Domestic & General boosts customer satisfaction with Eptica Knowledgebase

31 January 2012: Domestic & General, the UK’s leading warranty specialist, is enjoying the benefits from Fido, a centralised knowledge management system from Eptica across its two UK contact centres.

Since the Eptica-powered system went live in 2011, customer call times have been reduced by nearly a quarter (22%) and operational costs have been lowered by £158,000. Furthermore, first contact resolution rates have increased, hold times halved and the time taken to train new agents has decreased by 20%.

As a result of the success of the project, Domestic & General has been shortlisted in the Best Use of Technology in Customer Service category at the 2012 Financial Sector Technology Awards. The award winners will be announced on 28 March 2012.

With 6 million customers in the UK, Domestic & General has a strong focus on delivering high levels of customer satisfaction. As part of this focus, it needs to ensure its front line agents are able to provide excellent, efficient service, with access to consistent, comprehensive information.

To do this, Domestic & General created the Fido project to change how it managed information and replace its old knowledge sharing process. Eptica’s self-learning knowledge management system, part of its multichannel customer interaction management suite, was selected to underpin Fido due to its advanced meaning-based search capabilities and ease of use.

Agents access up to the minute, accurate answers by typing questions into the web-based system, which provides consistent and fast responses to every enquiry. Its introduction has been very popular, with the system now receiving an average of 50,000 hits per month, and each agent, in Domestic & General’s customer service department, using the system on average 300 times each month.
 
“Fido really is helping us achieve our overall business objectives,” said Chris Briggs, Head of Customer Service, Domestic & General. “Agents have really taken to the Eptica system and through its introduction we have been able to greatly improve our internal processes and reduce costs. Fido is now an integral communications and knowledge sharing tool, ultimately enhancing our interactions with our customers.”

“Successful organisations rely on knowledge to ensure they provide the highest levels of customer service,” said Paul Barnes, Managing Director, Eptica UK. “What is vital is that knowledge is centralised and made available to frontline staff through systems designed around their needs. Using Fido, Domestic & General has put knowledge at the heart of its customer service strategy and is now reaping the benefits.”

About Eptica

Eptica is the leading European multilingual solution for Customer Interaction Management including Web Self-service, Social Customer Service, Email Management, Chat, Fax-Letter- SMS and Knowledge management for Customer Service. Available on premise or SaaS, Eptica software enables website and customer service channels to improve quality of service, resolve enquiries faster, reduce costs and maximize every sales opportunity. Today more than 370 customers, including some of the world’s largest brands, in 15 countries, use Eptica solutions to deliver excellent customer service at much lower cost. Eptica’s customers include: Dixons, Domestic & General, Haven Holidays, Republic, Panasonic, Virgin Holidays, Capita and Ageas Insurance Solutions.

Eptica is based in the UK, France, Spain, Canada and Singapore and operates worldwide through its network of partners. Eptica was awarded the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA in 2009 for the third consecutive year. The company’s continuing innovation and strong performance resulted in Eptica’s inclusion in Gartner’s 2011 and 2010 Magic Quadrants for Web Customer Service.

About Domestic & General.

For over sixty years Domestic & General has been looking after people when things go wrong. Its primary focus is on providing product protection for major domestic appliances and consumer electronic products. Together with its manufacturing, retail and financial services clients, it provides warranty services for 160 major UK and International brands. Domestic & General manages the whole warranty process, including: customer mailing; contact centres; repair networks; in-house administration; claims handling. 
 
Domestic & General operates across a number of different international markets, most notably in Australia, Germany, Spain and France. To learn more , visit www.domesticandgeneral.com