Go BackInteractive Intelligence: Keeping the wheels of communication turning at Raleigh
As one of the world's best-known name in cycling and leading brands in the UK much has happened at Raleigh in recent years.
"For over 120 years, Raleigh has designed and manufactured market-leading cycles in the UK," confirms business systems manager, Barrie Timson. "Though more recently production has moved overseas, Nottingham remains home to our product development engineers and graphic design team who continue to ensure that the Raleigh name remains at the forefront of cycle innovation and quality."
And, to ensure that the company backs this up with a similarly high level of service and support to its customer base of major high street chains and independent retailers, Raleigh works closely with IP telephony provider, Interactive Intelligence, and its Elite partner, Interactive Distribution Ltd (IDL), in providing a modern, comprehensive communications platform.
Operational integration
In 2002, when Raleigh moved from separate buildings housing bicycles and parts & accessories to a combined site in nearby Eastwood, Nottingham, the company took the opportunity to upgrade its communications capability from the previous PBX-based system to one including VoIP telephony.
The new system included third party telephony, voicemail and an Interactive Intelligence contact centre solution which had already proved highly effective in Raleigh's parts & accessories distribution centre.
"In many ways this marked a significant step forward," recalls Timson, "yet we still had to address a number of issues - such as improved speed of response - if we were to optimise communications, both internally and with our customers.
In moving towards an integrated system, IDL had already provided valuable consultancy support in linking Raleigh's VoIP telephony and call centre queuing system. However, in 2006, existing core telephony software solution reaching the end of its supported life-span, this prompted a major review of the options available.
"In upgrading our existing system, we would have had to make a significant investment just to stand still," recalls Timson. "However, IDL was able to offer an attractive, scalable and highly innovative 'one-stop shop' alternative, based on Interactive Intelligence's latest Vonexus Enterprise Interaction CenterT (EIC) technology."
"With Vonexus EIC, we could provide Raleigh with a truly unified communications solution for the whole business, with the call centre and the rest of the business on the same technology platform," confirms IDL account manager, Richard Stott.
"Uniquely, Vonexus EIC is a pre-integrated IP PBX application suite and phone system designed for VoIP out of the box and its adoption of open standards SIP technology allows Raleigh to utilise much of its legacy IP infrastructure and end points," he adds. "The result was a single vendor, single platform solution with market-leading functionality which met all Raleigh's communications needs."
Relevant functionality
Skills-based routing ensures that customers are dealt with first time by a call centre agent with the relevant skill set. However, other departments can now benefit from additional functionality previously only available as contact centre-based solutions.
For Raleigh, presence management for example has proved especially valuable. "Not only has this removed the need for paper-based telephone directories as information is retained on the client," says Timson, "but, importantly, operational efficiency and customer service has significantly improved, as it is now possible when making or routing calls to check instantly the availability and status of any member of staff throughout the business."
Similarly, unified messaging has improved the speed and responsiveness of communications, both within and beyond the organisation. "This is essential in a business in which many orders continue to be placed by fax," says Stott. "Previously, these could only be sent to specific end- points within the business, with the potential for delay: today, by contrast, customers can fax individual employees directly to their desk top."
In a further customer service enhancement, IDL has also deployed an integration with Raleigh's internal CRM system, so that the CRM screen pops on the agent's desktop, based on CLI recognition.
Ease of use
Despite the quantum improvement in communications quality made possible by the Interactive Intelligence solution, implementation has been rapid, seamless and with benefits realised almost immediately.
IDL provided comprehensive training for Raleigh's IT and call centre management on the solution's administrative tools. "In addition, thanks to Vonexus EIC's highly intuitive, 'point and click' Outlook-based functionality, the roll-out across the company was particularly straightforward, with each member of staff up and running after just a few minutes instruction on the new system," says Stott.
Broadly-based benefits
Raleigh has already started to recognise significant benefits throughout the business. "As an IT department, we are saving money on administration and support as we now have a straightforward single server-based system to manage, rather than four disparate systems as previously," confirms Timson.
"Similarly, the broad availability of contact centre-class communications has made life much easier for the rest of the business - a more personalised system with the functionality to transfer calls quickly and the ability consistently to deal with customer issues rapidly and effectively."
Stott agrees and adds: "In a commercial environment in which responsiveness is critical, Raleigh's customers also benefit from a highly resilient system which ensures a similar high quality response, irrespective of the communications channel used."
Future plans
In looking to further enhance customer service quality, Raleigh is currently considering the introduction of additional Vonexus EIC functionality such as Auto Attendant.
"This facility enables customers to hold their place in the queue without staying on the line," says Richard Brown, managing director and VP sales, EMEA, Interactive Intelligence. "The system then calls them back automatically as soon as the most appropriate call centre agent becomes available. Similarly, Raleigh customers can request faxes to be sent to them through Auto Attendant rather than through agents, so saving valuable time."
Looking ahead, Timson plans to extend the system to include remote access by sales staff and home workers. "As the new system becomes established, the ability to include off-site staff will not only improve the quality of communications but also allow us to make considerable savings in telephony costs," he believes.
As a company which has historically built a strong reputation for the quality of its customer service, Timson believes that Raleigh now has a cost-effective, resilient and function-rich communications solution which is right for the business, backed up by proactive and responsive consultancy support from IDL.
"In short, Interactive Intelligence and IDL have proved ideal partners in enabling Raleigh to provide our customers with excellent quality service and support," he concludes.
