Reaching a new level of customer service

A manufacturing and retail powerhouse

Brazilian manufacturer Multilaser started in 1987 as a printer cartridge refill services company. In the early 2000s, it expanded into the IT accessory market; today, it produces electronic devices such as notebooks, smartphones and tablets for retailers, as well as network infrastructure equipment for internet providers. Its product lines are grouped into different brands: Atrio, Goga, Multikids, Pulse and Warrior, in addition to the masterbrand. Multilaser also markets around 5,000 third-party products, including cell phones, toys, electric fans and skateboards.

With around 4,000 employees, Multilaser operates two plants — one in the city of Manaus in northern Brazil and a second in Extrema, Minas Gerais in southeastern Brazil. Multilaser has about 40,000 sales locations across the country through its retail partnerships. And it operates its own store in São Paulo where it sells directly to the public.

Multilaser takes great pride in its excellent reputation among consumers and it has won numerous awards.

“We are noted for serving our clients in the best possible way, resolving their problem rapidly. The quality service level, the capacity of our attendants and the tools we use to support this strategy are for us an important business differential,” said Mauro Bentes, CIO of Multilaser.

Rapidly shifting to remote work

With growth of 60% in 2020, Multilaser recorded a record 1.4 million calls in its contact center — increasing the number of agents from 150 to 250. And it needed to rapidly shift from a physical address in São Paulo to 100% remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The consumer service, which was 50% voice, suffered the impact of the change because of a legacy on-premises telephony system. To interact with customers during the pandemic, Multilaser needed a cloud solution that could rapidly scale to support its growth while allowing the company to transform its architecture.

Leonardo Castilho, Head of eCommerce, After-Sales and Digital Marketing for Multilaser, describes the voice channel as extremely important in Brazil. In various places, distant from the regional capitals, many people still use public phones as their communication instrument, while Brazilian legislation for call centers requires the company to operate a toll-free phone number for its customers.

Migrating to the cloud

Multilaser spent three months reviewing Genesys technology. During this time, its telephone service was somewhat impaired, leading the company to emphasize other channels like WhatsApp and chat. After choosing the Genesys Cloud platform — enabling voice, chat and email — the migration took a week.

“We looked at Genesys not only from the technology point of view, but also in terms of business processes. Following our model — which is to innovate, always taking into account the business strategies — we went in search of a robust and scalable tool, but which particularly had characteristics that allowed customization, that is to say, that met our needs in layers of integration,” said Bentes.

For Bentes, it’s clear that a cloud structure offers more stability, scalability and security. But Multilaser also relies on the microservices that Genesys delivers locally, which allows the manufacturer to integrate the platform with internal IT tools.

Taking the contact center to a new level

Today, the Multilaser IT team is restructuring legacy in-house systems. So the company wanted the Genesys platform to not only allow for remote working but also seamlessly connect customer service across channels. For Castilho, “the great goal of the project was to raise the Multilaser contact center environment and employee experience to a new level.”

To support quality management — ensuring all contact center interactions are handled with speed, efficiency, and the highest quality — Multilaser counts on Genesys Workforce Engagement Management. This solution allows it to carry out satisfaction surveys, which point out where to improve services; it also enables consistent workforce management. For example, it powers forecasting and scheduling — and shows past and real-time agent performance.

Castilho said that WEM replaced the Excel spreadsheets previously used to evaluate attendants, adding that the coaching module allows a manager to easily schedule training and feedback sessions — right through the Genesys system where they can discuss recorded calls with an agent. This gives agents the tools they need to improve performance and reach goals.

In the future, Castilho plans to explore other capabilities included in the Genesys Cloud platform, such as gamification and speech analytics, as well as new development and feedback modules. These features help keep employees engaged, so they can deliver a better customer experience, and also assist with onboarding and training of agents.

Integrating service channels with the CRM system

WhatsApp conversations, used heavily at the start of the pandemic as Multilaser shifted to remote working, now account for 50% of its customer interactions. Voice accounts for 30% and chat and email take up the remaining 20%.

Multilaser expects the Genesys integration with WhatsApp to produce major productivity gains for its contact center. The solution will empower agents to contact customers across all channels with a single view.

When completed, this integration will also simplify training; agents will need to know only one system — and this will elevate the customer experience. And to further simplify agents’ day-to-day tasks, the Multilaser IT team is developing a CRM system that will be integrated to the Genesys platform in 2022.

“Reducing screens and facilitating the navigability between them will empower the agent to easily get more information, more quickly. This will improve not only their experience but also that of the customer,” concluded Castilho. “In the end, what we want is to make the experience of our consumer the best one possible.”