Quip!, owned by BT, Bank of Scotland and Unisys, was launched onto the UK market in December 1999.
Steve Gandy, CEO, explains the Company's corporate objective: "To provide great value phone calls by being the first internet based telephony company - with sales, billing and customer service via the web."
In the service category, one of Quip!'s biggest challenges was to introduce a customer service system that would ensure quality of service to their existing customers whilst supporting the Company's phenomenal growth.
Quip!'s success had exceeded the wildest expectations. In less than 6 months the company had gained over 80,000 customers.
"Our ratio of Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) to customers was at 10,000 customers to 1 CSR - which is pretty good going. However, with hundreds of new customers every day we had reached our limit - we needed to act fast", says Steve Gandy.
The obvious solution was for Quip! to replicate its existing system to new recruits - simply increasing more of the same.
"However, our business model was to exploit leading edge technology and automate where ever possible. This meant we did not want to recruit more CSRs", explains Steve Gandy.
Each day Quip! was receiving between 1,200 and 1,600 emails and aimed to respond to all enquiries within 24 hours of receipt. This was putting an unsustainable workload on their customer service team.
Quip! was using a standard desktop email package. Although, this had sufficed in the early stages it had now been outgrown and additional functionality was desperately needed.
For each CSR an individual inbox was maintained. Each day the Team Leader would copy 100 or so emails into each of the inboxes. The CSRs would then respond to the emails one by one.
Further, the Customer Service team had created a number of standard paragraphs that were used as and when appropriate.
In order to provide online help Quip! had introduced a Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) section on their web site. This was quite effective but was becoming unwieldy and difficult to maintain.
Neil Panikker, responsible for Customer Services, explains: "This approach was far from perfect. We knew we had to replace it as soon as possible. We set our objectives and then went about finding a suitable supplier".
Quip! set the following objectives:
- Substantially Reduce email volumes
- Implement the system in less than 4 weeks
- Enable customers self service to resolve their own enquiries
- Effectively manage the remaining email load
- Increase the quality of customer service
- Externally host to avoid need for System and Database Administration resource
- Provision of management reports and analysis tools
- Easy to use by customers, easy to administer by CSRs and easy to maintain by Management
After considerable research and numerous vendor presentations Quip! selected Zerotouch to supply and install the system.
Zerotouch's expertise of automating customer service, product offering and ability to have Quip! up and running in just 2 weeks was extremely compelling. Quip! just found the timescale of 2 weeks difficult to believe!
"The decision was very crucial to our business as we had just embarked on a multi-million pound advertising campaign. Zerotouch gave us the necessary confidence to proceed", says Steve Gandy.
Quip! had considered many other solutions, including those from Kana, Egain, Servicesoft and Brightware. However, these solutions were more complex consisting of multiple modules and required integration. Further Zerotouch's solution was considerably better value and the others could not get anywhere close to the timescale required.
The software implemented was RightNow Web, which to date has over 750 installations - including Compaq, Adaptec, Sanyo, Mindspring, eTour, PictureTel, Air Canada and Black & Decker.
The system, which is fully integrated, comprises of web self-service, email management and live chat.
It includes a dynamic knowledge base, which grows as incidents are solved and the SmartAssistant continually learns from customer behaviour.
The system was implemented in just 10 days. Neil Panikker explains: "We were absolutely delighted with Zerotouch's dedication and commitment to the implementation - it was both on time and on budget! We found working with Zerotouch both uncomplicated and effective. Their experience and understanding of customer service, e-commerce and telecommunications allowed them to achieve rapid results that were in keeping with our business requirements."
After one month, Quip! began to see some startling results. For example, the number of emails had been reduced by 33% whilst the volume of sales had significantly increased.
The reduction of emails was credited to the web self-service facility. This provides customers direct access to Quip!'s Customer Service knowledge base by means of dynamic FAQ, natural language search and SmartAssistant.
In addition to the advertising campaign, the increased sales were attributed to potential buyers being able to easily find answers to their sales questions and therefore in a position to purchase from Quip!
"Zerotouch's after service is excellent - it's totally committed to ensure we get the most from our system. It's equally as good now, after the sale, as it was before! It is a very professional company which continues to exceed our expectations", says Neil Panikker.