Stowe Holdings celebrates 10 years of cloud-based telephony and call centre excellence with Telviva
Since 1989, Stowe Holdings has been providing PC-based software and systems solutions – such as point of sale (POS) and back-office systems – research and development, implementation, remote product support via a 24-hour technical Help Desk, and on-site maintenance to the open Fuel and Oil Industry. The company has built its reputation on its customer-centricity, which has helped it become a supplier to over a third of all fuel stations in South Africa.
Challenge
According to Thiemo Borsutzky, Call Centre Director at Stowe Holdings, the primary challenge for the company was their outdated telephony system, including a difficult-to-manage PRI line with 40 channels and having to work with a service provider who couldn’t properly configure the advanced features on their PABX system. He recalls reading the user manual and constantly challenging the service provider, whose technicians would sit for hours and days on end without successfully implementing the features.
The decision to choose Telviva back in 2015 was made after a tender process where Telviva stood out, and subsequent meetings with members of the Telviva team solidified Stowe Holding’s choice. The company’s decision to move to Telviva was their first step into the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) environment, helping the business transition away from their reliance on legacy landlines (POTS).
Enhanced call centre management and functionality
Borsutzky says that the company initially had a single flat queue for everybody in the call centre, but with the help of Telviva’s Professional Services team, they were able to separate their call queues into three different, dedicated product tiers. This improved efficiency and customer service by routing customers to agents knowledgeable in the specific products.
With Telviva’s assistance they also implemented various routing configurations to ensure that if a team was overwhelmed by call volumes, calls could spill over to other agents on the floor, thereby preventing dropped customer calls.
“While operating as a call centre, we are an IT service desk, with agents spending probably about 10% of their day on the phone, with the other 90% spent actually doing IT support like remoting into sites or performing log analysis. Thus, the benefit is more about customer service than simply optimising our people resources based on call volumes,” explains Borsutzky.
He pointed out that another benefit from the partnership was Telviva’s after-hours call distribution to standby cell phones, a feature that other providers explored in a recent tender could not offer within a single telephony platform – some providers required a separate app for the feature, while others required the use of an entirely different system. This capability, along with the integration with Telviva One extensions, call recording and a managed connectivity solution, allows for consistent call handling and consolidated data management across both office hours and after-hours.
Business Communications partner of choice
Borsutzky commended Telviva’s understanding of the shifting landscape from traditional telephony and call centre to digital platforms, evidenced by their growth in digital space with products such as Telviva Omni and the launch of Call2Teams. He added that the company appreciated Telviva’s dynamic approach in adapting to the market and focusing on call centre solutions, and in aligning with what Stowe Holdings was looking for from a business communications partner.
He pointed out that Telviva was willing to find solutions and accommodate Stowe Holding’s needs, contrasting with other providers who expect customers to adapt to them: “With a lot of other service providers as we’re exploring with them, they come back saying no, you need to adjust to us. Whereas with Telviva, I find it’s the opposite – that they go out of their way to accommodate what we need. We are all about the customer… and we see a lot of synergy between us and Telviva from a cultural perspective”.
