Case Study: Clearlink

CUSTOMER PROFILE

THE CHALLENGE

On-premise system was cost-prohibitive

Clearlink considered upgrading its old on-premise call center equipment, but realized it would be cost prohibitive and wouldn’t offer the flexibility of the CXone Open Cloud Foundation. “Upgrading our on-premise call center system would have cost $2 million,” says Bruce Westenskow, CTO and Co-founder.

“But more importantly, due to the system’s inflexibility, that $2 million would have grown exponentially over the next five years with maintenance, upgrades and to add on the bells and whistles we needed for our marketing efforts. NICE CXone gives us the features and flexibility we need at a cost that is minimal in comparison.”

THE SOLUTION

Realizing greater flexibility and profitability

With three call centers and around 1,100 agents, Clearlink’s marketing for its clients changes daily based on callers’ demographics and inbound metrics. “We are constantly optimizing our phone system,” Bruce says. “We’re always modifying how we route customers, our IVR messages and the type of data we gather. That’s why we went with NICE CXone. It gives us the ability to manipulate the phone system based on our continually changing marketing needs and that’s a really big deal for us.”

Some of this flexibility comes from the ease in which Clearlink can customize its integrated voice response (IVR) options and recordings. “With CXone, we can change our IVR at any given moment,” Westenskow says. “We can offer customers several routing options and ask them very specific questions, or in as little as an hour, we can strip it all out and leave just a few options. Most systems don’t allow you to do that.” The skills-based routing provided by NICE CXone also helps Clearlink expand its revenue. “We have the ability to rank marketing channels based on profitability,” Bruce says. “So when calls come in from categories that we believe are more profitable, the NICE CXone system automatically routes those calls to the representatives best able to handle them.”

Offering multiple communication options
with omnichannel

CXone Omnichannel Routing is also important to Clearlink. “Not everyone is going to pick up a phone so we have to give them multiple options,” says Dallin Green, Telephony Manager. “They can send us a text message, an email or call. We want to capture every electronic method of communication and NICE CXone allows us to do that.”

“Omnichannel gives us multiple ways to communicate simultaneously with a customer to enhance their experience,” adds Bruce. “For instance, we could start an interaction in a chat interface that turns into a voice call. The agent can send additional information via an email after the call. It all adds up to transforming the customer
experience.”

Driving success through scalability, availability
and visibility

As a cloud-based technology, CXone Open Cloud Foundation gives Clearlink the ability to dynamically scale its agent seats up or down as needed. It also offers greater flexibility in terms of where those seats are located. “We have months where we need to scale by hundreds of employees, and CXone Open Cloud Foundation allows for that
type of flexibility,” says Bruce. “NICE CXone helps us manage our costs and lets us do what we need very quickly. We brought up a new call center online in Phoenix this year. Getting it up and running has been a pretty easy process.”

NICE CXone also delivers the availability and redundancy that Clearlink needs to keep its business operations online. “We used to have a lot of concerns about redundancy, but not anymore,” Westenskow says. “Not only does CXone Open Cloud Foundation have redundant hosting sites, but if a storm, fire or some other disaster shuts down our building, it gives us the disaster recovery we need to keep our entire business up and running. Instead of being down for weeks and losing a lot of money, we can send representatives to work from home or open up another building.”

“I love that we run an open cloud platform”

From greater visibility and availability to flexibility, Clearlink now has the features and technological advantages it needs to succeed. Westenskow explains, “I love the fact that we run on a pure cloud platform. The way NICE CXone has engineered their platform is very impressive. For an extremely reasonable cost, we have an enterprise, world-class contact center solution.”