the business case for voip in your contact center

The Business Case for VoIP In Your Contact Center

Brett ShockleyCEOSpanlink Communications

– Proven

– 16 years delivering telephony and contact center solutions

– OEM supplier for Avaya, Nortel, Siemens, Cisco

– More than 3,000 customers, 155,000 desktops – TDM to VoIP migration

– Investments from Cisco and SRI

– Innovator– Started the Web Contact Center revolution in 1995 w/ WebCall

– First Configurable Software Packaged applications in IVR space in 1994

– CentralControl transforms management and reporting for VoIP

– Pioneers of Cisco VoIP – IPCC leader since 2000

– Intellectual Property portfolio with 12 patents and other patents pending

– Thought Leader– Capture the Opportunity for Business Transformation – Deliver

Results over IP

– Apply contact center best practices across the enterprise – sales, knowledge workers

– Results Transcend How You Implement and Communicate – to How You Manage

Spanlink at a Glance

PSTNPSTN

LDLD

LDLD

DataData Site 2

Site n

Dedicated Users

RedundantCore Technology

PSTNPSTN

DataData

PSTNPSTN

LDLD

LDLD

DataData Site 2

Site n

Dedicated Users

RedundantCore Technology

PSTNPSTN

DataData

Administrator

Data Router

TDM PBX

Agents & Supervisors

Proprietary Applications

Site 1

PSTNPSTN

DataDataData

RouterProprietary Applications

Administrator

Agents & Supervisors

Site 1

PSTNPSTN

DataData

IP PBX

Too Common Approach to VoIP

• Eliminate redundancy across the enterprise

• Drive productivity across the enterprise

• Serve customers more powerfully across the enterprise

• Manage the new environment efficiently cross the enterprise

CustomerData

Router

Administrators

IP PBX

Agents & Supervisors

DataDataConvergedConvergedNetworkNetwork

LD BypassLD Bypass

PSTNPSTN

Shared CoreTechnology

Users Anywhere:Virtual

Open Systems

Knowledge Workers

Home Office

VoIP Lets You RedefineCustomer Interaction

Business Value of VoIP

• PSTN Bypass o Internal, Voice VPNo Queuing and IVR

• Efficiency [Cost Savings] In Personnelo Reduce idle time for call handling personnel

• In Contact Centers• At the Branches• Internal Calls

o Eliminate redundancy• Efficiency [Cost Savings] In System Management

o Manage a single infrastructureo Eliminate redundancy

• Customer Service Improvements

• Productivity Increases o Handle more transactionso Capture more revenue

Allianz Life Insurance

Company

200 Agents

Case Study:

Why Change?

• The Call Center is the first voice of the

Company for independent insurance agents and

their policyholders

• Continually raise the service bar to assure that

independent agents

continue to sell their products and their clients

keep what they buy

• The customer experience must be Second To

None!

Allianz: 200 Agents

It’s NOT about technology,It’s NOT about technology,

it’s about – theit’s about – the

customer’s experience.customer’s experience.

Co-Browsing

Remote Call Centers Web-Casting

E-Mail Management

Web-Chat

Remote Representatives

VoIP Enables New Levels of Service

To insure early success, they needed:

•Skill-based routing

•Improved reporting-Historical and Real-Time

•Scheduling and Forecasting

•Blended Inbound/Outbound Representatives

Functionality Required Day 1

Monday, 09/29

• Call Volume - 2972

• Abandon Rate - 9.9%

• Service Level - 58%

• ASA - 1:37

• AHT - 5:10

• Call Volume - 3117

• Abandon Rate - 19.6%

• Service Level - 41%

• ASA - 2:47

• AHT - 5:50

Monday, 09/22

16% Productivity Improvement in Call Handling!

Better Routing and Agent Tools

Real-Time

• Available to Supervisors through a Central Reporting System

• Real time pulse all day – every day

• Delivered to the Agent Desktop

• Agents self-manage

Historical

• Consolidates multiple systems

• Eliminates spreadsheet merging

25% Reduction in Supervisor Time!

Better Reporting and Management

VoIP Benefits at Allianz Life

• Applications Features Exceeded Previous TDM Environment

• Efficiency Improvements and Cost Reductiono 16% Efficiency Improvementso 25% Management Reduction

• Application Benefits justified VoIP Technology Migration

o Positioned to leverage VoIP specific applications in the future

Department of Revenue

Contact Center – Ely, MN

InterTechnologies Group (ITG) & Department of

Revenue – St Paul, MN

Case Study:

State ofMinnesot

a

Hosted

Case Study: State IT Department

• State of Minnesota Vision - Deliver Electronic Government Services (EGS) – services via phone, IVR, Web, Email

• Realize Governor’s Shared Technology Initiativeo Converge multiple statewide networks onto a single ATM/IP

network

o Ease administration, increase reliability, and reduce costs.

o Share telecom resources across autonomous state agencies to reduce infrastructure costs

o Minimize operational costs at the agency level

CustomerData

Router

Administrators

IP PBX

Department of RevenueDataData

ConvergedConvergedNetworkNetwork

LD BypassLD Bypass

PSTNPSTN

InterTechnologies Group (ITG)Hosts Core Technology

Secretary ofState

Agency N

•Carrier class

•Fully partitionable for individual agencies

•Manageable by the State

Department of Revenue

State Hosted IP Solution

• 12 Agencies Configuredo 1650 IP-Phones o 14 Discrete IP Contact Center Agents (300 agents)o 70 Self-Service Applications

• 3 Languages (English, Hmong, Spanish)• Speech Recognition• 6 Self-Service Applications (Tax return status)• Voice Forms for Form Request or Address Change

o Blended Outbound Dialing• Dialer used from two different sites• Campaigns handle both incoming and outgoing

calls• CTI screen pop

• 6 Agencies in the pipeline

Current Scope

VoIP Benefits for the State of Minnesota

• Improves Customer Serviceo e-Government serviceso Provides robust services to smaller agencies

• PSTN Bypass o Department of Revenue - $100,000 a year

• Manageable by the stateo Partitioned, Multi-level administrationo Agencies can choose to administer (or not)

Managed As Hosted

Adds and Changeso IP Tel userso Agents, Skills, TeamsDay to day operationso Agent, supervisor,

management applications

RO

UTIN

E

AG

EN

CY

AD

MIN

ITG

Core system management

Set up administrator 1 Set up administrator 2 Set up administrator 1

Set up Site A Set up Site B

Initial company provisioning

Adds and Changeso IP Tel userso Agents, Skills, TeamsDay to day operationso Agent, supervisor,

management applications

Adds and Changeso IP Tel userso Agents, Skills,

TeamsDay to day

operationso Agent, supervisor,

management applications

Distributed Enterprise Communications

Challenges• Customer Service

o Sites are communications islandso Customer service is inconsistent from site to siteo Limited options for communications features at smaller locations

• Efficiency/Productivityo Idle agents at remote sites and in contact centerso Revenue is lost due to lack of available resourceso Limited or inconsistent visibility (reporting) to disparate locations

• OPEXo PSTN Charges

• Queuing, IVR and 800 • Internal and External LD

o System management is not cohesiveo Cost of redundant telecom systems

W.W. Grainger

400 Sites

Case Study:

Grainger Overview

• Largest industrial supply distributor in the United States

• 400 sites organized by branch, district (market) and region

• Strong bias to serve customers at the local branch

• 80% of orders reached in the local branch by phone

• Product experts in the branches – years of experience

• Tried a centralized call center approach –  not successful – hard to duplicate branch expertise and local knowledge (Manhattan vs. Des Moines)

Prior to Spanlink_Cisco Solution

• Branches small independent call centers

• Corporate resources reached via 800 number

• Poor visibility to service levels on calls

• Limited flexibility to manage resources

Previous PBX Environment

Technical SupportTechnical Support

LongLongDistanceDistance

(800) Carrier(800) Carrier

LocalLocalExchangeExchange

CarrierCarrier

Branch 1Branch 1

Executone

LocalLocalExchangeExchange

CarrierCarrier

Branch 2Branch 2

Comdial

LocalLocalExchangeExchange

CarrierCarrier

Branch 289 Branch 289

Avaya

CreditCredit

Data CenterData Center

Data NetworkData Network

Strategic Project Profile• Grainger Goals

o Increase Revenue Generation Opportunities o Preserve the Successful Branch Model o Save Customers Time, Money and Effort – The Perfect

Ordero Provide a Consistent World Class Customer Experienceo Reduce OPEX and CAPEX

• Customer Visiono Looked beyond the constraints of existing environment –

the way it’s always beeno Clean paper - better architected solutiono Focus on how to solve the business problem

• Customer’s Mission Statement o Don’t be First!

New Customer Interaction Network

Branch 1Branch 1

LocalLocalExchangeExchangeCarriersCarriers

Site 1

LongLongDistanceDistance

(800) Carrier(800) Carrier

CallManagerUnityOutbound Option

CallManagerUnityOutbound Option

BranchOffice 3BranchOffice 3

Branch 2Branch 2

Site 2

IP WANIP WAN

SpecializedContact Centers

SpecializedContact Centers

CentralControl™IP Communications Management System

All Agents are BusyCall Queued at the Edge

Agents are Available

RoutingControlledat the Core

Call is Transferred When Agent Accepts ItCall Transferred if Required

MarketRouting™

If service level not available, call is queued to other branches in the:

• Sub-Market• Market• Call Center

ContactCenter

MarketRouting™

BranchBranchCC

BranchBranchBB

Chicago Region

If service level not available, call is queued to other branches in the:

• Sub-Market• Market• Call Center

BranchBranchDD

BranchBranchFF

BranchBranchGG

BranchBranchHH

BranchBranchEE

BranchBranchKK

BranchBranchJJ

BranchBranchLL

BranchBranchII

BranchBranchAA

Market A

Partitioned, Multi-Level Management

•Deployment•Deployed at a Rate of 30 Sites Per Week

•Unified, Partitioned Administration Saved 2 – 4 Hours Per Branch

•Management•System is Controlled at the Core

•Sites Have the Ability to Control their Own MACs

•Contact Center Caliber Reporting•Unified, fully-partitioned reporting

Performance Reporting Before

16 Chicago Market Branches

89%

90%

91%

92%

93%

94%

95%

96%

97%

98%

99%

100%

Jan Feb Mar Apr May

95.8%

91.7%

96.2%

90.5%

95.2%

89.1%

90.4%

98.2%

93.7%

95.6%

Source: Spanlink Central Control Reporting

Percent of Calls Answered Within 20 Seconds

Low

Avg.

High

June July

97.3%

98.9%99.4%

96.9%

Telephone Service Level Results

92.1% 92.4% 92.6% 92.6%

96.9%

98.3% 98.4%

Aug

96.9%

94.0%

96.0%

“Making it Simple For Customers”

Before CSTP

After CSTP

Presentation to Financial Analysts

after Chicago Pilot"We launched the telephony project in May and since then have converted more than 100 branches to the new system and have seen some great benefits. In the Chicago market, where all 16 branches have been on the new system for a few months, the percent of calls answered within three rings went from 92 percent to 98 percent practically overnight. We anticipate incremental sales between $1 and 2 million dollars in the first full year of implementation because of the ability to connect customers to other parts of the business. ... Because of these early results, we are accelerating the roll-out of the telephony project."

- Chairman and CEO

2004 Year End Earnings Release

“the stronger fourth-quarter and full-year results reflected an upgraded logistics network, improved products availability, an expanded sales force, new communication technology at the branch level, and a market expansion program.”

- Chairman and CEO

Customer Interaction that Spans the Enterprise

Knowledgebase

Speech Q&A

Web Q&A

Central Control Reports1) Q

uery via web

2) Query via voice

D) Manage & Report

A) Allow Customer to escalate

B) Customer in

quiries & answersC

) Supervisor

Chat via C

AD

Supervisor

Agent

Summary

• VoIP is Transformational• Opportunity to Redefine

Customer Interaction

• What’ Your Vision?• Focus on how to solve the business problem

• What are the possibilities?• No geographic constraints

• Build a solution that delivers results:

– Enterprise-wide improvements efficiency, productivity and customer satisfaction

Thank You!Brett Shockley, CEO

brett.shockley@spanlink.com763-971-2114

Questions?

Proven

– 16 years delivering telephony and contact center solutions

– OEM supplier for Avaya, Nortel, Siemens, Cisco

– More than 3,000 customers, 155,000 desktops – TDM to VoIP migration

– Investments from Cisco and SRI

– Innovator– Started the Web Contact Center revolution in 1995 w/ WebCall

– First Configurable Software Packaged applications in IVR space in 1994

– CentralControl transforms management and reporting for VoIP

– Pioneers of Cisco VoIP – IPCC leader since 2000

– Intellectual Property portfolio with 12 patents and other patents pending

– Thought Leader– Capture the Opportunity for Business Transformation – Deliver Results over IP

– Apply contact center best practices across the enterprise – sales, knowledge workers

– Results Transcend How You Implement and Communicate – to How You Manage

Spanlink at a Glance

PSTNPSTN

LDLD

LDLD

DataData Site 2

Site n

Dedicated Users

RedundantCore Technology

PSTNPSTN

DataData

PSTNPSTN

LDLD

LDLD

DataData Site 2

Site n

Dedicated Users

RedundantCore Technology

PSTNPSTN

DataData

Too Common Approach to VoIP

Administrator

Data Router

TDM PBX

Agents & Supervisors

Proprietary Applications

Site 1

PSTNPSTN

DataDataData

RouterProprietary Applications

Administrator

Agents & Supervisors

Site 1

PSTNPSTN

DataData

IP PBX

• Eliminate redundancy across the enterprise

• Drive productivity across the enterprise

• Serve customers more powerfully across the enterprise

• Manage the new environment efficiently cross the enterprise

VoIP is Transformational – Lets You Redefine Customer Interaction

CustomerData

Router

Administrators

IP PBX

Agents & Supervisors

DataDataConvergedConverged

NetworkNetworkLD BypassLD Bypass

PSTNPSTN

Shared CoreTechnology

Users Anywhere:Virtual

Open Systems

Knowledge Workers

Home Office

Business Value of VoIP

• PSTN Bypass o Internal, Voice VPNo Queuing and IVR

• Efficiency [Cost Savings] In Personnelo Reduce idle time for call handling personnel

• In Contact Centers• At the Branches• Internal Calls

o Eliminate redundancy

• Efficiency [Cost Savings] In System Managemento Manage a single infrastructureo Eliminate redundancy

• Customer Service Improvements• Productivity Increases

o Handle more transactionso Capture more revenue

Case Study:

Allianz Life Insurance

Company

200 Agents

Why Change?

• The Call Center is the first voice of the Company for independent

insurance agents and their policyholders

• Continually raise the service bar to assure that independent agents

continue to sell their products and their clients keep what they

buy

• The customer experience must be Second To None!

Allianz Life-Insurance Company – 200 Agents

It’s NOT about technology,It’s NOT about technology,

it’s about – theit’s about – the

customer’s experience.customer’s experience.

Co-Browsing

Remote Call Centers Web-Casting

E-Mail Management

Web-Chat

Remote Representatives

VoIP Enables New Levels of Service

To insure early success, they needed:

• Skill-based routing

• Improved reporting-Historical and Real-Time

• Scheduling and Forecasting

• Blended Inbound/Outbound Representatives

Core Contact Center Functionality Required on Day 1

Better Routing and Agent Tools

Monday, 09/29

• Call Volume - 2972

• Abandon Rate - 9.9%

• Service Level - 58%

• ASA - 1:37

• AHT - 5:10

• Call Volume - 3117

• Abandon Rate - 19.6%

• Service Level - 41%

• ASA - 2:47

• AHT - 5:50

Monday, 09/22

16% Productivity Improvement in Call Handling!

Better Reporting and Management

Real-Time

•Available to Supervisors through a Central Reporting System

• Real time pulse all day – every day

•Delivered to the Agent Desktop• Agents self-manage

Historical

•Consolidates multiple systems

•Eliminates spreadsheet merging

25% Reduction in Supervisor Time!

VoIP Benefits at Allianz Life

• Applications Features Exceeded Previous TDM Environment

• Efficiency Improvements and Cost Reductiono 16% Efficiency Improvementso 25% Management Reduction

• Application Benefits justified VoIP Technology Migrationo Positioned to leverage VoIP specific applications

in the future

Case Study:

State of Minnesota

Hosted

Department of Revenue Contact Center –

Ely, MN

InterTechnologies Group (ITG) & Department of Revenue

St Paul, MN

Case Study: State IT Department• State of Minnesota Vision - Deliver Electronic Government

Services (EGS) – services via phone, IVR, Web, Email

• Realize Governor’s Shared Technology Initiativeo Converge multiple statewide networks onto a single ATM/IP

network

o Ease administration, increase reliability, and reduce costs.

o Share telecom resources across autonomous state agencies to reduce infrastructure costs

o Minimize operational costs at the agency level

The State of Minnesota’s Hosted VoIP Solution

CustomerData

Router

Administrators

IP PBX

Department of RevenueDataData

ConvergedConvergedNetworkNetwork

LD BypassLD Bypass

PSTNPSTN

InterTechnologies Group (ITG)Hosts Core Technology

Secretary ofState

Agency N

• Carrier class

• Fully partitionable for individual agencies

• Manageable by the State

Department of Revenue

Current Scope of State of Minnesota Network

• 12 Agencies Configuredo 1650 IP-Phones o 14 Discrete IP Contact Center Agents (300 agents)o 70 Self-Service Applications

• 3 Languages (English, Hmong, Spanish)• Speech Recognition• 6 Self-Service Applications (Tax return status)• Voice Forms for Form Request or Address Change

o Blended Outbound Dialing• Dialer used from two different sites• Campaigns handle both incoming and outgoing calls• CTI screen pop

• 6 Agencies in the pipeline

VoIP Benefits for the State of Minnesota

• Improves Customer Serviceo e-Government serviceso Provides robust services to smaller agencies

• PSTN Bypass o Department of Revenue - $100,000 a year

• Manageable by the stateo Partitioned, Multi-level administrationo Agencies can choose to administer (or not)

Managed Like a Hosted Solution

Adds and Changeso IP Tel userso Agents, Skills, TeamsDay to day operationso Agent, supervisor,

management applications

RO

UT

INE

A

GE

NC

Y A

DM

INI T

G

Core system management

Set up administrator 1 Set up administrator 2 Set up administrator 1

Set up Site A Set up Site B

Initial company provisioning

Adds and Changes– IP Tel users– Agents, Skills, TeamsDay to day operations– Agent, supervisor,

management applications

Adds and Changes– IP Tel users– Agents, Skills, TeamsDay to day operations– Agent, supervisor,

management applications

Distributed Enterprise Communications

Challenges• Customer Serviceo Sites are communications islandso Customer service is inconsistent from site to siteo Limited options for communications features at smaller locations

• Efficiency/Productivityo Idle agents at remote sites and in contact centerso Revenue is lost due to lack of available resourceso Limited or inconsistent visibility (reporting) to disparate locations

• OPEXo PSTN Charges

• Queuing, IVR and 800 • Internal and External LD

o System management is not cohesiveo Cost of redundant telecom systems

Challenges grow exponentially with a greater number of sites.

Case Study:

IndustrialParts

Supplier

400 Sites

Customer Overview

• Largest industrial supply distributor in the United States

• 400 sites organized by branch, district (market) and region

• Strong bias to serve customers at the local branch

• 80% of orders reached in the local branch by phone

• Product experts in the branches – years of experience

• Tried a centralized call center approach –  not successful – hard to duplicate branch expertise and local knowledge (Manhattan vs. Des Moines)

Prior to Spanlink_Cisco Solution

• Branches small independent call centers

• Corporate resources reached via 800 number

• Poor visibility to service levels on calls

• Limited flexibility to manage resources

Previous PBX Environment

Technical SupportTechnical Support

LongLongDistanceDistance

(800) Carrier(800) Carrier

LocalLocalExchangeExchange

CarrierCarrier

Branch 1Branch 1

Executone

LocalLocalExchangeExchange

CarrierCarrier

Branch 2Branch 2

Comdial

LocalLocalExchangeExchange

CarrierCarrier

Branch 289 Branch 289

Avaya

CreditCredit

Data CenterData Center

Data NetworkData Network

Strategic Project Profile

• Customer Goalso Increase Revenue Generation Opportunities o Preserve the Successful Branch Model o Save Customers Time, Money and Effort – The Perfect Ordero Provide a Consistent World Class Customer Experienceo Reduce OPEX and CAPEX

• Customer Visiono Looked beyond the constraints of existing environment – the way

it’s always beeno Clean paper - better architected solutiono Focus on how to solve the business problem

• Customer’s Mission Statement o Don’t be First!

New Customer Interaction Network

Branch 1Branch 1

LocalLocalExchangeExchangeCarriersCarriers

Site 1

LongLongDistanceDistance

(800) Carrier(800) Carrier

CallManagerUnityOutbound Option

CallManagerUnityOutbound Option

BranchOffice 3BranchOffice 3

Branch 2Branch 2

Site 2

IP WANIP WAN

SpecializedContact Centers

SpecializedContact Centers

CentralControl™IP Communications Management System

All Agents are BusyCall Queued at the Edge

Agents are Available

RoutingControlledat the Core

Call is Transferred When Agent Accepts ItCall Transferred if Required

MarketRouting™

If service level not available, call is queued to other branches in the:

• Sub-Market• Market• Call Center

ContactCenter

MarketRouting™

BranchBranchCC

BranchBranchBB

Chicago Region

If service level not available, call is queued to other branches in the:

• Sub-Market• Market• Call Center

BranchBranchDD

BranchBranchFF

BranchBranchGG

BranchBranchHH

BranchBranchEE

BranchBranchKK

BranchBranchJJ

BranchBranchLL

BranchBranchII

BranchBranchAA

Market A

Partitioned, Multi-Level Management

• Deployment•Deployed at a Rate of 30 Sites Per Week

•Unified, Partitioned Administration Saved 2 – 4 Hours Per Branch

• Management•System is Controlled at the Core

•Sites Have the Ability to Control their Own MACs

• Contact Center Caliber Reporting•Unified, fully-partitioned reporting

Performance Reporting Before

16 Chicago Market Branches

89%

90%

91%

92%

93%

94%

95%

96%

97%

98%

99%

100%

Jan Feb Mar Apr May

95.8%

91.7%

96.2%

90.5%

95.2%

89.1%

90.4%

98.2%

93.7%

95.6%

Source: Spanlink Central Control Reporting

Percent of Calls Answered Within 20 Seconds

Low

Avg.

High

June July

97.3%

98.9%99.4%

96.9%

Telephone Service Level Results

92.1% 92.4% 92.6% 92.6%

96.9%

98.3% 98.4%

Aug

96.9%

94.0%

96.0%

“Making it Simple For Customers”

Before CSTP

After CSTP

Presentation to Financial Analysts after Chicago Pilot"We launched the telephony project in May and since then have converted more than 100 branches to the new system and have seen some great benefits. In the Chicago market, where all 16 branches have been on the new system for a few months, the percent of calls answered within three rings went from 92 percent to 98 percent practically overnight. We anticipate incremental sales between $1 and 2 million dollars in the first full year of implementation because of the ability to connect customers to other parts of the business. ... Because of these early results, we are accelerating the roll-out of the telephony project."

Chairman and CEO

2004 Year End Earnings Release

“the stronger fourth-quarter and full-year results reflected an upgraded logistics network, improved products availability, an expanded sales force, new communication technology at the branch level, and a market expansion program.”

- Chairman and CEO

Customer Interaction that Spans the

Enterprise

Knowledgebase

Speech Q&A

Web Q&A

Central Control Reports1) Q

uery via web

2) Query via voice

D) Manage & Report

A) Allow Customer to escalate

B) Customer in

quiries & answersC

) Supervisor

Chat via C

AD

Supervisor

Agent

Summary• VoIP is Transformational• Opportunity to Redefine Customer

Interaction

o What’ Your Vision?• Focus on how to solve the business problem

o What are the possibilities?• No geographic constraints

o Build a solution that delivers results:– Enterprise-wide improvements efficiency, productivity

and customer satisfaction

Thank You!Brett Shockley, CEO

brett.shockley@spanlink.com763-971-2114

Questions?