- Real Time Stock Enquiry Service will boost customer service, improve response times and free up call centre agents to focus on more complex queries –
Belfast & London – November 24th, 2009 – SpeechStorm, (www.speechstorm.com), the specialist provider of phone self-service solutions, has today announced that BCG, the UK’s No.1 B2B distributor of kitchens, bathrooms and heating products, is poised to launch a new, automated phone stock enquiry service giving customers 24×7 access to stock availability across its entire product range, day or night. The new service is built on SpeechStorm’s phone self service technology and is due to go on trial early December.
With a national distribution network and dedicated regional support, BCG provides excellence through first-class service and availability. Its range of over 36,000 products can be ordered over the Web where customers can check real-time stock availability, or by phone speaking with an agent. In an attempt to continuously improve customer service, BCG embarked on a project to boost its telephone ordering service by introducing an automated, telephone-based, stock enquiry service that would provide current stock levels, for all its products at anytime, day or night even when its call centre is closed.
As Simon Macklin, Customer Services Director at BCG explains, “Our call centre handles somewhere between 32,000-36,000 calls per month. More than 35% of those calls are order-related but we estimate around 20% are stock query calls and it is those calls that we want to automate with the new stock check service. By automating quick and simple stock enquires though the new service our customers can get an immediate and real-time response to their stock enquiry without queuing for an agent and we can free up our call centre staff to spend time dealing with more complex customer queries. This is a real win-win for our customers who benefit form a 24 x 7 stock enquiry self-service capability plus greater access to more available contact centre staff when needed.”
Simon and his team first came across SpeechStorm at a Call Centre Executive Forum and from that reduced the field to three possible suppliers. Simon adds, “We selected SpeechStorm because they demonstrated great understanding of phone self service not just as a technology supplier but also from a consultative partnership perspective; a solutions-based approach that we felt gave us great flexibility and confidence as we embarked on this and future phone self-service projects.”
BCG had already introduced real-time stock check availability on its website over a year ago and went from a standing start to 7,500 stock checks a month being conducted through the new service, so Simon and his team are in little doubt that their customers who are independent retailers and merchants will embrace the new phone self service stock check in the same way. “It simply isn’t practical for all of our customers to go online all of the time to do stock checks. Many are at trade counters dealing with customers and the phone is a very immediate, non-obtrusive way to get to the information they need immediately. We feed live stock information to the SpeechStorm system every 15 minutes so it is highly accurate and up to date.”
“We are delighted to welcome BCG as a SpeechStorm customer further extending our established base of retail companies like Dixons and Comet,” said Oliver Lennon, SpeechStorm’s CEO. “BCG has developed a customer-service centric approach to its business and aims to make its call centre staff more proactive than reactive. Freeing them up to spend longer on complex calls and proactively contacting customers is at the heart of this automated stock check application and this gives the customer the best of both worlds – the ability to self-serve when they need to, quickly and easily while getting the agent attention they need for more in-depth queries.”
The BCG automated stock check service will go on trial as a Freephone service initially to gauge customer reaction with the aim that it goes live early January. Simon and his team have already identified other processes that will lend themselves well to automation including delivery time check calls.
About BCG
As the UK’s No. 1 B2B distributor of kitchens, bathrooms and heating products, BCG offers its customers unbeatable choice and value on over 36,000 products. BCG stocks wide ranges from the industry’s leading names such as Franke, Neff, Fisher & Paykel, Ideal Standard, Twyford, Mira and Worcester Bosch to name but a few. BCG is a subsidiary of Wolseley UK, and more information can be found on the corporate website at www.wolseley.co.uk
About SpeechStorm
SpeechStorm specialises in self-service solutions that manage customer interactions over the phone.
The SpeechStorm portfolio provides a combination of best-fit solutions that give customers the service they want; whether touchtone, SMS, Video or Voice. SpeechStorm transforms the simple phone into a rich interactive tool for accessing content, finding information and interacting with an organisation to fulfil customer requests and optimise customer care goals.
Organisations including Comet, CPP, Dixons Stores Group International (DSGI), SITA Suez, eircom, Meteor and Northern Ireland Electricity rely on SpeechStorm solutions to underpin their business performance and improve the overall customer experience.
Backed by a professional services capability of more than 250 consultants, SpeechStorm is part of Kainos, a leading IT consulting and Systems Integrator. For over 20 years Kainos has been deploying critical customer interaction solutions giving SpeechStorm distinctive edge over most phone self-service specialists. SpeechStorm has offices in the UK and Ireland.
For more information please visit the corporate website on www.speechstorm.com .
PR Contact
Carina Birt, Sarum
PR for SpeechStorm
[email protected]
+44 1722 411150
