EVT: a retailer with clear business telephony needs
EVT is a small retailer offering high-quality gentlemen’s clothing that is a little bit different to the larger brands found on the high street. EVT prides itself on the excellent quality of its products and on its personal relationships with its customers. EVT has five shops across cities in the UK and an online store. The telephone is a critical business tool for EVT. Customers call in to reserve items, place orders, to find out what’s in stock and to ask questions about sizes, colours and so on. EVT’s commitment to excellent customer service tries to ensure that customers reach a real person when they call in, rather than a recorded message. To add that extra personal touch, EVT also seeks to connect customers to their nearest shop.
EVT’s current telephony services present a number of problems
- Each shop has one telephone line. This limits the number of calls that can be taken at any one time. One of the shops is particularly busy and the number of voicemails is increasing.
- EVT’s business is very seasonal. There are times of the year when they need more telephone lines to handle demand. Their current system does not scale.
- Each shop and the online store have their own telephone number. To improve customer service, EVT wants a single number.
- EVT wants to start promotional evenings at exclusive hotels and clubs. Currently, this would mean providing sales assistants with mobile telephones. This is an expense EVT is keen to avoid.
The Simply Better Business Telephony solution from inclarity
inclarity can solve EVT’s problems by providing a single 0845 number that automatically and intelligently routes calls to the right sales assistant whether they are in a shop or out promoting EVT’s products. Using inclarity’s online Phone Manager, EVT can add and remove lines to track seasonal demand as well as point customers to their online store out of hours.
Opening hours
Customers call in to a single 0845 number which rings all branches simultaneoulsy, ensuring calls are answered promptly and not missed. In practice, this means customers no longer have to leave voicemails.
If a customer wants to speak to an assistant in a particular branch and the phone is busy, the assistant is immediately notified that another caller is waiting. They can choose to use the “hold” facility to take the call or it is automatically routed to another shop where an assistant is available to speak to the caller. Customers on hold are presented with a professional announcement about EVT’s promotional evenings.
Call costs between shops fall to zero, saving EVT money in a tough climate. Overall, EVT’s telephone bills fall by 21%.
Out of hours
All calls are answered instantly with a professional announcement explaining that the shops are closed and directing customers to the online store.
Evening promotions
EVT takes advantage of inclarity’s “remote office” facility. Sales assistants’ own mobile telephones are configured as extensions of EVT’s 0845 number. Customers calling in are routed to the appropriate assistants’ mobiles. The system is programmed to route calls only when promotional events are happening and only to assistants involved in the event. The assistants’ mobile numbers remain private and the costs of the business calls are automatically logged to the business telephony service. EVT has not needed to spend any money buying business mobile telephones.
EVT uses inclarity’s online reporting tools to plan outbound calling campaigns to invite customers to the evening events. One of the upsides of this is that customers who had previously just bought online start coming to the events, meeting EVT’s people and establishing a more personal relationship that results in increased sales.
Christmas
EVT hires temporary staff to cover the Christmas period and EVT adds more lines in November and December to make sure that no calls are missed. EVT removes these extra lines in January when the Christmas rush is over. EVT can now scale its telephony up and down with seasonal demand and only pay for the lines they use.
