customer like a normal land line, they were even able to connect their standard cordless phone to the unit. The caller display data and visual voicemail notification are also displayed on the cordless phone. After a week or so the customer was so pleased with the performance of the product for voice services that they purchased the trial unit straight away!
Please click here for a FULL CASE STUDY
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IP telephony keeps agents connected
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With 19 branch offices in the Waikato, Bay of Plenty, and Taranaki, Realty Group, incorporating Bayleys and Eves is one of the country's largest privately-owned real estate groups.
But like so many businesses that have progressively opened countrywide offices, telephone systems have remained the domain of local office managers, rather than following more centralised command and control delivery, like IT. But only recently, as IP telephony fuses voice with IT, have companies like Realty Group been in the position to consider group-wide standardisation.
The problem, and opportunity, was automating communication between agents and customers. Realty Group IT manager Simon Aubrey said the accessibility and responsiveness of his company's 350 staff was being hampered by absent functionality, including voicemail and direct dial-in. “Customer service is vital to our business. Every single client wants personalised service and to reach agents immediately. If they don't get this service they are likely to take their business elsewhere,” Aubrey said.
“We were running too much interference. We wanted to put our customers straight through to the person they needed to talk to instead of telling them to press one for a list of extensions, two for accounts and so on,” he said. Aubrey wanted to use Realty Group's existing IT infrastructure as the platform for centralised IP telephony, offering vital functions expected of twenty one Century businesses and a future-proof upgrade path.
In coupling Avaya's IP Office system with Realty Group's existing IT platform, the realtor enjoys cutting edge IP-based telephony delivered on an existing Ethernet LAN. Avaya's state-of-the-art 5410 display and 5610 IP telephones deliver superior voice quality. The 5610 phones have been specifically optimised for IP networks and feature built-in Ethernet switch ports, simplifying desktop implementation.
A key feature is Avaya's Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP), which enables Realty Group's smaller satellite offices to 'trunk' or plug in to the voice system of a larger counterpart. For example, if the Cambridge office misses a call, someone in Hamilton can answer it. “It frees up in-house IT management and makes it much faster and simpler to extend the voice platform,” Aubrey said. Another dimension to IP trunking enables Aubrey's IT team to assign four extension numbers, enabling employees to directly call one another, even when they're in different offices.
Mobile twinning has been used to effectively bridge landlines and mobiles. When an office phone is not answered after three rings the linked mobile also rings. And should the call go unanswered it is automatically redirected to mobile voicemail. If a call is missed Avaya's Phone Manager logs the missed call against the relevant extension, recording call time and origin. A centralised answering service automatically directs after-hours office calls to a nominated duty agent. “The agents manage this service themselves ensuring our customers receive the excellent service they deserve,” Aubrey said.
Click here to read the FULL PDF Case Study - Realty Group Avaya IP Office
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OKI Keyphones help Rapley Flooring maintain high-quality customer service
Rapley Flooring Ltd are one of the Taranaki’s foremost flooring specialists, with more than 40 years service to the trade. With ageing telephone hardware that was not keeping up with their phone system and impacting negatively on customer service, Rapley reviewed their communications platform and upgraded to an OKI IP Keyphone Telephone System.
THE KEY CHALLENGES
Introduce a robust communications solution, to eliminate call failures and missed calls
Improve customer service through fast and accurate transferring of customer calls
Introduce additional functionality to address shortcomings of existing telephone system
THE SOLUTION
Rapley Flooring chose OKI’s Multi-Key key-phones as the best replacement for their desktop phone hardware, and upgraded their phone system to an OKI IP stage SX.
“We prefer to choose the best solution available, wherever possible, and get it right first time”, says owner Valerie Rapley. “The OKI key-phones are great in that we’ve been able to maintain all of the best parts of our old system, and plug the few gaps that we were missing”, she adds.
RICH KEYPHONE SYSTEM FUNCTIONALITY
Introducing an OKI IP stage-SX phone system has allowed Rapley Flooring to realise the following benefits:
- Convenient Keyphone Simplicity: Improved customer service through an ability to identify at-a-glance who is available to take calls, and transfer calls seamlessly
- Voicemail & Night Mode - Professional and user-friendly facility for customers to leave detailed messages during and after normal working hours.
- Cordless Phone Integration: Ability to easily add cordless and handsfree phone hardware, allowing staff the freedom to roam office and showroom environments.
“Our phone system is a critical part of our business and fundamental to our success. We needed to make sure we were introducing a quality solution that would stand the test of time, just like our customers expect when they choose our flooring”, adds Rapley.
Please click here for a FULL PDF version of the Rapley Flooring Case Study
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