Introduction
As a not-for-profit organisation that helps people to make confident and informed choices, Which? is the UK’s consumer champion. Whether its experts are tackling online scams, testing new products or campaigning for safer goods, Which? is an independent voice that influences lawmakers, holds businesses to account, and promotes informed consumer choice.
Which? offers its members a number of helplines and takes the quality of its customer service seriously. No matter what channel customers use to contact Which?, its staff are committed to delivering an outstanding experience at every interaction, every time.
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Cinos has provided a service that suits our needs, and is saving us both time and money. |
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The Requirement
Which? was facing a complex challenge, largely centred on the view that the organisation wasn’t getting enough value from its existing Cisco Packaged Contact Centre Enterprise solution (PCCE). In addition to this, the PCCE platform featured several integrations with various other suppliers, creating a large partner ecosystem that needed to be efficiently managed.
At the beginning of 2020, it became clear that the organisation needed a fresh perspective to consolidate, stabilise and unlock the potential of its existing Cisco PCCE. It was time for a new approach and Which? sought a managed service provider with Cisco expertise to support the existing estate, reduce downtime, and allow the IT department to focus on its wider business goals.
Unified Communications & Network Lead at Which? explains: “It became apparent that we needed to work with a supplier that could deliver on quality and value, as well as help us harness our existing PCCE platform and supplier partnerships. After a comprehensive tender process, we engaged with Cinos and the team were able to come in and do just that.”
The Solution
Cinos set about assessing the existing infrastructure, and then delivered recommendations that focussed on providing a robust service. In addition, Cinos worked to cultivate skills and confidence amongst the Which? IT team, to enable them to extract the value they needed from the existing contact centre platform.
By implementing a comprehensive support service, Which? now have a multi-layered approach from a support perspective. This provides Which? a technical team who actively monitor and remedy any alerts that might arise. The level of support Cinos delivers to Which? enables the IT team to step away from the maintenance and management of the contact centre and instead focus on developing other areas of its IT strategy.
Which? also offers its members expert advice on a range of issues, from consumer rights to financing care in later life. With this service, comes the need to protect customer data and ensure that vulnerabilities are removed from the network. To eliminate any security risks, Cinos begun implementing a rigorous patch management programme to deliver a high level of protection from threats and breaches, whilst also clearing any unnecessary technical debt.
The Which? Lead explains: “Cinos are a true extension of our team and the service they deliver complements our internal support desks well. By proactively working with us, we’ve been able to extract the value we needed from our existing contact centre and partner ecosystem. We’re better able to respond to our customers’ needs and maintain an exceptional level of service. This means we focus less on the day-to-day tasks, as the support contract we have in place allows us to turn our attention to continuous improvement and meeting the needs of key stakeholders within the organisation.”
Alongside the comprehensive support service that’s in place, Cinos has also managed and provided an ongoing training program that encompasses all areas of the Cisco PCCE platform. Not only has this instilled confidence in the functionality of the platform but it has also enabled the IT department to become more reliant on their in-house expertise. The support contract is structured in a way that recognises this, and as capabilities within the team grow, the support Cinos provides reduces over time, as will the annual support service costs.
The Benefits
By working in partnership with Cinos, Which? has been able to make more efficient use of their Cisco contact centre in a way that is better aligned with the IT department’s overarching goals. Additionally, the IT team have seen the turnaround time of tickets reduce, as resolutions have been delivered faster and outages less frequent.
Managing the supplier ecosystem
– With multiple parties, the partner ecosystem surrounding the contact centre is complex. Cinos maintains ongoing strategic conversations and engagement with each of the key channel partners and in doing so, has been able to improve the organisation’s technology usage and drive down the costs of renewals.
Clearing technical debt
– Enforcing efficient maintenance processes has meant that the resiliency of the Cisco platform has been increased and as a direct result the Which? team have also seen improvements in the user experience. Not only has this supported functionality but it’s also provided the opportunity for the IT department to realign its technical priorities.
A roadmap for the future
– Outside of managing the contact centre and communications estate, Cinos has also assisted Which? with its three-year plan. By providing a comprehensive wireless network survey with technical proposals and recommendations for future wireless network and WAN deployments, Cinos has offered a much greater depth of IT support and consultancy, beyond the traditional Managed Service Provider capabilities. Furthermore, Cinos has worked in partnership with Which? to assess their business tools and process, ensuring they are fit for purpose and have the capacity to allow for growth whilst remaining effective in the future.
