TransDiesel Saves 33% on Telecommunications Costs with Avaya IP Office

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TransDiesel Saves 33% on

Telecommunications Costs

with Avaya IP Office

TransDiesel saved around NZ$25,000 per year on its

telecommunications costs and eliminated system

downtime with Avaya IP Office.

Company Profile

TransDiesel is New Zealand’s pre-eminent diesel engine and transmission dealership. It sells and services heavy construction equipment and spare parts for the country’s construction, earth-moving, forestry, marine, mineral processing, power generation and road transport industries.

TransDiesel began operations in 1980 and now has 14 sites, 200 employees and annual revenue of NZ$110 million. It is the only Volvo Construction Equipment dealer in New Zealand.

Challenge

TransDiesel was previously operating an ageing and unstable PBX phone system. The system experienced 10% to 15% downtime and customers struggled to get through.

“We often received feedback from customers saying the phone simply rang out when they tried to call, even though the phone wasn’t ringing at our end,” said Mark Leadbetter, IT Manager at TransDiesel.

Challenges

Replace a poorly

performing PBX

system with a stable

IP system to reduce

downtime, improve

mobility and call

reporting, and

enhance customer

service.

Value Created

• Cut

telecommunications

costs by 33%

• Ensured 100%

system uptime

• Saved NZ$2,400

per year on

third-party conferencing

facilities

• Met SLAs to answer

all customer calls

within 15 seconds

• Minimised

administration costs

by monitoring and

adjusting staff

according to call

volumes

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“We work in a very competitive industry and if a customer can’t get through to us, they will call one of our competitors. The PBX system was costing us revenue and affecting our growth,” he said.

The legacy phone system was also poorly designed and didn’t have an operational failover system. This meant if one node went down, four or five branches lost their phone

connection.

“We didn’t know if we’d have a phone system from one day to the next, which was especially frustrating for the sales teams – who were losing customers – and the IT team were often blamed for the problems,” said Leadbetter.

TransDiesel also wanted to measure and report on the number of calls it received at each branch, ensure the appropriate staff member could answer calls within 15 seconds, and provide full call centre services using digital enhanced cordless

telecommunications (DECT) phones.

Solution

After evaluating internet protocol (IP)

phone systems from IPFX, ShoreTel

and Avaya, TransDiesel chose Avaya IP Office because it was a widely used and well-respected solution that offered the best fit for the business.

“Every reference we read spoke highly of the product, and we were especially impressed by its excellent wallboard, reporting and mobile call centre functions,” said Leadbetter.

As well as Avaya IP Office, TransDiesel implemented

Avaya one-X® Portal, 76 Avaya 9608 Deskphones and 47 Avaya IP DECT 3725 Phones. The company replaced its legacy PBX system over three months, changing its

telecommunications provider and replacing its wide area network (WAN) at the same time.

“The implementation was much smoother than anticipated; most of the change-over time was spent provisioning the WAN,”

said Leadbetter.

“We received the Avaya products on time, and had them up and running

within 24 hours with no issues. We’d allocated a whole business day for downtime but the final system outage was much shorter.

“In total, we ported around 300 numbers to the Avaya system, and by the next day people were working as normal,” he said.

Results

Cut telecommunications costs

by 33%

Moving to the Avaya IP Office solution has saved TransDiesel around a third on its telecommunication costs.

“It costs about NZ$25,000 less per year to lease the much higher

performing Avaya solution than it did to lease the poorly performing PBX system,” said Leadbetter. “In addition, we have eliminated the intangible cost of the business we lost when customers couldn’t get through.

“Our sales figures are higher since we implemented Avaya IP Office, which is definitely in part due to the system’s performance and availability,” he said.

TransDiesel saved a further NZ$2,400 per year by removing the need to use third-party conferencing facilities. Avaya one-X® Portal’s voice conferencing feature supports conference calls for regionals

managers, who can quickly and easily dial in to the call whether they are in their offices or on the road.

avaya.com

“Staff have far more

confidence in the Avaya

system than they ever

had in our old PBX, and

customers have also

expressed satisfaction.

The Avaya solution is

like an engine; every

component works well

together to help us

drive the business.”

—Mark Leadbetter IT Manager TransDiesel

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“Calls are also much clearer than they were using the third-party facilities,” said Leadbetter. “In the future, we hope to install Avaya Flare® on mobile devices as well, so sales and service staff in the field can video conference with colleagues and in-store specialists for advice and guidance as required.”

Met call SLAs

Avaya IP Office’s exceptional

performance and advanced features, such as customer call reporter, enabled TransDiesel to meet its

service level agreement (SLA) to

answer all customer calls within 15 seconds.

“In the past, we used a system where a bell rang if there was a call, and whoever was nearest a phone would answer it,” said Leadbetter. “Now, we use the customer call reporter queuing feature to divert calls to people’s phones depending on their sales and service speciality or how many calls they’ve answered that day.

“If they can’t answer, the call diverts to another phone in that group. It’s a much fairer system and ensures we never miss a call,” he said.

TransDiesel can now channel incoming calls directly to different regional departments, such as equipment services or diesel engine sales, without callers going through an operator. This ensures the caller reaches the correct person in the shortest possible time.

The company is planning to further improve customer service by

implementing an enterprise resource planning system that will integrate with Avaya IP Office to provide staff with information about an existing customer – such as their name and service history – before the staff member answers their call.

Eliminated system downtime

The new Avaya IP Office system has also improved customer service by eliminating the 10% to 15% system downtime TransDiesel experienced previously.

“Since implementing the system in

April 2013, we’ve had no downtime at all,” said Leadbetter. “The Avaya system also has a number of disaster recovery strategies in place to divert calls if any part of the system goes down, so that we can always answer them.

“We had a blackout during a storm recently, but Avaya’s disaster recovery capabilities ensured the phone system kept running even when we had no power,” he said.

Analysed call statistics

The ability to report on call volumes and call centre statistics was a key factor in TransDiesel’s

telecommunications upgrade.

TransDiesel can now record and analyse the number and type of calls coming into its customer call centre

and various regional offices. Staff can

see their individual call statistics on electronic wallboards at each office, which helps increase motivation and productivity.

“We also generate weekly call

statistic reports, so managers can see which locations are the busiest and how many staff are needed at each site,” said Leadbetter. “This enables us to allocate resources and manage costs more efficiently, and will help us decide the regions in which we need to open more offices.”

Increased mobility

TransDiesel staff are often away from their desks working in the shopfront, warehouse or offsite. By

implementing Avaya IP DECT Phones, staff can now make and answer calls from anywhere, rather than returning to their desks.

“The parts department in particular has benefited from the increased mobility, as staff need to move around the site while still running a call centre,” said Leadbetter. “The quality of the calls and the range has greatly improved, compared to the phones we were using previously.”

Staff also have greater functionality

on their DECT phones, including the ability to see caller IDs, and integrate through Avaya one-X® Portal with Microsoft Active Directory.

“Overall, staff have far more

confidence in the Avaya system than they ever had in our old PBX, and customers have also expressed

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avaya.com

satisfaction,” Leadbetter said. “The Avaya solution is like an engine; every component works well together to help us drive the business.”

Learn More

For more information on how Avaya can take your enterprise from where it is to where it needs to be, contact your Avaya Account Manager or a member of the Avaya Connect channel partner program, or access other collateral by clicking on Resource Library at www.avaya.com.

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ABOUT TRANSDIESEL

TransDiesel is New Zealand’s pre-eminent diesel engine and transmission

dealership. It sells and services heavy construction equipment and spare parts for the country’s construction, earth-moving, forestry, marine, mineral processing, power generation and road transport industries.