{"id":612,"date":"2020-07-17T12:02:45","date_gmt":"2020-07-17T11:02:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/?p=612"},"modified":"2020-07-17T12:02:49","modified_gmt":"2020-07-17T11:02:49","slug":"cincinnati-bell-keeps-community-connected-and-protects-employees","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/2020\/07\/17\/cincinnati-bell-keeps-community-connected-and-protects-employees\/","title":{"rendered":"Cincinnati Bell keeps community connected and protects employees"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Ohio-headquartered Cincinnati Bell needed to rapidly enable its employees to work from home. It turned to Avaya and within three weeks hundreds of its contact center employees were safely working remotely with the result that the telecommunications company\u2019s call center was able to meet a call volume increase of more than 50%.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more than 145 years, the residents of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana have relied on Cincinnati Bell, to keep them connected. Founded in 1873, the company has been around as long as the telephone itself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


How does an organization not only survive, but thrive, across multiple centuries? Reinvention and near-constant evolution. It\u2019s in Cincinnati Bell\u2019s DNA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


When the World Health Organization declared COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel Coronavirus, a pandemic, Cincinnati Bell\u2019s culture of innovation was crucial to its swift and effective response.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


As Christina Neises, Vice President of Contact Center Operations for Cincinnati Bell, explains the company was battling this new enemy on two fronts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cThe safety of our contact center employees was paramount. We knew we needed to enable them to work remotely to allow for social distancing,\u201d she said. \u201cAt the same time, our call volume increased by more than 50%, compounding our staffing issue. We were in a situation of \u2018figure it out, and figure it out yesterday.\u2019 And that\u2019s exactly what we did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Neises turned to long-time partner Avaya for a stable and reliable solution that could be implemented quickly and cost effectively. As a result, the company\u2019s staffing levels were normalized by week three.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Navigating a Crisis Ohio\u2019s stay-at-home order caused a surge in subscribers seeking help to connect at home – whether for work, school or entertainment. A Cincinnati Bell survey conducted during that period revealed that a surprising 35% of new residential Internet customers didn\u2019t have a service provider prior to the pandemic. On the business side, Cincinnati Bell saw increased demand for bandwidth upgrades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cWe have great relationships with Avaya and our partner STARTEK, and we said \u2018this is the time where we need you,\u2019\u201d recounts Neises. \u201cThe teams from both companies came together with us and we were able to very quickly roll out a solution.\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within two days of the issuance of Ohio\u2019s stay-at-home order, Neises and her team enabled more than 100 employees to work remotely. They continued moving forward at breakneck speed to transition the rest of the contact center workforce and restore their hours of operation to pre-pandemic levels. Within three weeks, 290 contact center employees were safely working remotely so Cincinnati Bell\u2019s call center was able to meet the increased demand for support and services from Cincinnati Bell customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cWe hadn\u2019t implemented a work-at-home solution for our contact centers,\u201d said Neises. \u201cFrom a Business Continuity perspective, we felt confident in geographic diversity. Unfortunately, that doesn\u2019t prepare you for a global pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Neises\u2019 appreciation for her team during this trying time cannot be overstated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cOur job is to be there for our customers – answer their calls, resolve their issues and try to do what\u2019s right by them,\u201d she said. \u201cThe folks on my team worked 18-hour days. They willingly shifted from one function on Monday to something different on Tuesday based on the needs of the business. There are certainly many takeaways from this situation, however, one is clear: in times of difficulty, our employees care about one another and our customers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Moving to the cloud<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n


<\/strong>In the months prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Neises and her team were in the process of upgrading their ageing telephony infrastructure. Working closely with Avaya, they are rolling out a robust, multi-experience platform that will provide a 360-degree view of customer interactions and enable channels based on customers\u2019 preferred medium.
\u201cWe were very siloed, we had disparate systems and solutions for customer touch points across the organization,\u201d said Neises. \u201cThis prohibited us from collecting and understanding, holistically, our customer interactions. That inconsistency across channels was resulting in frustrated customers.\u201d
Neises evaluated competitive solutions but ultimately, her past positive experience with Avaya made the decision easy.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe looked at other vendors but made the decision to go the Avaya route because I knew I was getting a stable, reliable, robust and scalable platform,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Cincinnati Bell is currently migrating from a premise-based solution to Avaya OneCloud. With its acquisition of Hawaii Telecom in 2018, the company recognized that moving to the cloud would position it to consolidate across geographies.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith a single platform, we will be able to ensure consistent reporting, monitoring and management of our customer interactions, as well as our front-line support personnel,\u201d said Neises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Neises also anticipates cost savings once the implementation is complete.
\u201cOnce I’m able to truly understand why customers are calling and what they’re calling about, it will allow me to drive incremental improvements in first contact resolution,\u201d she said. \u201cNot only will this provide a better customer experience, it will ultimately save money for the company.\u201d
A solution that grows with you Cincinnati Bell\u2019s long-term strategy is to continue to build and scale, which means more subscribers and more calls coming into the contact center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cI knew the APC platform was something that I could leverage as we added more subscribers,\u201d Neises said. \u201cThe additional agents I\u2019ll need will be fully supported on this platform. It will allow Cincinnati Bell to grow well into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Ohio-headquartered Cincinnati Bell needed to rapidly enable its employees to work from home. It turned to Avaya and within three weeks hundreds of its contact center employees were safely working remotely with the result that the telecommunications company\u2019s call center was able to meet a call volume increase of more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":613,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,11,50,33,41,43],"tags":[484,489,488,485,486,194,141,487,490],"class_list":["post-612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-case-studies","category-cloud","category-east-coast","category-mobile","category-telecom","category-top-stories","tag-avaya","tag-avaya-onecloud","tag-christina-neises","tag-cincinnati","tag-cincinnati-bell","tag-cloud","tag-covid","tag-indiana","tag-kentucky"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":616,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions\/616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/north-america\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}