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Golfbreaks expands to multimedia contact centre

By Retail Technology | Tuesday February 28 2012 | UPDATED 02.06.22

Customer service hits a hole-in-one thanks to full multimedia contact centre infrastructure implementation

Customer service hits a hole-in-one thanks to full multimedia contact centre infrastructure implementation

Europe's largest golf travel company, Golfbreaks.com, has selected Aspect to transform its customer service operation to meet increasing demand and improve the booking process for customers -- all without increasing personnel resources.

As a leading supplier of golfing holidays, tours, breaks and casual tee times to UK golfers, Golfbreaks.com experienced 13 years of rapid and consecutive growth since its inception in 1998. The specialist tour operator's previous communications infrastructure was unable to fully support its long-term business goals and provide enough flexibility to develop the way it interacts with its customers.

Integrating disparate communications systems

In order to integrate its bespoke, in-house customer relationship management (CRM) system, web chat, voice calls and email (via Microsoft Lync) into one streamlined system, Golfbreaks.com selected Aspect -- in collaboration with partner, Dell -- to implement the internet protocol (IP) and software-based Aspect Unified IP v7 and workforce optimisation applications for all its 120 staff at its Windsor-based contact centre.

"With more customers than ever booking with us, we required a way to meet the challenge without increasing headcount, and to do more with less," comments Steve Hemsworth, Golfbreaks.com managing director. "Our customer service is why people keep coming back to us, but as demand increased, the lack of channel integration was putting a strain on our agents and systems, increasing administration time.

"Customer preferences for the way they contact us are changing, as are the times at which they choose to contact us. We have already extended our opening hours by more than 30%, hopefully the new support for SMS and email, as well as integration with our CRM system, will make booking with us easier and quicker than ever."

Aspect's voice technology has already gone live at Golfbreaks.com, with CRM, web chat, email, call recording and blended interaction for agents handling multiple channels due to go live in the next six months.

Phased project ahead of schedule

Hemsworth added: "We expect to see a quick return on investment. Since we are not increasing any personnel resources there are other benefits, including reduced average call handling times, which naturally brings down the cost per interaction, especially when combined with cheaper channels such as email."

Working with Dell's project team onsite, Aspect will integrate its multimedia applications into Microsoft Lync and Golfbreaks.com's bespoke CRM solution, running on Dell's servers infrastructure. Aspect has also provided Golfbreaks.com with a software developer kit and full training in Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliance, including call recording, for secure handling of customer credit card details.

Steve Boakes, channels and partner manager at Aspect, said the project timescale for voice implementation was 12 weeks, but the teams completed full voice integration within 8.5 weeks and well within budget. "This is a testament to both the Aspect and Dell teams -- as well as the professionalism of Golfbreaks.com in putting the system into operational service -- and we expect similarly efficient schedules for the next phase of the project," he added.

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