Unified Communications Brightens Prospects for Sun Office Solutions

Sun Office Solutions

Background

Sun Office Solutions is an independent retailer of office products, technologies and services to businesses throughout the Denver region. The company’s single facility supports more than 45 users, including its Customer Care team of 10 agents who service all of the company’s customers.

According to Robert Marchetti, director of information technology for Sun Office Systems, the legacy TDM system that the company had been using had a number of serious shortcomings. For example, all call recordings were archived on tape, with no easy or inexpensive
way to convert these critical records into a software environment. In addition, the old PBX system had no caller ID intelligence to identify who was calling, resulting in poor call routing that dramatically slowed the entire customer service process. Sun had no way to connect data from its customer relationship management (CRM) software to its communications system either, further hindering customer service across the board. It was also difficult to access the communications system from remote locations.

Solution

After evaluating a long list of unified communications providers, Sun’s IT group was most impressed by the deep functionality of Vertical’s Wave IP software package, but initially feared the cost would be out of reach for a small business. However, Cyna Milinazzo of Liberty Communications, a Denver-area Vertical provider, worked closely with Sun and explained that the software options the team coveted were, in reality, very affordable through Vertical’s unique singular licensing offering.

With it, Sun received the telephony and unified communications features and applications it needed, all under a single license and from one platform. It even included mobility and call recording and logging, with no additional licenses or expensive extra servers to run these and other essential business applications.

Sun integrated Wave’s Call Classifier application with its CRM suite, giving its customer care agents caller ID functionality that synched directly with its customer records. This tool not only informed Sun agents who was calling, it automatically displayed each customer’s information on the workstation before he or she even picked up the call.

The company also deployed Vertical’s unique “Q-View” system, which allowed the Wave’s detailed call data to be displayed on a 40-plus-inch screen that is visible throughout the contact center. The company’s Customer Care Director can view an array of metrics, including dropped calls, call duration and other analytics right from her desk. Wave’s Call Reporting feature also provides her with granular reports on
all of these mission-critical activities.

Results

In addition to increasing the quality and timeliness of critical call reports, Sun’s new Wave system has greatly reduced the amount of time needed to generate them, allowing Sun’s Customer Care Director to focus on higher priority duties. Agents now know immediately which customers they’re serving via the Call Classifier ID system. Since customer records are automatically delivered to the operator, agents can even engage callers by name when answering a call.

Wave’s mobility tools accommodate Sun’s field-based employees by creating virtual extensions where messages are routed directly to their cell phones. In addition, the Wave delivers presence management capabilities throughout the organization, enabling agents to identify available personnel at any time—a key asset in a small operation. With the Q-View display, data is color-coded according to call flow, volume, dropped calls and other information, to give employees easy visibility into the Customer Care team’s performance. Supervisors and agents can then use the information to better manage staffing to improve service levels.

“Vertical’s Wave platform is a phenomenal tool, with great flexibility,” stated Marchetti, who requested a second Wave server to mirror the main system, reducing downtime to just minutes in the event of a required fix. “I can configure the platform right on my browser, making it much more efficient and intuitive compared to our previous system. We’re able to handle much greater call flow and apply many more routing alternatives to improve efficiency. Vertical’s solution is a key component in our ability to become a more productive and efficient company by giving us the capabilities that rival big-box suppliers in this market.”