September 1, 2012
By Leonard Klie, Editor, CRM magazine and SmartCustomerService.com

Reaching New Heights in Customer Service

Some companies—the proactive ones—don't wait for a problem to arise before investing in new technology. Often, it's a commitment to delivering great customer experience that drives their technology purchases. This is certainly the case for Al-Jomaih Automotive, a Saudi Arabian car dealership representing General Motors since 1967.

"We are constantly looking to boost levels of customer care in terms of sales and after-sales service to ensure that Al-Jomaih provides the best customer ownership experience," says Ibrahim Aljomaih, vice chairman and CEO of Al-Jomaih Automotive. "We recognize the importance of superior automotive customer service as a key differentiator in establishing and maintaining competitive advantage, and, as such, our desire to cultivate the highest level of customer care is paramount."

Al-Jomaih has improved customer service and productivity since installing the Altitude uCI customer interaction management solution from Altitude Software in its contact centers.

Altitude uCI provides Al-Jomaih, the largest GM dealer in the Middle East, with Altitude Voice Portal (its interactive voice response system), Altitude Management Portal, Altitude Multimedia for text and email support, Altitude Unified Dialer, Altitude Voice Recorder, Altitude Unified Router for intelligent, skills-based routing, Altitude Connector to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and Altitude vBox, a free SIP server.

In the first four weeks of the contact center set-up, the dealership increased the size of its database by 300 percent and achieved higher levels of customer satisfaction, with 91 percent of telephone calls answered within 18 seconds. Its call monitoring consistently shows an average quality and customer satisfaction rating of 96 percent.

Al-Jomaih wanted a solution that could handle heavy call volumes immediately following new corporate ad campaigns and provide proactive appointment scheduling for car maintenance. It was also looking for a solution that could help it better target customers, enhance promotions, and boost the productivity and efficiency of outbound telemarketing campaigns. With hundreds of thousands of customers, Al-Jomaih also needed consistent, up-to-date data quality to avoid outdated, invalid, or duplicate customer records.

Another key requirement was the ability to reach customers through the SMS channel. Al-Jomaih added an SMS gateway that allows it to deliver customized text messages to customers for car service reminders, service status updates, and other important information. Text messages yield quicker responses, avoiding wasted time waiting on approvals or chasing voicemail messages.

"We wanted to be proactive and ensure we have quality, consistent information on our customers and prospects to improve our communications as well as build our…relationships [in] a customized way, be it by phone, SMS, email, or face-to-face," Mohamed Khaled, national and CRM manager at Al-Jomaih Autotmotive, says.

After extensive market research, the company selected Altitude's solution "based on [its] ability to provide a scalable and complete solution, as well as its record for responsive technical assistance," Khaled adds.

The solution was deployed in about eight weeks in mid-2010 with the help of Blue Mena Group, a customer service specialist and Altitude Software reseller and systems integrator in the Middle East and North Africa.

Altitude is now powering three contact center sites for Al-Jomaih Automotive. The facilities, located in the Saudi Arabian cities of Riyadh, Dammam, and Jeddah, are staffed by 50 agents and handle around 80,000 customer interactions per month.

With the new contact center system in place, Al-Jomaih can now schedule call backs, manage call lists for targeted marketing operations, and access critical caller information, such as car owner maintenance history. The uCI solution also provides real-time monitoring, recording, storage, and retrieval of customer interaction sessions.

As a result, Al-Jomaih earned General Motors' prestigious Grand Masters Status last year for meeting the highest company standards in customer value management, sales and delivery experience, quality service and maintenance experiences, as well as volume and share targets.

The Payoff
Since installing Altitude Software’s uCI contact center suite, Al-Jomaih Automotive has:
increased the size of its customer database by 300 percent;
achieved a customer satisfaction rating of 96 percent; and
answered 91 percent of telephone calls within 18 seconds.