THE CHALLENGE:
Our client, a Yorkshire based Estate Agent, required a solution that enabled communication between customers and the member of staff who conducted their initial meeting. The Estate Agent shop is based in a town centre location and so, by the nature of trade, customers ‘pop in’ when passing to view a couple of houses, take some information packs away to ‘have a think about it’ and call back later. Our Client was then receiving complaints from customers that when they placed a phone call to the Estate Agent to arrange a viewing or place a bid, the customer was not speaking to the same member of staff they had met with earlier and so the knowledge of the previous conversation was not present. Members of staff also complained that the Viewing Appointment and in a successful case the Sales Commission, would be assigned the member of staff who answered the phone. This scenario meant that members of staff were more eager to stay in the back office and answer phones rather than be on the shop floor talking and serving customers.

THE SOLUTION:
Our Client, the Estate Agent owner, wanted to ensure his staff to spend all their time on the shop floor in a customer facing environment and so he rearranged the office layout so that all staff desks were in the shop front, in and amongst the customer greeting area. Following this change, Direct Telecom installed an Avaya IP Office with a cordless DECT solution with digital lines and staff direct dials. The Avaya solution enabled staff to operate their cordless handset via their computers with Avaya’s computer integration software, which in turn enabled them to link with the company’s database with a ‘Click to Dial’ feature and ‘Screen Popping’ customers details (including what properties they have been looking at recently) on incoming calls. To further enhance this solution, each member of staff was allocated a direct dial so when a customer calls back (on the number they were provided with during their initial meeting) they go straight through to the correct member of staff who, using ‘Screen Popping’, already have their details on screen.

Obviously each member of staff does not sit at their desk waiting for recent clients to call back and so, for when they are attending to other customers they take the cordless handsets with them which we setup with a ‘Do Not Disturb’ feature that could be easily turned on/off to prevent customer meetings being disturbed. The Avaya solution also enabled users to create an ‘Exception List’ to ‘Do Not Disturb’ which meant that all callers except those on the ‘Exception List’ would get transferred to voicemail or another user. If transferred to another member of staff, they would be provided with a visual prompt to advise where the call had been redirected from – enabling them to answer the phone “Sorry, but Joe Bloggs is with a client at the moment, can I help or take a message for you Mr Smith?”. The staff member that the caller was trying to reach is known by the redirect message and the callers name is known by the ‘Screen Popping’.

The solution enabled a very personal approach to our Client’s customers and has seen a positive increase on Sales to Enquiry figures.