BMW Financial Services is set to use the latest technology for its customer support. Together with communications expert Avaya and consultants Cirquent, the financial services supplier has developed a comprehensive IP-based customer support solution for its five contact centres in Germany, employing over 450 staff, which will consistently improve service levels.
When re-routing calls to free customer support stations, information on the responsibilities and competencies of advisors is now provided, regardless of location. This will ensure that phone enquiries are always directed to the best advisor available so that they can be processed more quickly and satisfactorily. At the same time, Cirquent and Avaya have consolidated the heterogeneous telephony landscape of all five service centres, an important goal of the BMW Group's IT strategy.
Cirquent experts supported the complex and highly demanding project for its entire duration - from the draft concept in 2006, system development and integration, right through to staff training and introduction in the Spring of 2008. BMW Financial Services chose Avaya as a technology partner based on the goals and requirements specified in the draft concept.
The installation of Avaya Communication Manager, will allow significantly faster and greater personalisation of support for BMW Financial Services customers. Avaya's flagship IP communication solution offers a series of intelligent routing functions that can be combined to help reduce unnecessary re-routing of calls. Using so-called 'load-based routing', rules can be defined that automatically transfer a call across multiple locations to an available advisor, considerably reducing customer waiting times.
Avaya's Voice Portal, an interactive voice recognition system, pre-filters all calls and re-routes them to an advisor with the required special knowledge using so-called skill routing. By interfacing with the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, contact centre advisors can access customer data directly, giving them immediate access to all pertinent information on-screen when taking a call.
All components of the solution can be combined flexibly to meet requirements and optimise performance when dealing with peaks in both incoming and outgoing calls, for example when dealing with sales promotions. Avaya's communication platform also offers a multitude of evaluation options: based on cross-location analyses, continuous future optimisation of BMW Financial Services' five contact centres will be straightforward to achieve.
With the new IP system, BMW Financial Services has been able to consolidate the previously heterogeneous telephony landscape in operation across its German contact centre locations. A central server in BMW's own data processing centre replaces previous local telephone systems, with the new platform, integration of the existing CRM system and central IT management lowering operational and maintenance costs and improving availability.
Complete advice - from concept to implementation
Michael W"ohrmann, project leader of the 15-strong team from Cirquent GmbH, commented: “The success of the project exemplifies the advantages of our approach to customer support. Our specialists have not only advised on the analyses and concept but also handled the realisation, ensuring that all benefits and efficiency targets set out in the concept were met.”
Kay Scheil, technical project leader with Avaya, added: “Successful cooperation between BMW Financial Services, Cirquent and Avaya allowed us to work to a tight schedule easily. It was vital that transition to the new systems be as easy as possible for each individual advisor, and working with Cirquent, we have succeeded beautifully.”
Melanie Schillinger, head of customer support with BMW Financial Services Deutschland, concluded: “We currently handle over three million calls every year. Our new system will enable us to target our goals for growth and realise our optimisation potential. Thanks to intelligent routing and management tools, we can reduce response times and increase customer satisfaction further, using the improved workflow and support concepts now in place.”
Matthias Pfeil, shared central business services manager with BMW Financial Services, summed it up as follows: “Cirquent and Avaya have supported us in achieving strategic productivity, scalability and telephony consolidation targets.”
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Avaya
Avaya delivers Intelligent Communications solutions that help companies transform their businesses to achieve marketplace advantage. More than 1 million businesses worldwide, including more than 90 percent of the FORTUNE 500(R), use Avaya solutions for IP Telephony, Unified Communications, Contact Centers and Communications-Enabled Business Processes. Avaya Global Services provides comprehensive service and support for companies, small to large.
For more information visit the Avaya Web site: http://www.avaya.com.
Cirquent GmbH
Cirquent GmbH, formerly the Softlab Group, is currently ranked seventh amongst the leading IT consultancy and systems integration companies in Germany. (Source: L"unendonk List 2008). With more than 35 years' experience, Cirquent offers consultancy along the entire value chain for financial services suppliers, insurance companies, and manufacturing and telecommunications businesses.
Aside from sector specific strategy and process consultancy, its portfolio also contains conception, integration and implementation of technologies that support business processes and operation and maintenance of IT systems.
The company's strength is its distinct, specific sector process, method and technology competence in customer management, finance transformation and application management. Cirquent consults leading companies such as the BMW Group, Deutsche B"orse, MunichRe or T-Mobile Deutschland.
Cirquent is based in Munich and has other four offices in Germany, with branches in Austria, Switzerland and the UK. It has approximately 1 800 staff and made a profit of EUR286 million across Europe in 2007. From September 2008 onwards, the IT group NTT Data, a company listed at the Tokyo stock exchange, will take over 72.9% of Cirquent shares. The BMW Group will retain its 25.1% stake in Cirquent GmbH.
For further information please visit http://www.cirquent.de.
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