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GM Group |
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Company Background |
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GM Group Sales and
Marketing Limited are a
contact centre business
specialising in the sale
of mobile phones and
contract services across
the UK. The company is
based in Blackburn,
Lancashire and started
trading in September
2005. |
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In the mobile phone
division of the
business, GM are
currently reselling the
3 Network and Orange.
They’ve also sold
T-Mobile and Vodafone
and are looking to bring
O2 onboard. Initially,
GM addressed the
residential/consumer
mobile marketplace but
recently expanded with
the launch of a B2B
service. |
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They’ve grown from less
than 10 employees at
launch and now have 70
employees across the
group - having just
opened a second contact
centre in Rochdale. In
terms of agents they
currently operate with
25 seats in Blackburn
and another 15 in
Rochdale. |
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At present mobile phones
are the core business
but GM Group has
ambitious plans to
expand into other areas
including business
consultancy and property
development. |
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The Business Challenge |
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In terms of the market
climate, the biggest
challenge facing GM
Group according to the
Head of Finance, Imran
Khan, comes from the
networks themselves.
GM’s experience is that
there are an increasing
number of policies and
conditions in place,
plus the fact that some
networks are considering
taking their
telemarketing/telesales
operations back
in-house. |
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“We’re looking at
expanding into other
areas because there may
be a tendency for the
networks to take
services back in-house
rather than use 3rd
party channels such as
ourselves. So we’re
looking into areas such
as financial services,
utilities - even
property development.” |
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“Fortunately, the
TouchStar Contact Centre
means that regulatory
issues are less of a
problem, because we know
that we can manage and
ensure that we’re remain OFCOM and DMA
compliant.” |
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In terms of the ‘people
issue’, contact centres
have a high churn rate,
but GM have an ongoing
recruitment process, pay
good packages and
commission – plus
they’ve created a highly
competitive environment
where results are
rewarded. |
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However, GM Group
encountered operational
problems that are
typical across the
sector: |
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- they needed a
technology to
minimise the impact
of unavailable calls
due to busy or
switched off mobile
phones
- they needed to
differentiate
themselves from
competition
- they needed to
manage inbound
traffic with blended
call management
- they were unable
to train staff as
thoroughly as they
wanted because they
had no call
monitoring.
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GM Group’s requirements
mean the majority of
outbound calls to
generate new business
are made to mobile
phones. The adoption of
the TouchStar Call
Centre Software solution
meant they could avoid
the number of
‘unavailable calls’ due
to mobile phones not
always being switched on
or being diverted to
voice messaging systems.
This is because the
software can identify
engaged tones and phones
set to voice mail mode.
In addition, GM Group
can now generate inbound
calls by leaving
personalised messages
with unavailable
contacts. When the
company was established,
GM Group brought in a
completely new team to
operate the new contact
centre. Therefore,
training staff to the
required level was a key
issue. |
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Imran Khan, who managed
the project, said: “The
first issue to overcome
was to settle the new
call centre agents into
their roles - especially
those who hadn’t
experienced working in a
cold-calling environment
or only had limited
knowledge of the mobile
phone industry. This was
crucial if we were to
obtain the best from all
our employees and retain
staff.” |
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Why did GM Group choose
TouchStar? |
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“In a business you have
to consider what’s going
to get you from A to B.
Some companies market
their products as a
luxury item rather than
as a business item. So
with some dialler
solutions you have to
pay additionally for
extras. We were offered
two solutions – TouchStarLite and
TouchStarPro – which has
voice call recording and
IVR for inbound calls.
We thought that
TouchStar’s solution
with it’s product
support and value added
services was ahead of
the opposition.”
Imran Khan, Head of
Finance, GM Group. |
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For GM Group, the
question of an ongoing
relationship providing
advice and support was
critical. They are
impressed with the fact
that TouchStar ensure
that there’s always
somebody available to
deal with them, should
they require it. Imran
Khan adds: |
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“Any IT Manager in any
business would go out of
their way to pay for
good support – because
they know that the day
that the system goes
down, the business stops
functioning. You can’t
move and you lose
money... We had a
selection process and we
went out and contacted
eight different
companies. They all came
down and presented to
us. We looked at all the
options but we decided
to go with TouchStar
because we thought they
were offering us the
best value and the level
of support was above and
beyond everybody else.
They were flexible to
our needs around
installation dates and –
most importantly – there
was no down time.” |
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Our Solution |
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The solution that
TouchStar provided to GM
Group gave them a
blended inbound/outbound
system that
significantly increased
the representative/call
ratio. The TouchStar
Contact Centre gave them
intelligent scripting,
allowing new employees
to adapt and perform
easily within the new
operation. They could
deploy programmed
callback messages that
helped to create
additional business
through their inbound
sales channel and with
the software’s
‘whisper-coaching’
technology, dedicated
trainers could monitor
and coach sales agents
in real-time without
interruption to
potential clients. |
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GM Group’s IT Director,
Omar Qamar was already
familiar with contact
centre technologies and
before implementation
looked at a number of
other solutions.
“It was
obvious that the
TouchStar system had
several extremely
powerful features that
could help us develop
our sales based
operation. The product’s
flexibility and open
architecture made it
ideal for us to
implement a solution to
match our business
requirements. The fact
that the TouchStar
system allows us to meet
the 3% dropped call
rate, means our outbound
campaigns easily meet DMA and Ofcom
guidelines.” |
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Omar continued, “A first
step was to offer our
staff comprehensive
product and system
training. New staff may
initially be
uncomfortable making
calls - particularly
about products or
services of which they
have limited experience.
Here the TouchStar
system proves to be
invaluable, allowing us
to write clear,
simple-to-follow scripts
that present different
responses dependent on
the answer specified for
each question. We are
also able to easily
adjust scripts ourselves
using the handy script
designer tool.” |
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The on-screen scripts
guide the representative
through the sales
process and ultimately
enable the customer to
select the most
appropriate package.
Omar explained that the
TouchStar Contact
Centre’s intelligent
scripting transforms a
hard sell into soft
sell. |
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“With the aid of our
custom scripts, the
contact centre agent can
clearly demonstrate how
much money the customer
can save. It also allows
them to make note of the
renewal date of the
contract. The TouchStar
system then
automatically schedules
a follow-up call on the
appropriate date as part
of a long-term customer
retention programme.” |
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The TouchStar Contact
Centre also helped GM
Group to address the
challenge regarding the
number of mobile phones
set to voice mail mode.
The system automatically
detects message systems
or engaged numbers and
marks them in the
database for a
‘callback’ and
immediately moves on to
the next call. It can
also be programmed to
leave ‘callback’
messages with tempting
offers of new phones or
service deals – the
software can then
automatically route the
call back to the
representative that
originally placed the
call. |
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In summary, GM Group
found that the TouchStar
solution meant that they
are able to generate an
inbound/outbound blended
sales channel which in
turn increases the
efficiency of their
contact centre agents
and allows seamless
continuity with each
potential client. |
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Implementation |
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As much as possible,
TouchStar avoid
installation during
normal business hours to
enable business
continuity. As Imran
Khan pointed out: |
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“The day they came to
install, they were in at
6 in the morning and by
the time our staff
started calling
customers at 11 o’
clock, we were up and
running.” |
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However, the
relationship with
TouchStar wasn’t simply
a matter of installing a
software system –
implementation, in their
case, meant the
provision of a range of
value-added services. |
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Imran Khan added: “In
addition to the the
dialler software itself,
we were attracted to
TouchStar because it’s a
one-stop shop. If you’re
looking for a dialler
solution or a CRM
package, or a whole
contact centre solution,
they can provide it.
They met all our
telecommunications needs
from hardware and the
dialler software, all
the way through to
ongoing support, as well
as advice and guidance on
which telecoms carriers
to use. We use them for
least-cost routing
because they illustrated
to us the kinds of
saving that can be made.
They also provisioned
our Non-Geographic
Numbers, such as 0870s.” |
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Benefits of the
TouchStar Contact Centre |
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- Faster dialling
- Enhanced
functionality
- Limits downtime
- Flexible and
scalable – grows
with you business
- Suite of value
added services (Non
Geographic Numbers –
such as 0845, Least
cost routing,
training,
Hardware/software
provision, help with
staff recruitment,
office furniture)
- OFCOM compliance
- Guaranteed level
of service
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“Getting into the
contact centre business
is very complicated and
in our experience
there’s nobody out there
better equipped to guide
you through it than
TouchStar. They have
vast experience in the
sector, so they can
advise you before you
take the steps what the
pitfalls might be –
whether its with
inbound, outbound, 0870
numbers, DDI – they’ll
tell you everything.”
“They actually look
at your business not
just your communications
needs – they look at how
your business is going
to benefit by utilising
the solution. That’s why
they offer the whole
package.”
Imran Khan, Financial
Director, GM Group. |
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The TouchStar Contact
Centre uses dialogic
code, which enables it
to cut out the vast
majority of answer
machines. |
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Imran adds: “We call
a lot of mobile phone
numbers – the dialler
uses a technology that
recognises audio
signatures and hence
cuts out answer machines
etc. On our old dialler,
we used to get call
after call going through
to answer machines, now
the agent doesn’t have
to deal with that – so
instead of talking to 60
people in a day now each
agent talks to more than
250 people. We look at
it like a market stall –
if only 60 people walk
past your stall there’s
only so much you can
sell, if 250 people walk
past, your going to be
looking at significantly
higher sales. We need to
talk to more people and
the TouchStar solution
allows us to do that.” |
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The TouchStar Contact
Centre allows GM Group
to monitor each agent’s
stats – how long they’re
logged on for, how long
they’re waiting
in-between calls for,
how long they took to
wrap-up a call and how
long it took them to
type in notes. This has
enabled them to ‘up the
bar’ in terms of
training and see the
results. |
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“We’ve increased our
profit margin as a
result of the TouchStar
solution. In terms of
sales per day per agent
we’ve gone up from an
average of slightly over
one to slightly under
three. We are also
finding that agents are
getting through a higher
volume of calls, so
they’re hitting
commission quicker –
which is keeping
everybody very
motivated. Since we
chose TouchStar to help
us, we’ve increased
productivity by 150%. We
can monitor our staff in
real time – remotely if
necessary. We can dial
in from anywhere in the
world and send agents a
text message direct to
their monitor. The
TouchStar solution
addresses the
requirements of our
marketplace – in our
view better than the
alternatives that were
available to us. The
solution has been
flexible and scalable
enough to deal with our
growing requirements. So
now we’ve recommended
TouchStar to a number of
other companies.” |
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Mohammed Patel, GM
Group’s MD agreed:
“We are now closing
several hundred mobile
phone contracts per
month – we’ve been so
successful that we even
had to change our
original phone
distributor as they were
unable to keep up with
our demand.” |
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He added, “GM Group
has ambitious growth
plans and aims to double
the number of sales
operatives in the coming
months. This increase in
sales will allow GM
Group to target new
markets. We were
consumer focused, but we
are now targeting SME
businesses too. This
means tailoring the
scripts and calling
campaigns to meet the
differing needs of this
market. The flexibility
of the system allows our
agents and managers to
target exact customers
needs and is proving to
be central to our
success.” |
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Results |
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- Increased
Business by 150% in
just 4 weeks after
full installation
- More than meet
all DMA and Ofcom
requirements.
- Staff are more
focused and
motivated, exceeding
targets week in week
out
- Company grew
from 6 to 63
employees in 3
months
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Copyright 2008 TouchStar Call Centre Software. All Rights Reserved