Hall Automotive Nearly Doubles Corporate Call Center Productivity With UCN inContact(TM)
SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 7, 2006 -- UCN, Inc. (BULLETIN BOARD: UCNN) , a provider of on-demand contact handling software and business telecommunication services delivered over the UCN national VoIP network, announced today that Hall Automotive, the country's 48th largest new car dealership, selected inContact(TM) to support its inbound and outbound corporate call center supporting 16 dealership locations.
The Hall Automotive corporate call center (CIC), located in Newport News, Va., was opened in August 2005 with 12 people. They manage an estimated 300 toll free numbers, many of which are associated with a specific dealership location supporting specific marketing campaigns, promotional programs or functional groups, such as "credit challenged." During the first five months of operation, the group handled about 1,700 inbound and placed about 11,000 outbound calls per month on behalf of nine of their 16 stores. Today the center is handling 10 stores, with plans to expand this centralized support to all 16 stores by April of this year.
Delivering outstanding service is key to Hall Automotive's business objectives. "We spend over $10 million annually on advertising and 60 percent of our business is repeat business. We dominate in our market," said Randy Brobston, business development director for Hall Automotive and senior manager in charge of the call center. "One of our goals within the call center is to call everyone who visited or made an appointment to visit one of our stores and, if they didn't become a customer, ask them why not." This information is then forwarded to the stores.
The Problem
Although Hall was using an industry-specific CRM package, AutoBase, company wide, the database and the call center's call handling technologies were not integrated. "Every outbound call was hand-dialed," said Brobston. Hall's inbound technology was "a little hunt group routine" developed by their IT department.
Using yet another product, a call monitoring product for toll free numbers, Brobston knew his group had a 60 percent abandonment rate for inbound calls. He also knew he could improve outbound productivity by applying automation technology to the problem. "We started by looking for a predictive dialer. We look at all kinds of tools. Most were very expensive and complicated," recalled Brobston. He finally turned to the systems integration firm that installed the company's $1.5 million Avaya phone system, MABC, which is also a UCN Sales Partner. MABC introduced Hall Automotive to inContact.
The Solution
Using the inContact(TM) outbound Power Dialer, overall monthly productivity has grown from 11,000 outbound calls per month under the manual method to 21,000 calls per month with inContact. Inbound call handling productivity has grown from 1,700 calls per month to 6,500. If a customer leaves a voicemail, the system is programmed so the next available, skilled agent calls the customer back. Using inContact's ability to do skills-based routing, Brobston has improved the quality and consistency of the call rep's response by training specialists to handle the various promotional campaigns. By applying inContact to his operation, Brobston is able to record every inbound and outbound call for training and quality purposes. The basic implementation time for this application was only two weeks.
The Business Benefits
Every call for Hall Auto, according to Brobston, is an opportunity to sell a car. So it follows that Brobston doesn't want to miss an opportunity to sell. With the reporting and monitoring tools available in inContact, Brobston is finally able to see with clarity what his team is doing, monitor the call activity in process and quickly answer the marketing department's question regarding how many calls came in on a particular campaign. Brobston added, "Now we can move on to the next level and use this information to determine such things as the ratio of calls to appointments and develop performance stats on each of our agents."
About Hall Automotive
Hall Automotive, the country's 48th largest new car dealership headquartered in Virginia Beach, Va., operates 16 dealerships and a centralized call center located in Newport News, Va. To learn more about Hall Automotive visit www.hallauto.com.
About MABC
Mid-Atlantic Business Communications, Inc. (MABC) of Portsmouth, Va., was founded in 1990, and became a UCN reseller of inContact in September 2004. With 70 people located in four offices in Virginia and West Virginia, MABC services a national customer base, offering integration services for Avaya and Nortel telecommunications solutions as well as UCN products. For more information on MABC visit: http://www.mabc.com/.
About UCN, Inc.
UCN is a provider of on-demand contact handling application services and business long distance services delivered over its national VoIP network. The inContact(TM) application suite includes an integrated package of advanced contact handling, reporting and administration applications, and inControl(TM), a unique, rapid application development tool. For more information on UCN visit www.ucn.net.
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