Companies in the Telecommunications industry live or die by the relationships they build with their customers. To keep subscribers happy and loyal, business leaders need to ensure they’re going above and beyond to address all of their needs. This means having the right CX technology in place isn’t just a recommendation; it’s a must.
In today’s unpredictable world, the best CX solutions need to be innovative, agile, and capable of adapting to suit virtually any environment. This is something the leading telecoms brand, Cincinnati Bell, discovered for itself when it began to see a massive increase in call volume and demand during the pandemic. To stay ahead of the curve the historical company needed to act fast, and implement a solution with infinite scalability.
Avaya, one of the market leaders in communications technology, had the perfect solution available. Here’s what happened when Cincinnati Bell embraced the benefits of Avaya OneCloud CCaaS.
Adapting to New Challenges During the Pandemic
The residents of Kentucky, Indiana, and Ohio have relied on the high-quality communications services offered by Cincinnati Bell for more than 145 years. Originally introduced in 1873, the company is one of the most historical in the American telecoms landscape. However, it doesn’t allow its heritage to prevent it from adapting to an ever-changing marketplace.
For years now, Cincinnati Bell has prioritised a strategy of constant innovation and evolution to ensure it can continue to compete with new and emerging telecoms brands. When the pandemic hit in 2020, and companies started shutting their doors, this future-focused approach proved to be crucial to the brand’s continued survival.
According to VP of Contact Centre Operations for the company, Christina Neises, the challenges of the pandemic hit Cincinnati Bell on two fronts. First, the brand noted the continued safety of its employees was a paramount concern to the business. The team knew it needed to empower employees to work as safely as possible from a distance, so they could avoid spreading the virus further.
Unfortunately, at the same time as the switch to remote working was taking place, the company was also facing a rapid increase in demand. Call volumes increased by more than 50%, placing additional pressure on existing teams trying to adapt to a new way of work. The company knew it needed to figure out a solution and fast to empower their employees, and continue delighting customers.
Thanks to an existing relationship with the leading communications brand, Avaya, Cincinnati Bell was already equipped with the partner they needed to make an important change to their technology stack. They approached Avaya searching for a solution they could implement quickly and effectively for a new age of work, and discovered the OneCloud CCaaS platform.
Navigating the Crisis with Avaya Technology
The stay-at-home orders in Ohio towards the beginning of the pandemic caused a rapid surge in calls from subscribers, looking for help with maintaining high communication connection quality. Users needed to ensure they had the right solutions in place for work, school, and entertainment.
According to a Cincinnati Bell survey, around 35% of new residential internet customers didn’t even have a service provider before the pandemic. As new consumers were quickly embracing new forms of communication and connectivity, business users were rapidly upgrading their bandwidth and service requirements too.
Fortunately, Cincinnati Bell already had a fantastic relationship with Avaya, and a communications partner named “STARTEK”, so they didn’t have to handle the new challenges alone. The teams from both companies quickly joined forces to help the communications brand roll out a solution.
Within only 2 days of the stay-at-home order issued in Ohio, Neises and her employees had empowered more than 100 team members to work effectively from home. They continued their transition to the remote workplace from there, working at breakneck speed to push the rest of the contact centre into the digital environment, and restore pre-pandemic service levels.
In just 3 weeks, 290 employees from the contact centre were working remotely, helping Cincinnati Bell to meet with the increased demands for support and services from customers. According to Neises, though the team did initially evaluate competing solutions for their contact centre requirements, their past experiences with Avaya made the vendor the most obvious choice.
Making the Move to the Cloud
Before the pandemic, the telecoms brand wasn’t prepared for a shift to remote working. They believed their geographic diversity was enough to help them serve customers wherever they were. However, the team quickly discovered how important the cloud would become during the pandemic.
Cincinnati Bell believes the most important thing they can do is be there for their customers in a consistent and reliable way – even during unpredictable events like a global virus outbreak. While before the pandemic, the team was in the process of upgrading its aging telephony infrastructure, the challenges implemented by the stay-at-home orders accelerated this transition.
Working with Avaya, Cincinnati Bell was able to roll out a robust and engaging multi-experience platform, capable of offering a comprehensive view of all customer interactions, and enabling channels based on customer preferences. The team was even able to eliminate some of the silos that had been contributing to a poor flow of data throughout the workplace.
Transitioning into the OneCloud environment with Avaya hasn’t just helped the business to upgrade customer experience, it also ensures the team can save more money too.
According to Cincinnati Bell, the Avaya environment provides the company with a single platform where they can ensure consistent monitoring, management, and reporting across all customer interactions, as well as supporting front-line personnel. These in-depth insights not only improve business productivity, but also give the team leaders a deeper insight into the needs and expectations of customers, so they can adapt their services accordingly.
Going forward, Cincinnati Bell plans to continue building on its investment in the Avaya ecosystem with a focus on continued growth and scalability. The business finally has the agile system it needs to thrive in the modern world.
