congstar

You have been a customer for a long time, having joined us as a 4Com customer, which has now been merged into VIER. Has the last year changed for you as a customer?

I appreciate the good support and I was pleased that VIERalso continues to focus on the core of the contact centre, the ACD, and continues the good support I was used to.

Of course the look and feel has changed. What pleases me is that we proactively receive new ideas for the use of technology. For example, Dr Ralf Nikolai approached me in spring 2022 and asked if I would like to test "Your voice is your password". Since we will need an authentication PIN in the call centre from 1 July 2022, we took the opportunity in a pilot with selected users to identify an added value for us and will now roll out the project to all locations.

What is the benefit of our solution for you?

For me, there are three essential advantages that positively distinguish the VIER solution from other technologies on the market: Effort, customer satisfaction and speed.

• Effort:
  I take over the administration of the ACD myself in about 20 percent of my time, which already includes the time for the move to the new data centre. The solution is stable and easy to manage. This also applies to the VIER dialer, which we use regularly when the incoming call volume is too low.


• Customer satisfaction and speed:
  From my past, I know of much more complicated products that require consultation and additional services for this. Let me give a simple example here: As a mobile phone provider, it happens from time to time that there is a fault, with the ACD from VIER I can put in a fault announcement on all three hotlines within 30 seconds. As you can imagine, our call volume explodes in such cases. A quick reaction is immensely important in order to keep the customers informed and thus keep the call volume under control. The customers who called because of the problem know that the problem will be solved in a few hours and leave the hotline. This clears the way for customers who are calling about a bill, for example. We have found that short waiting times and customer satisfaction are closely related.

You were able to massively increase the user experience through better service provider management. You mentioned the central waiting area, how does that work exactly?

In the past, each service provider used its own ACD system. Each service provider received his work package without knowing the exact workload. This meant that our clients were either lucky or unlucky when they called. With the introduction of the central waiting area via the ACD of VIER (VIER engage), we can make finer adjustments. If a service provider does not take the call after 90 seconds, it is placed in the central waiting area and another service provider takes it. In this way, we have been able to increase customer satisfaction because the waiting time has been reduced. In addition, the service providers can support each other better during busy periods.

What is the next step at congstar?

Although the voice channel is our most important communication channel after the app and the web, because that is where we generate the best sales opportunities and prevent churn, we want to further optimise the non-voice channels in order to offer young customers a customised service.

In addition, as already mentioned, we are in the process of rolling out "Your voice is your password". We see great potential for saving time and increasing security.

Alexander, thank you very much for your time and the insights into your daily business.