CUSTOMER PROFILE
ABOUT ESTES FORWARDING WORLDWIDE
Estes Forwarding Worldwide (EFW) provides customized delivery solutions for businesses. The company’s focus on the “EFW Experience” includes exceeding customers’ expectations and fostering strong relationships with its clients.
EFW’s team of over 100 nationwide customer service agents (in a dozen states and growing) handle an interaction volume of 41,000 per month during offpeak times and up to 70,000 per month during its peak season months of April through June.
THE CHALLENGE
EFW was growing exponentially because of its customer-centric contact approach. To double in size again, they wanted even greater ability to personalize insights for their clients.
Rudy Balli, Senior Manager of Corporate Operations at EFW explains: “We’ve kept careful track of inbound and outbound call metrics, but I wanted deeper analytics to help my team elevate their performance.”
Additionally, system downs are a risk which EFW avoids. When one happened, Rudy described how “It felt like no one from our previous provider valued our time or business, as there was minimal communication. I couldn’t get an immediate response on the problem, and that’s not acceptable for our clients or ourselves. That’s why we’re carefully investing in upgrades.”
THE SOLUTION
Rudy attended a conference and, after talking with several providers, decided to select NiCE CXone because of its multichannel capabilities, including phone, chat and email; powerful analytics and, most importantly, NiCE CXone’s outstanding customer service.
“The NiCE CXone sales team was great at communicating with us,” says Rudy. “They provided references who were currently using the platform so we could ask them questions. The competitors we evaluated weren’t able to do that.”
That personal touch also helped Rudy feel confident that CXone’s installation would proceed smoothly. “The NiCE CXone team held my hand and walked me through every single aspect of onboarding the platform. They assured me that everything would happen just as they explained and that’s exactly what occurred.”
OPPORTUNITIES IDENTIFIED
CXone Omnichannel Drives Efficiency Gains
Rudy’s highest priority was selecting a contact center solution that included powerful analytics. “It was my number one goal,” he says. “With CXone, I now know if we’re saving money due to improved efficiencies. The ability to do that is a big win.”
A big source of improvement was CXone’s omnichannel functionality. “We have a high volume of phone calls, emails and chats,” Rudy explains. With CXone, our agents can handle all three types of contacts at the same time which reduces downtime between interactions, improves service levels and results in massive efficiency gains. It’s really incredible”
Additionally, offering multiple contact channels is a positive benefit when EFW is presenting flexible engagement options for our customers. “We’ve found it to be a huge selling point for new customers.”
CXone Performance Management Boosts Productivity
With CXone Performance Management, EFW now has real-time visibility into agents’ productivity. This was especially critical when the team transitioned to working from home during the COVID pandemic.
“CXone Performance Management is a massive benefit for us. We would have been flying blind if we had our old system going into the pandemic,” says Rudy. “By utilizing CXone Performance Management, we’re able to see in real-time what an agent’s doing and how fast they’re doing it. It helps us target agents that need more coaching or training. That’s been a lifesaver for us.”
“Our productivity was already pretty high, and it didn’t falter at all when we switched to remote work. It was a very smooth transition. Thanks to CXone, we now have full visibility into the agents’ performance whether they’re working from home or the office.”
Not only can contact center supervisors view productivity metrics, EFW believes it’s important to share that data with the agents, too.
“Our agents have personal dashboards where they can view their productivity metrics. It helps keep them engaged when they’re working from home.”
“The supervisors send out hourly dashboard reports to the whole team so they can view their contact handle time, service levels, productivity and more. It helps them assess whether they’re meeting their goals. The agents know there is transparency through every layer of our contact center which helps keep them accountable,” says David Saunders, Workforce Analyst at EFW.
David says CXone Performance Management’s dashboards’ color-coding helps emphasize areas that need attention and highlights agents who are doing well. “We use the color-coding to say, ‘Hey, your speed of answer is getting a little slow; it’s turning orange.’ Or for agents who are doing fine, their metrics will be blue or green. Our supervisors find it really helpful to glance at a dashboard and understand in an instant how their team is performing.”
Call Recording Helps Ensure Positive Customer Experience
By recording and reviewing calls, EFW helps ensure its customers have a high-quality experience. “We use CXone Recording to improve the customer experience,” explains David. ““Each agent has a weekly cycle of strategic account planning. Our supervisors then meet with the agent and play random recordings to review. They also help us assess if agents need training in certain areas. It gives us an overall view of call quality to make sure that the customer experience is 110%.”
CXone Personal Connection Improves Outbound Team’s Efficiency
EFW’s tracking team makes outbound calls to customers to communicate estimated freight arrival times and to schedule returns. With CXone Personal Connection, an outbound dialer, the team can leave voice messages for customers and quickly move on to the next call.
David explains: “Our tracking team makes about 80 outbound calls a day using the CXone Personal Connection dialer and only a fraction of those connect immediately. When we reach a customer’s voicemail, CXone Personal Connection will leave a recorded message which lets them know why we’re calling. The team’s utilization is much higher now, as we can complete hundreds of those calls very easily while making sure the customer experience is outstanding.”
“It’s a massive time saver for our agents, because they aren’t manually dialing calls or leaving the voicemails themselves. It’s also making a positive impact on our customers, because it eliminates the need for them to track their own shipments.”
EFW Highly Recommends CXone
EFW has experienced so many outstanding benefits that it highly recommends CXone to other contact centers. “CXone is a very strong platform,” says David. “Its functionality makes a big difference for our team, such as omnichannel support with phone, email and chat, and of course, CXone Performance Management.”
“The big reason we’ve been so successful, though, is the NiCE CXone team,” says Rudy. “Our technical account manager and key account managers are always thinking of creative ways to use CXone that will support our customer experience. That partnership is paramount.”
“I’m confident that CXone’s broad portfolio can support us in the future as our company grows. NiCE CXone is always innovating and adding new functionality to the platform.”
