Case Study: Virgin Cars
Installation Technology Provides Virgin Cars With The Winning Communications Formula
Virgin Cars, an Internet-based car buying service, invested £30,000 in a high-speed communications network, purchased from Installation Technology, a SYSTIMAX® System Integrator and Anixter partner, to support its new state of the art call centre in Hemel Hempstead.
Installation Technology designed and installed a high-speed voice and data network based on Avaya’s Category 6 SYSTIMAX GigaSPEED®solution, supplied by Anixter.The project took just over two months to complete and provided the company with over 900 network connection points – enabling Virgin Cars to offer fast, and effective responses to customers whenever they contacted the call centre.
Virtual Environment – Human Contact
Whilst e-commerce has revolutionised the consumer market, bringing more choice and value for money to consumers, it has also removed direct contact between companies and their customers. Call centres restore this link – in many cases providing the first point of contact for the customer. It is, therefore, exceptionally important for this contact to be as smooth and trouble-free as possible.
E-commerce is one of many bandwidth hungry applications putting increasing pressure on the arteries of the network infrastructure. In essence, the network is being asked to carry additional data, more quickly and reliably than ever before. As a result, it is vital to invest in a reliable communications infrastructure that is able to adapt to future needs.
Avaya’s SYSTIMAX GigaSPEED solution has been designed to assist
in fulfilling the requirements of emerging high bandwidth applications
such as e-commerce, providing a fast, dependable and robust communications
infrastructure that helps to ensure smooth voice, video and data transmission. SYSTIMAX
GigaSPEED can help to handle the inevitable upsurges in increased
data traffic which
e-commerce creates and, in Virgin Cars’ case, assist the company’s
call centre agents to access and process customer data in one of the
quickest possible time frames.
Richard Boylan IT Infrastructure Manager for Virgin Cars explains: “In an e-commerce environment – when you’re not selling to the customer face to face – you have to be confident that there is a strong and trusted communications infrastructure supporting the customer services team as this is the first point of ‘human’ contact with the company.”
Where do cables & network infrastructures fit in to a CRM strategy?
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has matured as a discipline, with thousands of consultants offering advice on planning, resourcing and implementation – from business management plans all the way through to complex automated software solutions. The effectiveness of the best CRM strategy can be reduced significantly, unless it is underpinned by a well-planned and reliable communications infrastructure.
Virgin, a company renowned for re-inventing and redefining customer and corporate relations, is no stranger to seeking creative and original strategies to bring products and services to markets. The Virgin Cars website is no exception, designed as it is, to provide customers with one of the biggest independent showrooms – in a virtual environment – without pushy salesmen or extensive travelling between car dealerships. In addition, to make purchasing as easy as possible for its customers, Virgin Cars also offers part exchange valuations, a finance service and post sales support.
Ken Roberts, Project Manager for Installation Technology comments: “Many websites fail to maintain good relationships with their customers because there is a mismatch between the speed and efficiency offered online and the effectiveness with which their calls are handled in the company’s call centres. By investing in Avaya’s SYSTIMAX GigaSPEED solution, which is able to deliver data quickly to call centre agents, Virgin Cars is able to match the promise of a high-speed, time-saving service in its online environment with a fast and responsive call centre.”
But it’s not just the cabling….
Installing a communications network throughout each floor of a building is a complex job, but as part of a total refurbishment – involving architects, builders, facilities managers and office designers – it becomes even harder, requiring a much greater amount of skill. There was often only a very small window of opportunity for Installation Technology to dovetail its work so that the rest of the project could continue on time and within budget.
Richard Boylan comments: “Installation Technology played an absolutely critical role in making Virgin Cars’ relocation an incredibly stress free experience. It’s quite rare to find a company that works so hard together as a team, with such a high degree of customer focus and dedication – but that’s exactly what we got from them!”