CUSTOMER PROFILE
- Establish a uniform customer contact platform across several operating entities
- Improve caller experience for first-time and repeat contacts
- Free workers from fixed hard phone/dedicated device workflow
- Greater internal control over IVR options and overall call flow
- Fewer customer disconnections and queue dead-ends
- Consistency across more than a dozen operating companies
- Advanced call routing
- Virtual queue
- Sit-in-queue callback
- Outbound queue
- Automated analysis of customer interactions
- MAX integrated softphone
01 THE BEFORE
Diverse origins bring discoordinated systems
When PestCo Holdings acquires an operating pest control company, it takes on the local market presence, branding, and reputation of the purchased business. PestCo also inherits the unique set of business practices and small business software used to run each operation. Without a uniform solution, PestCo would find itself juggling several stand-alone systems and struggling to achieve the consistency of service and economies of scale it seeks.
02 DESIRE TO CHANGE
A growing company overwhelms its small-business call center
In 2018, before joining the PestCo umbrella, then-independent Pointe Pest Control identified several shortcomings in its customer-facing operations. Callers had difficulty navigating the IVR and would routinely get stuck in call queues. Some were randomly disconnected. “It was a bad situation. We had outgrown the capabilities of that system,” said Sean Peters, Chief Marketing Officer of PestCo, who served in a similar capacity at Pointe.
The incumbent system was also inflexibly tied to dedicated hard phones and handsets. This was particularly inconvenient for the 100% field-based sales force, tying their entire workflow to a company-owned device.
“We’ve seen benefits from CXone’s ease of use, uptime, consistency, and the ability to make quick, easy, and effective changes for ourselves. And I feel like we’ve just begun to scratch the tip of the iceberg for what CXone can do.”
CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER
PESTCO HOLDINGS LLC
03 THE SOLUTION
Scalable unified communications in the cloud
Pointe Pest Control searched for a more sophisticated, flexible, cloud-based solution, and selected CXone. The company quickly gained clearer and easier control over the IVR menu structure, a smoother call queue, and advanced features including a callback queue to give callers greater flexibility. Fully integrated softphone capability improves flexibility for agents and field sales and service personnel and proved invaluable during the pandemic response which sent workers home.
Instead of analyzing customer service manager performance manually, the company gained insights into agent activity on a monthly, quarterly, and annual basis. Agent activity is also easier to audit, and Pointe was able to make several adjustments to operating processes based on comprehensive data.
04 THE RESULTS
A platform for consistency and nationwide growth
After acquiring Pointe, PestCo quickly recognized that its deployment of CXone provided a model for customer service across its entire portfolio. CXone is now the standard platform for all PestCo businesses and is used by more than 100 agents. “As we acquire companies, CXone makes it easier to integrate them into the best practices we’ve established, rather than having 15 different companies on 15 different systems,” Peters said.
NICE collaborates with PestCo on training and change management when new companies are brought into the fold. PestCo’s central leadership enjoys greater control over day-to-day customizations and configurations that make it easier to serve customers efficiently and comprehensively. Callers are no longer lost in IVR mazes and queues, or disconnected randomly.
05 THE FUTURE
More channels for even greater insight
PestCo plans to expand and grow into more CXone capabilities as its portfolio grows across major US markets. The group has already started experimenting with an outbound call queue to deepen relationships with existing customers and develop new leads.
