The Entertainer

The challenge

The Entertainer had been working with the same outsourced contact centre for a number of years, but had decided to end its relationship with them and appoint a brand new partner.

The client was looking for a new provider to step in from October 2015 until January 2016, to support its pre and post-Christmas peak. During this period, the new provider would be required to:

• Provide first point of contact for all order and customer service telephone enquiries
• Help the in-house Customer Service team clear a backlog of emails, and manage email responses throughout the campaign
• Liaise with the contracted courier to resolve delivery queries
• Be available for extended hours and Bank Holidays to accommodate customer demand
• Offer flexibility to handle exceptional peak volumes (eg. Black Friday, Cyber Monday)
• Provide detailed daily reporting
• Maintain client service standards and brand consistency

The approach

Planning

WeAnswer was awarded the contract in June 2015. Initial planning meetings took place on-site at both WeAnswer and client headquarters during August to finalise scope, implementation plan and training structure. Weekly project calls were scheduled to occur throughout the set-up phase.

As part of the tender process, WeAnswer had provided a planned resource and budget scenario, aligned to predicted volumes of telephone and email contact. This was used during the project to plan advisor levels and reconcile expenditure.

The WeAnswer Contact Centre Manager used the scenario to plan initial recruitment and was able to adjust resource as we identified a shift in email and call handling time.

Training

WeAnswer advisor training commenced in September, with further training waves scheduled for October to reflect the anticipated increase in customer enquiries.

Training involved staff from both organisations attending cross-site events, and WeAnswer team leaders attending The Entertainer’s annual teambuilding conference. This collaborative approach allowed both sides to establish a genuine ‘one team’ mentality.

Trainers from The Entertainer were on-site at WeAnswer to ‘floorwalk’ and support the advisors during the first few hours of the campaign.

Infrastructure

IT Managers from WeAnswer and The Entertainer worked together to provide secure VPN access to the client’s order management platform (Hybris), its warehouse system and email solution (Metafaq).

This meant WeAnswer advisors could access order histories and provide first response resolution in the majority of situations.

WeAnswer also set up a new IVR (interactive voice system) for the client. This meant specific customer enquiries could be routed to the most appropriate team members more quickly, and provided a ready-made contingency in case of an unexpected event.

WeAnswer’s call management system provided the flexibility to adapt call routing during the period to consistently deliver against service level expectations.

Queries were logged as a ‘ticket’ on the customer’s account for future reference, or to enable further action by The Entertainer’s head office team.

Project team

The Entertainer

• Head of Operations & Customer Service
• Customer & Retail Service Manager

WeAnswer

• Business Development Manager
• Contact Centre Manager
• Project Manager
• Client Service Manager
• Training Manager
• HR Manager
• IT Manager

The customer experience

The team handled enquiries from customers buying directly from The Entertainer as well as through Amazon.com

Thanks to the new IVR, customers reached an advisor best qualified to answer their specific enquiry more quickly, improving their experience and improving first-call resolution.

WeAnswer advisors helped The Entertainer’s customers place their catalogue orders by telephone, and helped customers complete their order by phone where an issue had occurred with online ordering (eg. where items were unavailable for home delivery).

The team also provided frontline customer service support, including:

• Resolving delivery queries
• Ordering replacement items where parcel lost, or items missing from orders
• Arranging replacement parts from third-party suppliers
• Liaison with stores to verify in-store collection information
• Processing refunds for lost, missing, damaged or returned items
• Requesting proof of damage from customers to determine replacements or refunds
• Escalation to head office teams where appropriate

The high-quality service provided by WeAnswer attracted praise from customers and the client throughout the campaign:

I would like to thank all the staff in your customer services for their quick and very pleasant way they handled my query regarding my order. I can now report I have a very happy little girl…thank you all, especially Robbie who I believe went to great lengths to help.

Linda, Customer

Would just like to say a big thank you to the customer service lady I spoke to earlier this morning about a delayed delivery…without your great customer service team, I really don’t think I’d have received the parcel. My biggest thank you to the lady on your team I spoke to regarding this matter and her fantastic help.

Toni, Customer

I’ve just taken a call from our Cardiff store and they wanted to pass on their thanks to Tom. They said he was friendly, polite and professional. He worked hard to help the store and their customer and looked after them really well. Please give Tom a pat on the back from us – well done!

Customer Service Supervisor, The Entertainer

Management reporting

The WeAnswer client service team provided daily reporting to The Entertainer, including call and email figures versus forecast. Resource planning data, arranged by 30 minute intervals, was also supplied each week in advance.

In addition to regular daily dialogue between the WeAnswer Contact Centre Team Leader and Client Care Team, and The Entertainer’s customer service team, weekly project calls took place throughout the activity period. This ensured total transparency in the working relationship and greater visibility of any service issues or expected contact levels as volumes fluctuated.

Key members of staff at The Entertainer were particularly supportive and took time to visit the WeAnswer team at regular intervals, to offer encouragement and praise.

The results

• 47,000 enquiries answered
• Nearly 32,000 telephone calls and 15,000 emails were responded to by WeAnswer during the 4-month campaign.
• Flexible response

Effective training meant WeAnswer advisors were able to start the campaign earlier than planned when systems downtime at The Entertainer prevented the head office team managing customer calls. This helped ensure customer services remained largely unaffected.

Increase in First Call Resolution

Overall contact volumes overall were 37% lower than forecast.  This was achieved by the WeAnswer team delivering a higher percentage of first call resolution. This resulted in more satisfied customers who did not need to call back a second time.

Next steps

The client was so confident with the support offered during the early stages of the contract that they committed to working with WeAnswer for the 2016/17 festive season before the end of the 2015.

The client is keen to introduce webchat to its customer service offering, which WeAnswer intends to support as part of the 2016/17 partnership.