Global contact center transformation improves agent and customer experience

Legacy challenges

Microsoft empowers people and organizations to achieve more through innovations such as Xbox, Windows, Azure and Office. Integral to success is a diverse partner ecosystem and an immense support organization that handles over 73 million calls a year, in 37 languages, from anywhere around the globe.

Delivered from over 80 regional contact centers, those service operations ran on hundreds of local telephony (PBX, IVR and ACD) systems, along with various reporting and database servers. This complex on-premises model was costly and time-consuming to maintain. It also obscured information on staffing levels, wait times, agent performance and, ultimately, customer satisfaction.

“Our call center operations needed to replace our legacy infrastructure with next-generation SaaS offerings that could drive standardization and provide new capabilities and enhanced integration for our support and sales activities,” said Matt Hayes, Senior Director, Contact Center Technology at Microsoft. “So, moving to a single cloud contact center platform was a logical progression.”

Smoother customer journeys

Enriched by Microsoft applications such as Azure, Skype and Dynamics, the Genesys Engage solution is now helping Microsoft transform customer experience and productivity for more than 25,000 agents throughout North America, Europe and Asia.

“Before, it wasn’t always possible to transfer calls to the appropriate support team due to the different infrastructure that was in place,” said Hayes. “Now we can see all interactions across the globe and route traffic from anywhere to anywhere, without customers ever leaving the platform.”

Rapid response capabilities

As a result of this migration, 35 different phone systems and 214 separate IVR platforms have been decommissioned, reducing IT maintenance costs and simplifying navigation across Microsoft product offerings. Agent response times also have improved, assisted by the newfound ability to load balance across regions.

“Having the capability to shift loads from one region to another has enabled us to provide a tremendous advantage,” said Hayes. “As a result, we’ve seen a significant reduction in hold times during peak periods by leveraging agents in remote centers, rather than relying on a single region to support all call volumes.”

Better customer experience intelligence

Decision-making is no longer constrained by fragmented legacy reporting systems. For example, KPIs like Net Promoter Score (NPS) and average handle time (AHT) were tracked at a regional level and calculated in different ways. With the Genesys Engage solution, there is a unified method for tracking and maintaining KPIs across the globe.

“We now report at a global level and with greater visibility and accuracy,” said Hayes. “Each line of business has its own custom-built dashboard, making it easy to pull, digest and share data such as handle times, transfers, disconnects and abandons. Providing a line of business leader with that real-time insight is powerful. And, by introducing centralized call recording, we’re able to better capture customer sentiment.”

Combining this rich data with Microsoft Power Business Intelligence analytics is already bearing fruit. Transfer rates have declined significantly, while closely monitoring global staffing levels has uncovered opportunities for optimization.

Agile growth model

Built with open APIs, the Genesys solution allows for contact center customization through smart integrations with Microsoft applications. In addition, growth is no longer tied to the purchase of new hardware or service provider lead times, which has enabled the onboarding of new suppliers and sites in a fraction of the time.

“Genesys Engage gives Microsoft and our partners the levers we need to optimize a global pool of agents with multiple language skills and deliver consistent customer experiences,” concluded Hayes.