The Challenge: Supporting a remote workforce
As business grew over the past decade, Credit Repair became aware that its existing telephony platform could no longer deliver the capabilities needed by both staff and clients.
“We were reliant on Telstra SIP connections and an on-premises LG Aria PABX with desktop phones,” says Anthony Ciraolo, Infrastructure Manager and Systems Administrator at Credit Repair. “This had mostly worked well for us, however, it was becoming increasingly clear that it could not deliver the level of performance and flexibility that we needed to support our growth.”
The situation came to a head during the first round of COVID-19 lockdowns. Credit Repair’s staff was forced to work from home and relied heavily on their mobile phones to make and receive calls.
When employees returned to the office, they reverted back to using the on-premises PABX. However, when management realized future lockdowns were highly likely, the search began for a suitable alternative system that could support office admin staff as well as the company’s growing customer contact center.
The Solution: Work from Anywhere with 8x8 Platform
Credit Repair reviewed a number of alternative platforms before drawing up a shortlist of potential solutions. 8x8 won the company's trust after an in-depth analysis.
Over a three-month period, the Credit Repair IT team deployed 8x8 to support office staff and 8x8 Contact Center to support the center's 70-strong team of agents.
Now, all employees have a softphone that they can use just as easily at home as they do in the office. “We’ve been able to remove the physical handsets as everyone now simply uses a headset connected to their computer. Everyone has access to all the features they need, whether working in the office or at home, which is great,” says Ciraolo.
8x8 Contact Center gives Credit Repair the ability to track customer journeys as agents interact with callers. Agents can also follow scripts and transfer callers to other staff members as needed.
With 8x8, company managers benefit from significantly improved reporting, which provides an accurate picture of everything from average wait times to call volumes and contact center capacities. Supervisors can also now better manage their teams and monitor live calls to provide assistance and guidance in real time.
“We rely on verbal contracts, so having good quality recordings of calls is also very important,” says Ciraolo. “We have been very impressed with the quality that 8x8 is able to deliver.”
The Benefits: Future-proof in the cloud
Credit Repair now has a telephony and contact center platform in place that will support company growth for many years to come.
Going forward, 8x8 will continue to act as a valuable technology partner for the firm. “We were attracted to 8x8 because of the high level of support that the company delivers,” says Ciraolo. “That support continues long after deployment has been completed.”
Other benefits include 8x8’s competitive pricing structure and cloud-first platform, which has allowed Credit Repair to move its infrastructure from on-premises to the cloud.
8x8 delivers additional value with robust analytics capabilities. Calls can be monitored for key words and for customer sentiment to further improve communications.
“Overall, the new platform has boosted our agility and our ability to deliver the best possible levels of service to clients,” says Ciraolo.
The company’s future plans include the rollout of outbound dialing capabilities for staff to proactively communicate with both clients and credit providers. “We are also looking to make use of 8x8’s omni-channel capabilities. This will allow staff to communicate with clients using services like web chat and SMS,” says Ciraolo.
