The Challenge: Taming the contact center
The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance is made up of a small but mighty team of about 30 agents who field over 200,000 calls annually. Suffice to say, it’s essential that the Alliance has a reliable and easy-to-use system in order to stay organized and efficient.
Before switching to 8x8, the Alliance was using an outdated Avaya PBX system that was becoming difficult to manage. “It was pretty much held together with duct tape,” says Brad Williams, Vice President of IT for the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. “It didn’t have the capabilities that we needed to be able to run the contact center, especially during the pandemic.”
Williams and his team began the search for a new, all-in-one solution that would help bring their call center operations into the digital age. In the end, they chose 8x8 for both business communications and call center.
“8x8 had a lot of the features that we were looking for, and it was wonderful because the team took the opportunity to get to know us and our stories. 8x8’s presentation was uniquely tailored to us, and that was exactly the type of personal connection that we were looking for in a vendor,” says Debra Smith, the Director of Call Center Operations at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance.
In addition to 8x8’s advanced features and top-notch support, WIlliams states that ease of use and cost were also factors in the final decision-making process.
The Solution: A wildly effective communications system
The San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance opted to switch to 8x8 Work for business and internal communications and 8x8 Contact Center to handle customer calls and messages.
When it was time to discuss the migration process, the Alliance started with a 90-day plan. However, Williams and his team ran the numbers, and they realized that they needed a quicker turnaround. “8x8 stepped up, along with our internal team, and we actually had the system up and running in under 45 days,” says Williams.
Employees at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance had hands-on support with switching to the new system. “Anytime you introduce a new technology, there’s always a learning curve. But we had some excellent training on 8x8. Within a couple of tries, they pretty much had it down,” recalls Smith. “And now whenever we onboard new employees, we introduce them to the communications system and they are amazed at how simple it is.”
One 8x8 feature that has made a big difference for the Alliance has been 8x8 Supervisor Workspace, the one-stop interface with everything supervisors need to ensure that their teams deliver excellent customer experiences.
“8x8 Supervisor Workspace is very easy to use and it allows us to see everything we need to know, all in one place,” says Williams. “And high visibility is invaluable because it allows us to get a better sense of our operations. We have managed to help more people than ever because 8x8 allows us to see exactly what is going on.”
The Results: Going ape over 8x8
With 8x8, the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance has experienced some massive improvements across the organization, from the visibility and insights in 8x8 Supervisor Workspace to the seamless communication between teammates in 8x8 Work.
“Thanks to 8x8, we have data that we never had before, which allows us to answer more calls, resulting in more revenue and more funds raised for wildlife,” says Williams. These insights are also critically important for agent coaching and identifying opportunities for improvement within the call center. “The team really appreciates having access to real data that helps them understand if they are doing their job to their full potential,” he adds.
For many guests, the contact center is their first experience with the Alliance before they ever step foot on the zoo’s grounds. So, the team takes great care to ensure that things run smoothly, every time. “It’s really an honor representing the zoo and helping our guests plan a successful visit,” says Smith.
