NSD: Saved $730k per year in the contact center and improves customer experience with automation and self-service

NSD is a logistics and delivery company providing delivery services, product assembly and installation, reverse logistics, and other distribution services to large retailers and manufacturers in the U.S.

Challenge

NSD’s contact center agents were overloaded with too many calls each day, creating high hold times and frustrating their customers. The inflexibility, lack of automation and IVR capabilities, and cost of customizing their existing contact center systems made this a difficult and time-consuming issue to address. Even the smallest adjustments became overcomplicated and required the assistance of their vendor. “The entire system was set up incorrectly and they did it on purpose, I think, just to make it more expensive for us to fix it. It was about $10,000 to make a change. If you wanted something more customized, then you’d have to pay a lot of money to do anything. So, we just didn’t,” expressed Marshall Ware, Senior Manager of Customer Experience. NSD needed a better way to handle inbound traffic and provide customers with important information.

Along with not having the flexibility to customize as needed, the existing system’s lack of advanced capabilities inhibited NSD’s ability to improve agent productivity and provide a stellar customer experience. NSD was looking to implement automated self-service options to help customers get the information they need without having to wait on hold and speak to an agent. NSD began looking for new solutions and came across IntelePeer’s suite of services, which they were able to get an in-depth look at before purchasing.

Solution

IntelePeer’s intuitive design and ease of use convinced NSD that it was the perfect solution for their challenges. “I’ve worked with a lot of different IVR systems and [SmartFlows] was the easiest one that I’ve ever worked with. It’s very simple, it’s easy to use, it’s powerful, and that was the reason why I chose to go with IntelePeer,” explains Marshall. After taking the platform for a test drive before purchasing, Marshall was able to dive right in once implementation was complete.

NSD created flows that automate how incoming call traffic is routed. Before there was no automation in place and every call was routed to a live agent. Now, 30% of all calls are handled without an agent through self-service retrieval of shipping updates and product details. When a customer cannot be taken care of through automation, they are passed on to an agent who sees the caller’s information before they answer the call.

IntelePeer also allows NSD to easily handle unexpected spikes in call volume. When COVID-19 hit, NSD experienced a drastic increase in incoming traffic due to increased demand for delivery services. This increase would have completely overwhelmed their call center had they not implemented self-service and automation with IntelePeer.

After implementing automation and self-service options for their customers, NSD continues to monitor and improve their customer experience based on insights provided by IntelePeer. Built-in analytics allow NSD to examine how flows are performing and immediately make changes when necessary. Their customer experience team is able to understand how customers are interacting with the self-service options if callers are dropping out of flows, and at what point in a flow an issue could be arising. This is a level of intelligence, customization, and control that NSD never experienced with their previous provider.