Business challenge
CSC is the world’s largest independent IT
services company. Its Managed Services
Sector, one of three lines of business,
delivers managed IT services worldwide
to blue chip clients including BAE
Systems, Bombardier Transportation,
and Zurich Financial Services. To serve
its customers it has a complex virtual
contact centre comprising around 3,500
advisors – based at centres in Europe,
Asia, and the Americas – offering multilingual
support around the clock.
CSC decided to open a new contact centre in Prague and consolidate some of its US operations to a green field site in Dallas. Mark Rowland, Global Technology Director at CSC, notes: “It was a great opportunity to implement the latest IP-based technology and create showcase facilities with a high-impact visual design element.”
A key part of this was the use of display screens. Mark Rowland continues: “Display screens play a vital role in customer service delivery. We operate under self-management principles so our advisors need to be able to see performance data at a glance, such as the number of callers waiting. We also wanted a way to broadcast important messages to advisors in real time.”
Value proposition
CSC carried out an extensive survey
of available products before selecting
a digital signage solution from Symon Dacon – the UK subsidiary of US-based
Symon Communications Incorporated. Mark Rowland explains: “The Symon
Visual Communications Solution was out
in front of the field. It was very flexible,
would integrate with our Avaya CMS
application, and would do everything
that we wanted. It was also far less
demanding than other products we
looked at in terms of the footprint it
needed in our data centres.”
The solution is built on the Symon Enterprise Software application, with Symon Digital Appliances (SDAs) interfacing with 42-inch high definition LCD screens. The Symon Design Studio application allows CSC centre administrators to schedule and tailor content delivery as required. CSC also opted for Symon Creative Content Services to assist with screen design and layout. Professional services including systems integration, commissioning, and ongoing support, complete the solution.
The implementation at Prague comprised 20 screens in the contact centre plus a nine-screen video wall. At Dallas there are forty screens, 16 of which form the video wall that serves the CSC Enterprise Service Management Centre. Individual screens have been strategically sited around the contact centres so that advisors always have one within easy view.
The environment made an immediate impact. Mark Rowland comments: “The new contact centres are very impressive and, with the digital signage, there has been a noticeable performance improvement. We decided to roll out Symon technology worldwide.”
The next challenge was deployment of the solution when CSC refurbished its contact centre in Kuala Lumpur, and enhanced another in Montreal. Centres in Chesterfield in the UK, and Tianjin in China, followed. In all over 150 screens have been deployed and each time the turnkey installations went smoothly – executed efficiently and with highquality by Symon and its local agents.
Business results
The Symon Visual Communications
Solution has helped CSC further improve
the performance of its global contact
centres. Mark Rowland observes:
“Using the video walls we can now
more easily monitor the performance
of multiple centres from any centre,
helping us make best use of our global
resources. The Symon technology
also allows us to broadcast ticker tape
messages to selected agent screens
in real time, which has been brilliant in
communicating important data, such as
information on a major incident.”
Symon has also been very active in helping CSC to create high-impact screen designs. “We regularly challenge Symon when we want to do something different,” says Mark Rowland. “They are always very receptive, responsive, and professional – and invariably come up with an innovative solution.” An example is a development for CSC that allows greater flexibility in displaying a single image or any number of different images across the screens that make up the video walls.
Being better informed helps CSC’s advisors to feel more engaged and empowered. This promotes customer service improvement, helps enhance job satisfaction, and aids staff retention. Aside from the hard business benefits there are softer benefits such as using the tickertape medium to communicate social events and convey personal messages, such as birthday wishes, as a further aid to staff motivation and well being.
Mark Rowland sums up: “Speed of
answer is up by around 15 per cent in the
new centres and the Symon technology
has made a major contribution to that.
The centres now look state-of-the-art and this has really helped us to win
new business.” CSC is continuing with
its refurbishment and consolidation
programme and is committed to the
continued deployment of Symon display
screen technology.
E.ON Service Plus GmbH