At Olivier Ford, Customer Satisfaction Comes First!

Addressing the Flood of Incoming Calls

Thanks to sustained growth over several years, Olivier Ford, a car dealership in St-Hubert, still ranks year after year among the best Ford dealers in Quebec. Its chairman, Jacques Olivier Jr., a second-generation owner, was aware that significant investments were required to upgrade their communications platform to support this strong growth and most importantly, to improve the customer experience that has always been so important to the company.

It was quickly determined that IP telephony was a must. The telephone system, which was more than 20 years old, was outdated, at full capacity and could not adapt to the changes required and the continued growth of the company. Mr. Olivier wanted to modernize the call center and its design, to propel it to a higher level, allowing for growth and flexibility without limitation as well as the possible networking of all of the dealerships that are part of the Olivier Group.

Olivier Ford’s dealerships are open 7 days a week. Its sales staff are always on the move, whether on test drives, showing customers cars out in the lot or serving customers in the showroom. In addition, staff schedules are atypical, sometimes working days, evenings or weekends. “Since the automotive market is highly competitive, a good representative must make himself available to his clients and be efficient,” remarked Mr. Olivier.

Before the introduction of the new communication system, customers complained of being put on hold and not being answered quickly. Often times, this was due to the fact that every incoming call was funneled through the receptionist who was overwhelmed with the enormous volume of daily calls. Mr. Oliver needed to find a solution to address the call volume issues as well as find a tool that would help determine the number of daily calls.

The Right Solution

The need to reduce monthly telecommunication costs also influenced their decision. A VoIP design was therefore considered as a way to reduce the cost of monthly service which had steadily increased in recent years.

Three different solutions were recommended to Mr. Olivier. He chose an Avaya solution because it met all of his immediate needs and fit within his budget. Mr. Olivier chose the Avaya IP Office™ Platform since it will be the basis for the consolidation of all of his dealers onto one phone platform, resulting in significant cost savings, greater efficiency and better collaboration between the multiple dealership locations.

Multiple Benefits Lead to Increased Customer Satisfaction

The staff at Olivier Ford has been enjoying the benefits of the new system:

• The twinning solution offers all sales staff the ability to receive calls at their desk or on their mobile, thus increasing the response rate for calls addressed by the sales staff. Very few calls are routed back, therefore allowing the receptionist to focus on welcoming customers as well as other tasks.

• The ability to receive voice messages in .WAV format via email has allowed sales staff to return customer calls quickly, thus having a positive impact on sales and customer satisfaction.

• All the service department telephones have been consolidated to provide better customer response time. In addition, other devices were programmed to have the ability to join this group as well as the reception desk during peak periods.

• The standard call reporting software Xima Chronicall has been integrated into the solution. This creates reports on demand that allow them to see the full history from the beginning of each call to its conclusion, for both incoming and outgoing calls.

According to Mr. Olivier, the combination of these changes has increased productivity and effective communications internally as well as with customers. “The ability to receive phone messages via email is a feature that is greatly appreciated by our staff and enables them to return customer phone calls much faster.”