C3i Exceeds Expectations with Avaya

C3i Solutions, an HCL Technologies company, provides outsourced call center services for more than 150 clients in highly regulated industries like healthcare and insurance. Its agents handle more than 35 million interactions via phone, text, and the web every year for customers in 175 countries. With that much volume, the company, which is based in Horsham Township, Pa., couldn’t afford to have anything but the most robust call center systems in place.

That had not been the case up until about a year ago, though. Then C3i implemented a number of contact center solutions from Avaya, replacing a string of legacy systems in phases to maintain operations while easing the burden on its IT department.

“We thought [Avaya] had a platform and an expertise that we could exploit because they are both a [telecom services] carrier and provider,” says Michael Dean, C3i’s chief technology officer. “They could also provide a level of detail around calls and text that others could not provide.”

Included in the suite of Avaya solutions that C3i chose were the following:

• Oceana, an omnichannel contact center platform;
• Breeze, an online collaboration and application development tool;
• PodFx, which includes gateways, storage, computing solutions, virtualized applications, cabling, power, and network switches;
• Aura Experience Portal for all automated voice and multimedia applications and services;
• Callback Assist, which enables callers to request a callback rather than waiting on hold; and
• Aura Workforce Optimization to balance agent resources.

The combination of solutions has enabled 3Ci to respond quickly to client needs, Dean says. “We now have burst capabilities. We can provide a large number of agents in very short order. We can respond quickly to client needs by leveraging the cloud capability.”

Intelligent routing that takes into account caller locations and call drivers has also enhanced the experience for 3Ci’s customers.

Agents are handling calls 30 percent faster, primarily due to the intelligent routing and other advanced call attributes. Similarly, first-call resolution rates have increased by 18 percent.

Because the system is so intuitive, agent onboarding and training has been minimal, according to Dean, who notes that pre-shift readiness time—when 3Ci is paying an agent but not billing the client—has decreased by 8 percent. “It has reduced the non-billable time for an agent to become productive,” he says.

“We had high expectations for the Avaya platform,” Dean says. “However, customer excitement has far exceeded even our expectations. We’ve been able to delight our current clients and prospects, better hold on to our clients, and get back some clients that we previously had lost.”

Since the platform is in the cloud, if one 3Ci contact center has a power failure or other outage, the system automatically shifts calls to another contact center. That has improved disaster recovery times companywide by 97 percent, according to Dean.

With the Avaya platform, Dean expects not only to further penetrate the vertical markets where the company is already strong but also to enter entirely new markets and industries.

“At Avaya, we strive to create powerful yet simple communications and collaboration solutions to fit the individual business needs for each of our customers,” said Chris McGugan, senior vice president of product and technology at Avaya, in a statement. “We are proud to have provided C3i Solutions with solutions to create a better experience for their customers today and a clear path to embracing emerging technologies that can contribute to their competitive advantage with every client service opportunity going forward.” 

The Payoff

Since implementing a number of Avaya systems in its contact centers, C3i has seen the following results:

• a 30 percent increase in average speed to answer due to advanced call attributes;
• an 18 percent increase in first-call resolutions due to intelligent routing;
• an 8 percent decrease in pre-shift readiness time; and
• a 97 percent decrease in disaster recovery time.