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AA Warranty was founded
in 2007 as a
telemarketing operation
of Motorway Direct, the
UK’s fastest growing
provider of warranty
products to the motor
industry. They had
previously outsourced
their telemarketing but
felt they could
facilitate greater
control by bringing the
function in-house. AA
Warranty offers
insurance products under
license from the AA
motoring organisation.
In terms of their
position within the
contact centre industry,
they operate within a
niche – growth is
expected within this
niche over the next few
years. The telemarketing
operation has been
created to ensure the
company retains a
competitive position as
it looks to future
expansion.
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Andrew
Brown,
IT
Director, Direct
Contact Centres |
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The Business Challenge |
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The business challenges
faced by Motorway Direct
and their AA Warranty
operation predominantly
involve finance and
control issues. In terms
of finance, the company
wanted to eliminate
outsourcing costs and
reduce overall costs to
a minimum. In addition
to this, by bringing the
telemarketing operation
in-house, it provided a
much higher level of
control than the
previous outsourced
arrangement. A further
business challenge is
presented with the AA
needing full details of
all campaigns delivered
so reporting is of
primary concern. |
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IT Director, Andrew
Brown explained: “As we
are operating within a
sector that is unique to
the contact centre
industry, the challenges
we face are also quite
different. The outbound
contact centre was set
up to save money but to
obtain real optimisation
in terms of finance, the
technology had to be
right”. |
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The AA Warranty telemarketing
operation commenced with eight
agents and at this stage, they
realised that to obtain maximum
efficiency, software would need
to be purchased to ensure that
value would be added. |
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Why Did AA Warranty Choose TouchStar? |
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1. Original Basic Power Dialler Solution Supplied by a Competitor of TouchStar Could Not Supply Necessary Functionality |
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The original objectives in
sourcing a new system for
the telemarketing operation
were based mainly around
cost minimisation as it was
a new business. With this in
mind, the company directors
purchased what was
considered the cheapest
product on the market – an
NMS Adaptive power dialler
from one of TouchStar’s
competitors. However, it
quickly became clear that
the system did not have
anything like the
functionality a call centre
required to obtain maximum
efficiencies. Andrew Brown
stated: “From the outset the
system was not right. We
simply could not get
anything out of the system.
In this business, the
ability to produce real time
and historical statistics is
very important and as the
telemarketing operation
developed, it became
apparent that this kind of
reporting was required and
the purchased system could
not achieve this. We didn’t
know what our agents’
performance was like and we
could not manage campaigns
effectively.” Andrew was
equally dismayed with the
system’s ability to handle
large quantities of data:
“Importing and exporting
data was a complete
nightmare. |
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We could spend all day trying to sort this and wasted valuable time that should have been spent on other activities.” AA Warranty was also very unimpressed with the call recording facilities. Andrew went on to add: “The dialling system we bought did not have any recording so we had to use a third party system. And this became very ‘hit-and-miss’. Finding calls could take time and this was not acceptable if we had to deal with a complaint. If the system went down, it could take days to find out what the cause of the problem was.” |
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2. Value for Money Predictive Dialler |
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By the end of 2007, AA Warranty decided to look for a system that could deliver to their requirements. And at this point, they contacted TouchStar and a number of competing companies. Obviously value for money would remain a key objective in the new software purchase but more importantly, it had to be demonstrated that the solution would have all the functionality that was previously missing. It seemed that if they were to expand to more than 10 agents, a ‘predictive dialling’ capability would be desired. |
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3. Outstanding Customer Support with Business Benefit Focus |
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Andrew was very impressed with the presentation from TouchStar: “From the initial demonstration it was apparent that TouchStar Connect offered everything that we had been lacking with the CTI Power Dialler – the reporting, the recording, the ease of data importing, etc was all there. I also felt the guys who came over from TouchStar were extremely knowledgeable but just as importantly, were really friendly and down-to-earth and felt I could do business with them.” |
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TouchStar’s offer of 24 hours support, 365 days a year was something Andrew felt was a major point of differentiation: “None of the other companies offered this – it seemed to us that TouchStar were the only solution provider that was really interested in us developing our business. Everything in their presentation was all about how different features on the system would be of benefit to us, not at list of every single feature the system had.” |
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4. Complete Solution with Robust Reporting and Call Recording |
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TouchStar implemented the fully compliant TouchStar Connect blended call centre system complete with ACD & IVR, intelligent scripting, call recording and reporting at AA Warranty in a matter of days. Andrew was immediately impressed with the productivity gains that resulted after implementation. He added: “TouchStar Connect was everything and more in terms of what I expected from a dialler – and had the vital robust reporting and call recording features that had been missing from our previous solution.” |
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5. Scalability and Call Blending |
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The scalability of TouchStar Connect was made apparent when AA Warranty increased their operation to 30 agents soon after the initial installation. They are already planning to use the blended capability of the system to integrate inbound customer service elements of the business into TouchStar Connect. |
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6. Complete Solution Package and True Partnership |
TouchStar has also provided network services (LCR) for AA Warranty as part of the overall solution. TouchStar provided the expertise of a network services manager who gives advice and tips on how to maximise efficiencies and save money on calls. Andrew agreed that having all their call centre needs served by a single supplier helped streamline their business processes and as time has progressed, the relationship has been solidified to a true partnership.
Implementation |
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Implementation was completed within the agreed timeframe without the need for any agent downtime. Andrew was impressed with the technical expertise of the team responsible for the installation: “I really felt straight away they knew what they were doing. They quietly went about their work which meant there was no disruption for the agents and very little downtime”. Once the system was up and running, the TouchStar engineers trained key staff and agents on how to use the relevant parts of the system. Andrew added: “The fact they didn’t just up tools and go once the system was installed was of real benefit to us as we needed to have things in place immediately. Since then, we have been on one of the monthly TouchStar training courses to fine tune our skills and have a monthly visit from a TouchStar Business Development Manager to make sure we are using the system to its full capability.” |
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Features and Benefits of TouchStar Connect |
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AA Warranty has experienced the following results and benefits since implementing TouchStar Connect: |
- Their agents
talk time has
trebled.
- A huge increase
in sales meant a
very quick return on
the investment.
- A system that
fully complies with
and exceeds all
OFCOM, DMA and FSA
regulations.
- The ability to
report with detailed
statistics from all
campaigns in real
time has made
management of the
call centre business
more focused.
- Flexibility to
build campaigns in a
variety of sectors
has allowed new
products to be
introduced.
- A seamless
integration with
their current
customer service
functions which
meant streamlined
business processes.
- Free training on
an ongoing basis,
has continually
updated staff
expertise.
- 24 x 7 x 365 UK
based engineering
support proving
invaluable when
requiring advice at
any time of the day
or night.
- An appointed
expert business
development manager
to optimise use of
the technology.
- A suite of value
added services
(including network
services, cabling,
headsets, data
backup, data
management, etc) has
meant they have to
make one single
phone call to one
supplier.
- Ability for
further developments
as their business
grows.
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Andrew Brown concluded: “We thought we could achieve our objectives with a basic Power Dialler but it became clear that would never be the case. Since we implemented TouchStar Connect, we have gained the functionality that we needed to operate our business in an effective manner. We feel that TouchStar provide the most cost effective, value-for-money solution on the market.” |
Copyright 2009 TouchStar Call Centre Software. All Rights Reserved.