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IRSDirect
ComVerge
Limited and MessageBase Business Solutions PLC integrates AltiGen
IP Telephony with Microsoft CRM at IRSDirect and delivers more
effective client campaigns whilst dramatically reducing maintenance
and call costs.
Customer Profile
MessageBase Business Solutions are CRM specialists
with a vision to enable their customers to achieve business
results through building and growing more profitable customer
relationships. To achieve that vision, the company combines
a consultative working style, a proven approach to achieving
measurable results (crmRESULTS ) and Microsoft's leading
CRM technology to enable a successful Customer Relationship
Management project. The company specialises in delivering
mid-market solutions and are firm supporters of CTI integration.
Telephony Challenge
MBBS were asked by IRSDirect, a telemarketing & direct
marketing agency with an impressive client base, to install
a Microsoft CRM solution in conjunction with a cost-effective,
future-oriented telephony system as a means of broadening
their client service, decreasing response times, reducing
their communications costs and enhancing their team productivity.
IRSDirect also wanted to ensure that they were complying
with the latest European legislation on privacy and direct
marketing, spamming and telephone preference regulations.
Their previous telephone system was a 10-year
old digital system which was becoming increasingly old-fashioned
and difficult to programme and was also proving to be very
restrictive in its voice/data integration. In addition,
support costs were spiralling out of control and it had
no way of coping with the demands of a modern CRM system
with screen popping and database integration. The software
had been developed in-house and was based on Microsoft Access
and the whole system had cost at the time over ten times
the combined cost of the Microsoft CRM and AltiGen system.
Based in California, AltiGen Communications was the pioneer
and developer of the first “All in One” Converged
Phone System in 1996 and today has a large customer base
with over 15,000 systems installed across the world. It
has a unique unbroken 8 year engineering cycle, is the most
awarded US product with over 45 industry awards and is NASDAQ
quoted (ATGN).
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The Microsoft CRM technology and the AltiGen
AltiServ IP telephony solution were installed in October
2004. Specialist AltiGen installer, ComVerge masterminded
the installation. ComVerge were also heavily involved in
the pre-installation planning and subsequent phased installation.
This had to be very carefully planned and scoped out in
advance because the switch-over had to be made in a “clean
sweep” as the company’s lines working on client
projects were going to be affected. Therefore the installation
was broken down into four phases.
The first phase was scoping. The company is
divided into four teams (inbound, outbound-client management,
client managers and management). This process-change had
to be planned and the user buy-in had to be secured as IRSDirect
wanted to be confident they could support the systems themselves.
The remote link to IRSDirect’s other branch office
in Hampton, Middlesex was set up. It was decided at this
stage to put the home-working option on hold for the moment.
The second phase was the CRM installation.
The first teams to be switched over were the priority teams
of in-bound and client management. Screens were designed
and redesigned and both client and programme data were migrated.
The AltiGen IP telephony system was then installed. This
provided the benefits of setting up “soft” teams,
comprehensive call recording for training purposes and skills-based
routing. There was a one-hit switch-over.
The final stage was the integration of the
two systems which produced a virtual workstation approach,
screen-popping, group flexibility and supervisor control
and - important for IRSDirect – the remote VOIP integration
of the Hampton branch became a reality.
Benefits, Feedback and Results
The main benefit of the AltiGen system for IRSDirect is
its flexibility. Currently 20 users are using the AltiGen
system and 7 the Microsoft CRM system.
IRSDirect also wanted in-house support capability
as far as possible without having to rely on external software
support and the system supervisor has attended one of the
training courses run by AltiGen. IRSDirect have already
seen a huge reduction in their annual running and maintenance
costs - they are now 25% of their previous levels. This
has been a very short-term ROI. This saving excludes of
course the additional savings of the calls themselves.
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Home working is something that IRSDirect will
consider in the future once the head-office installation
is totally operational as far as reporting, control, feedback
on multiple client projects are concerned.
But one variation of home working that IRSDirect
can now offer its clients is the ability to have an AltiGen
VOIP handset in the client office which the client can use
free of charge at any time to contact IRSDirect. It also
enables the client to listen in remotely to their own campaign
- live or to recordings of it - without having physically
to travel to the IRSDirect office in Bicester.
IRSDirect have run and managed campaigns for
– amongst others - document management company FileNet
and telecommunications infrastructure supplier, Digitalk.
The new CRM/IP infrastructure has enabled these campaigns
and projects to be set up more quickly with an earlier start
date and with a greater level of process and project management.
The supervisors can extract statistics and controls in almost
whatever form the customer wants and according to Paul Stewart,
Director of MessageBase Business Solutions, the AltiGen
system is extremely comprehensive and flexible in this regard.
It can create the call reports specifically tuned to clients'
specific requirements and which can easily be changed during
a campaign.
The high degree of flexibility and functionality
of the AltiGen system has also had a direct productivity
efficiency benefit to the call-centre business of IRSDirect
– a business model that needs to dynamically switch
teams from one campaign to another. For example, for a particular
campaign one client may require an in-bound call response
to a specific group of agents and then an in-bound call
response to a different set of agents. And then there may
be circumstances when parts of the group need to work together
in different sub-groups. Setting up this specific skills-based
routing of complex cross-set teams would be impossible without
a system like AltiGen and would not have been attempted
with the previous system.
Training possibilities have been greatly enhanced
with the recording and listening systems and this also applies
to clients who want to listen to their campaigns remotely.
The AltiGen system can of course provide records of who
was called and call durations etc, although call recording
is not stipulated in the legislation governing the direct
marketing industry. Call centre calls may be recorded for
training purposes.
The main business benefit to IRSDirect has
been to improve customer service at an affordable cost at
SME level and according to Paul Stewart is “an enterprise
solution at a mid-market price. The functionality is the
same as for big-business, although it’s not easy for
big businesses either. AltiGen enables you to do that for
mid-size companies.”
This is the first integration of Microsoft
CRM and AltiGen in the UK. It had previously only been implemented
in the USA and in fact is the first true IP telephony integration
of Microsoft CRM within the UK. IRSDirect were sufficiently
convinced of the power and flexibility of the system not
to have to consult many reference sites!
Looking to the future the call-recording feature
is a client-benefit that IRSDirect want to promote as it
also increases the entire transparency of the system.
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