Symon Dacon partnered with Damovo to provide Germany’s largest automobile club ADAC, with a visually engaging contact centre display solution, improving levels of productivity and morale across multiple sites
Client challenge
Founded in 1903, ADAC is Germany’s and Europe’s largest automobile club, with over 16 million members. The name given to its mobile mechanics, who offer roadside assistance, is Yellow Angels. There are over 1,700 of them countrywide. ADAC also operates 44 air rescue helicopters, strategically sited to be able to reach any part of Germany within 15 minutes.
Serving such a large membership requires a comprehensive infrastructure, and ADAC has 16 inbound contact centres serving different regions of Germany, all using a common access number. These collectively handle around four million calls each year, covering a wide range of topics such as roadside emergencies, route planning enquiries, and motor insurance sales. In supporting those critical assets, ADAC works with Damovo. “We support the ADAC Ericsson PABX and 4Com contact centre technology throughout Germany,” says Frank Sinde, ADAC Account Manager at Damovo, “and we’ve done that for around ten years.”
Although ADAC used traditional wallboards to display performance information in each of its contact centres, its equipment was becoming dated and had significant limitations. Rolf Gröbe, ICT Manager at ADAC, explains: “We needed to improve the visibility of performance information across the contact centres. Our legacy wallboards could only display numeric data. We needed a far more flexible solution; one with multiple display options to combine and present information in a more dynamic way.” ADAC also receives a lot of visitors and wanted its contact centres to showcase the use of leading edge, state-of-the-art display screen technology.
Value proposition
With the assistance of Damovo, ADAC began the search for a new contact centre display solution. Frank Sinde comments: “We visited the Call Center World exhibition in Berlin and concluded that the Symon Visual Communications Solution offered the best blend of price and performance.”
Rolf Gröbe adds: “The Symon display solution impressed us because it offered a range of visually appealing display options. It was simple for us to manage in-house and it would easily integrate with our existing systems. It was able to handle, combine, and present data from different sources”. This was a key requirement to help ADAC make best use of its resources across Germany.
The solution for ADAC is built on the Symon Enterprise Software application, with Symon Digital Appliances (SDAs) interfacing with high-definition plasma screens. The Symon Design Studio application allows ADAC centre administrators to schedule and tailor content delivery to the screens as required, including the capability for live TV feeds.
A central server running Symon Enterprise Software is located at the main ADAC contact centre site in Cologne. It interfaces with Symon Digital Appliances serving high definition plasma screens at four other ADAC contact centres located in Frankfurt, Bremen, Stuttgart, and Dresden. Integration services provided by Damovo, are backed by direct in-life support from Symon Dacon in the UK.
Symon Dacon successfully combined multiple data feeds to display the exact information ADAC required. Despite the complexities that this involves the robust Symon software was able to accommodate this requirement. Rolf Gröbe recalls: “With Release 10 of the Symon solution everything is working well. The support we get from Symon Dacon is very good. We find its people are very knowledgeable, helpful, and quick to react.”
Business results
With the Symon Visual Communications Solution, ADAC has been able to integrate data from different contact centres and present both local and virtual national performance data, helping it make the best use of its 1,300 contact centre agents across Germany. The flexibility of the solution allows ADAC to adjust the layout of the screen so that other data can be presented. For example, real-time information from its virtual contact centre can be blended with sales data from an SQL database.
The display technology has made quite an impact. Rolf Gröbe comments: “The Symon display solution has proved to be very popular with our agents. Having clearly presented real-time performance data on screen enables people to see how the contact centre is performing so that they can adapt their approach. With sales information readily visible too, agents are better motivated to meet the targets.”
Frank Sinde sums up: “Being better informed makes ADAC advisors feel more engaged and empowered. This promotes improvement in the customer experience and helps enhance job satisfaction – two very important contributors to customer satisfaction and staff morale.”
Currently serving five regional contact centres, ADAC is planning to extend the Symon Visual Communications solution to serve its other centres as well. It is also considering using the display solution for advertising at its Cologne centre.
E.ON Service Plus GmbH