Despite a strong commitment to delivering outstanding service, Teleflora was limited by the inability of its old PBX to handle widely fluctuating call volumes unless it invested in costly upgrades. “Our nearly-16-year-old PBX was very expensive in multiple ways,” explains Jeff. “Adding licenses or trunks was cost-prohibitive.”
To ensure that customers could always contact Teleflora, the company used redundant telephony carriers in case there was a failure. It was a reliable, but very expensive practice that Jeff wanted to eliminate.
Teleflora’s on-premises Avaya system also forced it to carry more licenses than it needed on an annual basis. “Three hundred days of the year, we’re not a very large call center,” explains Jeff. “With the Avaya system, I had to be licensed for the 45 days out of the year that we did need to be a big call center, such as during our busy holidays, and that cost a lot of money.”
THE SOLUTION
Teleflora decided to look at cloud-based options for its contact center system and selected NiCE CXone.
“The cloud offers us economies of scale that are nearly impossible to achieve with on-premises systems,” says Jeff. “With CXone, I only pay for what I use each month. We have much more flexibility with licensing and capacity.”
PBX costs have also decreased because Teleflora has eliminated redundant carriers and minimized its dependence on its aging PBX system. In addition, consumers and florists now have multiple channels for contacting Teleflora — all of which are centralized with CXone rather than on disparate systems.
OPPORTUNITIES IDENTIFIED
Eliminating limitations on call volumes
The move to NiCE CXone proved to be a winner almost immediately.
“We learned a lot about our business when we switched to CXone. We didn’t realize how busy we really were, and we didn’t know how many customers had been blocked with our old system,” says Jeff.
“The first Valentine’s Day we used CXone, we actually had 64% more offered calls than the previous year,” he says. “Obviously, if you’re using a system like CXone that can handle all your traffic, you’re going to make money for yourself and your florists.”
Managing five disparate contact centers, as Teleflora used to do with its on-premises PBX, was complex and inefficient. Since CXone is a unified cloud platform, Teleflora can deliver a better customer experience and make its operations more efficient.
“We no longer juggle the requirements of five different contact center systems, because CXone is a unified cloud platform.” Jeff says, “We also now have one consistent method of reporting with CXone, so we’re getting data we trust.”
“We also use CXone Workforce Management to schedule all our agents. We no longer input schedules on multiple systems, which saves our scheduling and operations management folks tons of time.”
Reducing PBX costs by $120,000 annually
Teleflora’s aging PBX system made it difficult to contain expenses. “It was costly, because we had redundant carriers in place to connect the agent legs of the PBX in case of a failure,” Jeff says.
“I wanted to try out CXone Integrated Softphone to see if it had the reliability we needed.”
After running extensive tests with the company’s global contact centers, Jeff was confident that CXone Integrated Softphone had the reliability he was seeking. “It hasn’t had a hiccup,” he says. “I’m already saving substantial money by eliminating duplicate carriers.”
In fact, Jeff estimates that Teleflora will save $120,000 annually — without sacrificing call quality. “Our Australia office had been unhappy with call quality for a long time,” he says. “But they’re very pleased with call quality. This has benefited us in so many ways — it’s a win-win.”
Omnichannel routing for phone, email and chat
To satisfy customers’ desires to use their channels of choice, it was critical to offer a true omnichannel experience. Teleflora had previously used different systems for phone and email and did not have chat capability.
“With CXone we can handle multiple channels,” Jeff says, “and we can easily increase channel capacity, too. We didn’t have to buy additional licenses for email, so it was very cost effective. We also offer chat in the same channel.”
“We trust CXone to handle our customer experience.”
Jeff stresses how important it is that Teleflora’s customers trust the company to reliably take and fulfill their floral orders. In turn, he says, Teleflora trusts CXone to handle its business year round and especially during peak holidays. “With CXone we can deliver a great customer experience and drive our business forward,” he says.
“Here’s my advice for contact centers with multiple locations,” Jeff says. “Just do the math for 10 years down the road, and you’ll see that it’s much more cost effective to be in the cloud with CXone than staying with an on-premises system.”
“Our old PBX system was very expensive and inflexible. With CXone, I only pay for what I use each month. We have much greater flexibility with licensing and capacity.”
DIRECTOR - TELCO AND IT SERVICES
“With CXone, we can deliver a fast, reliable and consistent customer experience.”
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ABOUT
The excitement of receiving a professionally arranged and hand-delivered flower bouquet is a memorable event. For more than 81 years, Teleflora has been connecting consumers with florists to send flowers for special occasions. Headquartered in Los Angeles, Teleflora has more than 33,000 member and affiliated florists throughout the world.
Teleflora manages its worldwide presence through multiple contact centers in the U.S., Canada, Australia and offshore call centers in the Philippines. Two hundred thirty full-time agents staff the main contact center in Arkansas 24x7. During peak holidays, such as Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day, Teleflora increases staffing by over 300% to handle the massive surge in orders.
Teleflora’s contact centers serve two unique customer groups: consumers and florists. “As you can imagine, each group has totally different needs. We offer consumers the choice of multiple channels, including voice, email and chat,” explains Jeff Griffith, Director, Telco and IT Services.
“Florists, on the other hand, are the backbone of our business,” he says. “We have a special group of agents who provide billing and point-of-sale support and other services specifically for them.”
INDUSTRY
Floral wire service that brokers orders from customers to local florists for delivery.
