Mitel - Customer Service Department of the Year

Company: Mitel, Kanata, ON Canada
Company Description: Mitel is a global telecommunications leader, named Business Phone System of the Year for 2021. We provide reliable, all-in-one communication and collaboration services t0 keep companies connected everywhere.
Nomination Category: Customer Service Department Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Customer Service Department of the Year - Telecommunications

Nomination Title: Mitel

Our Customer Service Department has put momentous effort into striving for continuous improvement and providing world-class "Wow Now" experiences. In early 2019, service instability was driving calls at an alarming rate, which was taking a toll on clients as well as our team members. Average Speed of Answer was up over 29 minutes, while CSAT was 7.1. There was no Quality Assurance team to promote growth through feedback and coaching. The motivated individuals in this department have amended all of that and more. We now have the resources needed to satisfy and impress our customers every day, every time. Our team consistently exceeds expectations by creating memorable interactions with customers that know them by name, educating customers on getting the most from our products with self-service resources, and anticipating future needs with customized solutions. This past year as more clients shifted to a work-from-home model; we ensured that all employees were trained to be mindful of this new paradigm and account for the additional nuances that come along with not being in an office environment. Training is laser-focused on highlighting critical solutions found in our suite of services to embrace change and limit business compromises for our customers.

Since January 2020, we have made substantial investments in tools and people. We adopted the "Wow Now" theme to convey to our agents that this type of experience should be our goal for every interaction, every time. Giving our agents the resources they need to provide the best service was vital in empowering them to deliver Wow Now experiences with consistency. Below is an outline of our transformative actions and achievements that have helped to support our Wow Now initiative.

Digital Chatbot - Added August 1 of 2021, our Chatbot has already helped us serve our customers faster by eliminating a wait for an agent while allowing our staff to devote attention to the issues and requests that require the human element.

Focus on Artificial Intelligence and Machine Language – We have adopted technology such as Sentiment Analysis and proactive case management. With this, we are pre-empting escalations by generating a priority list of cases that need urgent attention.

Knowledgebase Improvements - Our OneView landing page was refreshed to provide easier access to knowledge articles, training, discussions, and MiCloud Connect applications. We were able to reduce total KB articles from about ~6400 to ~1800.

Staffing – Increased headcount by 54% from January 2020 to September 2021, and created specialized teams for tailored support.

Employee Satisfaction – With monthly rewards and recognition and a tool that allows leaders to appreciate and reward their employees in real-time, we were able to retain and develop employees. This contributed to improving staff tenure.

With these achievements and enhancements, our customers:

Have fast and reliable support:

-Chatbot has helped us deflect 7.6% of chats. With each chat being about 28 minutes, this has saved us over 132 hours since August! They can find self-service guidance and answers to questions within moments.
-Average Speed of Answer dropped from nearly 30 minutes in February 2021 to less than a minute for the last five consecutive months. Our Service Level % (Calls answered in under 3 minutes) has been sustained over 80% since March 2021, where it was as low as 20% before that.

Have access to better self-service tools:

-Our Knowledge Baseenhancements improved the accuracy, searchability, and usability of the internal and external KB. An annual review process was implemented for all KB articles to ensure consistency and accuracy of content is maintained.

Have proactive support tailored to meet their needs:

-We track automated sentiment scores for our customers in a dashboard. This helps us to know the customer's pulse at a glance and take action accordingly.

-Our Platinum Team assists a subset of our largest customers. This elite group of experts provides dedicated support to the customers who need us most, improving their satisfaction and retention.

-Our Escalation Response Team is a group of engineers who handle At-Risk accounts, providing white-glove support and attention. In Q2 of 2021, this team saved 23 accounts, translating to over 3,500 user profiles and more than $77,000 in monthly recurring revenue.

In our attached resources, you will see visuals representing the impacts of the positive changes described above. We've also provided a link to Mitel's website page for Industry Recognition. The results are fantastic to see, and we wouldn't have achieved this without the Customer Support Department's willingness to adopt new strategies and develop new behaviors and skills. Our productivity and satisfaction metrics in the attached materials demonstrate that our employees feel valued and empowered with the tools to be successful, which trickles down to affect all of our customers. Our tenured and knowledgeable staff has been able to decrease our Average Talk Time from more than 20 minutes per call to less than 15 minutes per call. This has also helped in dropping our Average Case Age from up to 3.7 days in April 2020 to 1.3 days or less for the last seven consecutive months. Additional enhancements like adding Grammarly for our agents has allowed them to improve our Written Correspondence scores from an average of 86% between January through June 2021 to 95% for July and August.