SA Tyre Distributors was started in 2004 and quickly established itself as the biggest wholesaler of tyres in South Africa. With all premium brands and a number of alternatives, and over 2000 resellers, SA Tyre Distributors is a booming giant in the SA tyre industry.
The business has grown steadily over the past 10 years increasing revenue year on year. As a result, the call center has grown organically over the years to meet increased sales demands. With such a large staff compliment in the call centre and very few tools to review business processes and team productivity, management recognized that some changes needed to be made.
In 2014, Wayne Bennett joined the business as senior management’s ‘right hand man’, to update redundant and inefficient business processes and secure the business for future growth. Wayne’s assessment of the call center operations revealed significant limitations on workforce productivity as a result of unstable and restrictive infrastructure.
Wayne’s action plan included a full audit of the company’s call center operations and at the time, the infrastructure was unstable and highly restrictive, therefore limiting the productivity of the workforce.
The most resource heavy and inefficient part of their infrastructure was an outdated, analogue business telephony system. Still running off expensive hard lines with an on-site PABX, the system did not allow flexibility or transparency within the call centre making it hard to pick out where operational snags could be easily rectified.
Since the implementation of Euphoria’s Cloud Based PABX solution, the local distributor has experienced phenomenal improvement in its call center operations. The solution is innovative and offers the business full control over the telephone system.
From his desktop PC, Wayne is able to view call costs for any time range, access call recordings, produce data reports and customize extensions and user profiles for telephone access.
“Moving over to the Euphoria system has given me carte blanche access to critical information pertaining to the call center where lack of productivity and inefficiencies existed. One of our major recurring problems was incorrect orders being returned on a daily basis, it costed the business in time and money and without a proper telephone system, we could not identify if the problem was in our sales department or on the client side. With the new system, I can easily track the call conversation, find the problem source and remedy the situation. It has greatly reduced our operating cost as Euphoria’s system does not require heavy infrastructure setup and expensive monthly line rentals for a function as simple as calling our clients. I can even produce reports on which of our users are the heaviest in call usage and then justify the costs to our financial manager with credible and true data. I can do all of this without searching through old fashioned phone bills and waiting months until I can get my hands on the correct itemized billing” says Wayne.
Some of the operational inefficiencies Wayne talks about are general inefficiencies; sometimes a business is not even aware of these problems until there is data and insight into how the business ‘does business’. Without the correct information, no business can find solutions to these problems and manage accountability at a granular level, a big achievement for any business with any more than 5 users. Euphoria solves this universal problem by putting the telephone system in the business’s hands and offering full transparency, this ensures businesses can make informed decisions, a key factor to great business management. Accountability and workforce management becomes very simple with ‘user-extension reports’, providing insight into activity and productivity of each user. Sales and client communications, an important part of a sales driven business can be implemented and monitored consistently using the call recording feature.
“The new system helped us bust a few myths, for example we now realize that only two percent of calls require agents to have an in-depth knowledge of tyres, while the majority of calls are orders, where customers already know what they want. This knowledge has helped us to train our staff correctly and allocate our resources with the call center more effectively. Customers who have more complex queries are quickly transferred to sales agents already trained to assist them.
Functionality of the system is incredible. The ability to identify the discrepancy and then understand it straight away is unheard of. The cost of Euphoria’s solution was considerably less than any other system, it was a no-brainer. Our telephone costs have reduced drastically and our productivity has improved.” he concludes.
A Bit about Euphoria
Euphoria Telecoms is provider of an innovative, cloud-based, cost-effective business telephone service that offers unprecedented control and automated operational efficiency. The solution offers any businesses a truly simple approach to managing communications across an increasingly decentralized or mobile workforce. Seamless integration and automation make it simple for businesses to access insights, reports and efficacy of communications.
The company has earned a reputation as a customer-centric business, decreasing customer telephony costs by up to 50% and maintaining excellent customer service. Established in 2010, the company now proudly hosts over 1000 business customers in South Africa and continues to grow rapidly. The company is owned 100% by current management team, headed up by George Golding, Conrad de Wet and Rafal Janik.
Contact Euphoria Telecoms to find out more about reducing your telephony costs and gaining control of your business.
