CartaSi Charges Up Its Contact Centers

CartaSi, a credit card issuer in Italy, saw its circulation expand to 7.5 million in 2002, in part due to the then newly introduced euro. Many consumers were opting to use their credit cards instead of cash, which increased the number of calls coming into the company's contact centers. The three contact centers--two in Rome and one in Milan--were handling 55,000 calls per day. According to Luca Bellati, manager of CRM and contact center solutions at CartaSi, the company needed a cost-effective application that would allow for communication between these individual contact centers while maintaining and exceeding customer satisfaction levels. "The main decision was related to integrating different call centers in one big system able to manage calls to the different sites," he says. The company also wanted to cut telephone and data connection costs between Rome and Milan, but keep a PSTN connection to Milan that services a customer toll-free number. Part of CartaSi's contact center solutions comprised an Avaya PBX and Genesys Enterprise Routing solution; to link its separate contact centers the company selected the Genesys IP Contact Center solution and the Genesys Voice Platform Network Edition. The card issuer uses the latter to provide automated transaction capabilities to customers. Bellati says the company's previously established relationship with Genesys accounts for much of the decision to select the vendor as its IP provider: "Genesys is already known inside CartaSi, and one of the things that we had take care of at the beginning of this project was not to introduce too many interfaces or too many systems. The Enterprise Routing by Genesys was already in place, and it was very useful to have only one system." CartaSi has experienced savings of about 400,000 euros a year in connection costs between its centers in Milan and Rome since the decision to use VoIP was made four years ago. Bellati's prior knowledge of VoIP helped smooth the testing and implementation process of the solution. TTP, one of Genesys' partners in Italy, spearheaded the IP Contact Center implementation, along with Genesys Professional Services and Genesys University on the Genesys Voice Platform Network Edition. The success that the company is experiencing with the service it delivers is as impressive as the cost savings the solution allows. "We chose to have only one interface to manage the calls from the IVR platform to the agents, and the call center managers are able to take care of the calls in real time with only one system," he says. This has helped boost service levels. In fact, the company's first-call resolution rate stands at 97.5 percent and 87 percent of calls are answered within 20 seconds. Its average speed of answer during normal hours is three seconds and is less than 10 seconds during peak hours. The flexibility of having VoIP also allowed CartaSi to establish another contact center, and the company is now managing between 10,000 to 20,000 calls a day using VoIP. Related articles: VoIP Is a Good Call for the Dallas Cowboys The Impact of VoIP on the Customer Service Experience