Problem
A national motor club, offering a combination of roadside service and travel planning to millions of its members, faced many challenges such as: the effect of privacy legislation on outbound telemarketing; offshore competition; increase cost per sale; downward trend of per hour rate; market consolidation; and call center failures. Management was prompted to establish an alternate way to handle inbound toll-free dispatch calls and began looking for a way to automate their dispatch call system, and eliminate the need for call center operators.
Motor club executives recognized the need to maximize dispatch efficiency while reducing operating costs in order to compete with much larger roadside service companies. This sent them in search of a telecom provider that could fulfill the motor club’s business and operational objectives.
Solution
Motor club executives found 800 ADEPT’s patented routing solution, SmartGeo®. A test of SmartGEO® was conducted in the Philadelphia market, routing inbound callers to the most appropriate and more cost effective tower. Originally, the
dispatch was achieved by routing landline telephones through designated call centers where the appropriate dispatch connection was made. The new dispatch system, provided by 800 ADEPT’s patented technology, changed the motor club’s dispatch call handling to a seamless direct connection between the inbound-caller to a tower, eliminating the manual operator process.
Customers “Directly Connected” to the tower, which dispatched the nearest, most appropriate towers to the member’s location.
Many new design elements were added later, 1) Cellular caller identification to address increased volume from cellular callers: enabling cellular callers to be connected to the most appropriate tower using 800 ADEPT’s routing database with the latest in voice recognition technology. 2) A dispatched job follow up feature using ETA / ATA was added to increase customer satisfaction: Tower estimated time of arrival (ETA) & actual time of arrival (ATA) design for the dispatch system provided ways to ensure dispatched towers’ service level granulation.
A variety of services have been added to the motor club’s call flow model, such as: cellular database; analytical management reports; and a robust web utility, allowing management to monitor tower activity, in order to minimize response times and increase member satisfaction. 800 ADEPT® continues to provide detailed call routing and reporting for the company.
Benefits
As a result of 800 ADEPT’s call routing system, the motor club maintains an average dispatch rate several times above national average. The motor club has also been able to significantly decrease the number of live operators in the call center. This dramatically decreases payroll and operational costs by nearly half of its original, at the same time yielding substantial savings per call. The automated dispatch system directs calls to the appropriate towers near the caller, increasing the member satisfaction rate while decreasing call backs to less than 10%.
Always improving, the new dispatch allows the motor club to sustain a high dispatch penetration with contract vendors for products that offer dispatch or reimbursement options. 800 ADEPT’s solutions have played an essential role in helping this motor club become an industry leader.
Testimonial
"It was evident that the cost of [Motor Club] operations was rising at a rate greater than prices could be increased. We needed to cut expenses to maintain our margins. I became aware of 800 ADEPT® and after discussions, had their system installed. We first tested the system in our tow truck dispatching area and within 6 months expanded it to 100% of the application. The results of the roll out mirrored the test and we were very pleased with all aspects of the process. We saved 2/3 of the expense of using 100% live operators and the customer service rating not only did not go down but actually increased.
The transition went very smoothly and the account service was excellent. I would use 800 ADEPT® in any future application where possible.
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... President, Motor Club
