Online Traffic School Uses Avaya IP Office to Drive New Levels of Customer Responsiveness
* Meets aggressive service level agreements with state and local governments
BASKING RIDGE, N.J., July 20 -- California-based IDriveSafely.com, an online traffic school that allows students to take safety courses 24-hours a day from the comfort of their home, is using an IP Office Solution from Avaya Inc. , a leading global provider of business communications software, systems and services, to drive new levels of customer responsiveness. Doing so is helping the company meet the aggressive service level agreements built into many of its contracts with state and local governments to provide the traffic courses mandated by the courts for traffic violations.
"Being responsive to our customers is our competitive edge," said Liz Sanchez, director of Customer Service for IDriveSafely.com, which is based near San Diego. "Many of them have a real sense of urgency since they have to meet a deadline imposed by the courts for completion of their course, and they often wait until the last minute to begin. We find they are pleasantly surprised when they have a question and are able to reach us live, especially when they contact us in the middle of the night or on a holiday."
Avaya IP Office, a high-performance voice and data server designed specifically for small and mid-sized businesses, is helping the tens of thousands of students who take courses from the company each year have quick, around-the-clock access to certified traffic experts when they have a question, regardless of how they contact the firm.
An IP Office multimedia module integrates IDriveSafely.com's email application with its Avaya IP Office Compact Contact Center application so that emails sent to the company are automatically downloaded and distributed to agents. For the first time, managers have an integrated overview of the number of customer contacts received and the time it takes to respond to each. Report capabilities allow the company to document those response times and verify the service levels the company is contractually obligated to deliver.
The same performance data is helping IDriveSafely.com make consistent improvements in its contact handling times by fine-tuning staffing levels based on anticipated call and email volumes. As a result, the 20,000 customers who contact the company each month are handled more promptly and fewer contacts are abandoned.
Call routing and distribution capabilities allow IDriveSafely.com to establish clear auto attendant menu options, develop call coverage paths to reduce bottlenecks during heavy calling periods and use skills-based routing to ensure calls are answered by the safety expert best able to handle them.
"Avaya IP Office is giving us many of the same sophisticated routing and reporting features found in high-end Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) systems, but at an affordable price," Sanchez said.
The Avaya IP Office Solution for IDriveSafely.com was implemented and is maintained by Salient Networks, an authorized Avaya BusinessPartner.
About Avaya
Avaya Inc. designs, builds and manages communications networks for more than 1 million businesses worldwide, including over 90 percent of the FORTUNE 500(R). Focused on businesses large to small, Avaya is a world leader in secure and reliable Internet Protocol (IP) telephony systems and communications software applications and services.
Driving the convergence of voice and data communications with business applications, and distinguished by comprehensive worldwide services, Avaya helps customers leverage existing and new networks to achieve superior business results. For more information visit the Avaya website: http://www.avaya.com/.
About Salient Networks
Headquartered in Carlsbad, California, Salient Networks has operations serving both Northern and Southern California. As an Avaya Diamond Dealer and Gold BusinessPartner, Salient is authorized to sell the complete Avaya portfolio of voice, data, messaging, CRM and wireless communications solutions. In 2001 the company was named Avaya National BusinessPartner of the Year.
