Situation

• Support Excellence Inc. provides customer and technical support services to companies that value and demand excellence in supporting their own customers and employees
• The company operates on a distributed model, with all agents working from remote locations
• The existing PBX was severely limited in the kind of monitoring and tracking it allowed
• The hosting agreement for the company's PBX equipment was soon to expire, cutting down the time available to transition to a new solution.

Approach

• After one of the company's executives one a 1-month trial of CallCentreAnywhere™ from TELUS, Support Excellence Inc. realized the limitations of its current solution
• Support Excellence Inc. looked into a number of available options, but only CallCentreAnywhere from TELUS offered them the features they needed at a price that was right
• TELUS was able to shrink the normal transition time from 6 - 7 weeks to just 3 - 5 weeks

Business benefits

• Support Excellence Inc. can now record and monitor calls in progress
• Training and on-call coaching by supervisors ensures that agents are more efficient
• The agents have access to more information and have found the new system to be far more reliable and easier to use
• Clients of Support Excellence Inc. have access to the system to see real time statistical reports on the progress of their programs, giving them a greater degree of comfort and allowing them to feel closer to each project

Solution

Operating out of Calgary, AB, Support Excellence Inc. offers its clients a range of service desk solutions.  It acts as the in-house help desk and IT department for some clients, allowing those companies to focus on their business rather than on troubleshooting technology.  For a number of Internet Service Providers, Support Excellence Inc. delivers front line sales and technical support.  It also provides technical support for applications sold by its software vendor clients.

Support Excellence Inc. operates on a distributed model, with its agents all working remotely, most of them from home.  However, the company has never allowed this to limit the kind of services it offers its clients.  "We have all the functions of an on-site, big box call centre, but without actually having people in one location," explains Kyle Ostermann, the company's Manager - Business Development.

The company had been using a PBX system to provide its services, but this solution did not allow managers to track agent activity or monitor calls.  These shortcomings become clear when one of the company's senior executives won a one-month trial of CallCentreAnywhere from TELUS.  "We were especially impressed by the ability to monitor and record calls and train agents, regardless of where those agents are located," says Ostermann.  Hosted and managed by TELUS, the system allows agents to log in from anywhere, with just a phone, a computer and a high speed Internet connection.

Prompted by the trial, Support Excellence Inc. began investigating the other options available on the market.  "At the end of the day, TELUS was the only company with the right feature set and pricing," says Ostermann.  However, it was after awarding the project to TELUS that Support Excellence Inc. became truly impressed.  "We have a lot of experience with telephony products, so we knew what we were getting into.  The way the transition from the old technology to the new was handled was absolutely superb.  TELUS treated it as a properly managed project, with a designated project manager and people assigned to specific roles in the roll-out.  We were extremely impressed."

There was just one problem.  The hosting arrangement for the company's PBX equipment was expiring.  Support Excellence Inc. explained the problem to TELUS.  "We brought it to the attention of our TELUS team and they were able to take a 6 - 7 week transition window and shorten it to about 3 - 5 weeks," says Ostermann.

Support Excellence Inc. and its agents have noticed an appreciable difference now that the new system is up and running.  "Our agents have more information available to them, more easily, and the system is more reliable, so it's relieved a significant amount of frustration," says Ostermann.  "For our part, we've been able to track calls more accurately to ensure that we're billing correctly for our time."

The company's clients and their customers are also very pleased.  "Customers who call during peak periods don't have to stay on hold," says Ostermann.  "They can leave a voice mail message to have us call them back.  That's increased the level of loyalty they have for our clients.  What's more, our clients no longer have to ask us for statistics or feedback on a particular call.  We can give them a login to the system and they can check statistical data in real time, any time they like.  It gives them a greater degree of comfort and they feel much closer to the relationship with us and their own customers."