CUSTOMER PROFILE
ABOUT EMPIRE TODAY
Empire Today is an Illinois-based home improvement and furnishing company specializing in carpets, flooring and window treatments for commercial and residential customers. Located in El Paso, Texas, its contact center has 200 inbound and 100 outbound agents who handle approximately 50,000 calls each week. Inbound agents schedule appointments and provide customer service support, including handling warranty claims. Outbound agents make sales-related calls, including following up on cancelled appointments.
THE CHALLENGE
Prior to implementing CXone, Empire Today used an out-of-date Cisco on-premises system. The Cisco licenses were coming up for renewal, with a projected cost of over $1 million to upgrade all of the hardware and software. “It was a massively expensive proposition,” explains Philip Bennett, Customer Service Operations Manager.
In addition, the Cisco system fell far short of satisfying Empire Today’s requirements. “It lacked certain features and functionality such as skillsbased routing and dashboards,” Philip says. “We didn’t have adequate visibility into performance, and we couldn’t pull reports without using a thirdparty product.”
“We were constantly upgrading licenses and not getting any new product functionality that would help us better serve our customers,” he says. “What’s more, my team couldn’t manage the system directly. When we wanted to streamline the IVR and eliminate some menu options, it took over a year!”
THE SOLUTION
The combination of a lack of functionality, inefficiencies and high costs made a strong business case for change. “We told our C-suite executives we could spend over $1 million this year to upgrade our Cisco system. Or we could migrate to a cloud-based solution like CXone and save money. Plus, we would get all these fantastic new features that we desperately needed. It was an easy decision,” says Philip.
NICE CXone quickly rose to the top, he says. “It’s the 800-pound gorilla in the room, because NICE CXone has so much experience in the contact center space.”
According to Philip, managing the system now requires little time and effort. Since CXone is very intuitive, it’s much easier to make updates, such as modifying the IVR. “My team and I can do it ourselves quickly and easily,” he says.
Callback and skills-based routing decrease wait times and frustration
A major point of contention for Empire Today customers was long wait times. Two CXone features have resolved that issue: skills-based routing and callback functionality.
“We desperately needed skills-based routing, but we didn’t have it in our old system,” says Philip.” With CXone, customers are now automatically routed to the agent who can best help them. Skills-based routing helps us manage our call flows much better and decreased wait times.”
Similarly, CXone’s callback functionality improved both the customer and agent experience. “Before, customers would call, wait on hold, get frustrated, hang up and call again using a different IVR sequence,” he says. “This inflated our call numbers and created huge inefficiencies.”
With the callback feature, customers no longer try to work around the system. They can now choose to have an agent call them back rather than wait on hold.
“Callback was a must-have feature for us,” says Philip. “Our customers are happier, because they don’t have to wait in the queue. Our agents are happier, because customers aren’t yelling at them. It also reduced our abandon rate dramatically.”
CXone expands disaster recovery capability
Migrating to the cloud with CXone and the resulting modernization of the contact center were critical, Philip explains, especially for disaster recovery.
“With CXone, I can get our call center up and running in an hour if a catastrophe strikes,” he says. “I could build it in a hotel ballroom if needed. Or I could set up agents to log in from home. CXone is so flexible that I have many options. It helps me sleep better at night.”
NICE CXone gave Empire Today the functionality and features it had been lacking, while alleviating the burden on the IT department and putting disaster recovery in place. Most importantly, by modernizing the contact center infrastructure, Empire Today improved the customer and agent experience.
“CXone is an outstanding platform with fantastic features and tremendous ease of use,” Philip says. “And I can’t say enough great things about the NICE CXone sales team, professional services and all the other employees we interact with.”
He continues: “CXone has taken our contact center to the next level by improving efficiency, increasing customer satisfaction and boosting employee engagement.”
