Smart Motors

Executive Summary

Customer Name: Smart Motors

Business: Toyota & Scion Dealership and Service Center

Location: Madison, Wisconsin

Number of Employees: 154

Business Challenge:

• Easily expand phone system to match company growth

• Simplify and reduce the cost of phone system changes

• Increase operational and staff efficiencies

• Eliminate outside call center

• Improve client access to staff

• Electronically track staff availability

• Increase level of customer service and customer loyalty

DirectNetworks Solution:

• Cisco Unified Communications Manager Business Edition with integrated messaging and 150 Cisco Unified IP phones used between two locations

• Cisco Unified Contact Center

• Cisco Switching and Routing Infrastructure

• Cisco Unified Mobility

• Cisco Wireless Network Controller with Cisco access points

• Electronic In/Out Board for network viewing of staff availability

Results

• Data, voice, wireless, and future services can all be converged

• Ability to respond to customer inquiries faster and more efficiently

• Ability to handle more customer calls and increase customer service

• Access to company departments is simpler and easier for customers

• Reduces the cost of internal communications as employees are able to collaborate and work effectively across departments

Overview

Smart Motors has become the largest Toyota and Scion dealership in Wisconsin and the top selling hybrid dealer in the Midwest by providing excellent service and dependable vehicles in a friendly, relaxed atmosphere. Since O.D. Smart sold his first car in 1908, the dealership has outlasted many other vehicle manufacturers and two world wars to become a familiar Madison business with over 150 employees. Smart Motors has proved that customer satisfaction is more than a phrase; it is their way of doing business.

Coinciding with their centennial celebration, Smart Motors opened a brand new environmentally friendly facility on Odana Road with an impressive goal: provide superior customer service and an enhanced working environment while being environmentally conscious.

There is now showroom space for approximately two dozen cars that provides a more comfortable year-round browsing and consulting experience for customers and staff. The entire service department is heated with collected waste and features the only air-conditioned service department in the state. Energy efficient windows provide plenty of natural lighting during the day and timed high-efficiency lights provide comfortable lighting when natural light is not available.

With the company’s brand new environmentally friendly and greatly enhanced facility in place, Smart Motors then needed a technology provider that could take their unified communications to this same level of innovation, connectivity, customer service excellence, and future growth. Smart Motors partnered with DirectNetworks to provide these technology solutions.

Business Situation

In becoming Wisconsin’s largest Toyota dealership, Smart Motors had outgrown its technology and its facilities had spread to several buildings. Consequently, operations needed to be combined into one facility for better customer service and a more streamlined business model.

Business Challenges

Some of the challenges Smart Motors faced at its previous locations include:

• Smart Motors’ phone system was not easily expandable to handle additional users. As a result, phones were not available in all locations for employees and customers. It was often inconvenient and time consuming to get to the nearest phone and employees found their workflow interrupted.

• Smart Motors’ growing business brought about new faces and job title changes. Phone system changes for new employees or office extension changes took days or even weeks to accomplish. A technician often had to be onsite just to make these basic changes and this incurred a trip charge.

• Approximately 1500 calls come into Smart Motors on a daily basis and the majority of these were originally handled by a small staff.

Consequently, they had great difficulty accomplishing their original primary job functions due to the high volume of calls.

• Due to the increase in service business, a majority of the service scheduling calls had to be handled by an outside call center. This resulted in monthly fees and a less personal experience for a portion of Smart Motors’ customers.

• In order to be quickly reachable to customers, Smart Motors’ sales consultants had to use cell phones while on the sales floor and sales lots, but they still had a desk phone in the office. Customer voicemails were then left on the cell phones and on the desk phones. This consumed valuable floor time of sales personnel, given that they had to check voicemail in two places: their cell phones and respective desk phones.

• Smart Motors was manually keeping track of which staff members were on the premises and if they were available. However, this information was not viewable online. Therefore, when a customer called or stopped in for a particular sales person, it was time-consuming to find out their status.

Business Solution

To proactively address and solve these challenges, DirectNetworks designed a Cisco Unified Communications solution, the integration of voice communications with other applications used by a business, that was rolled out as Smart Motors moved into its new facility on Odana Road in Madison in December, 2007.

The custom designed solution for Smart Motors, included a Cisco Integrated Services Router (ISR) at the main location to handle the incoming internet and voice traffic from the phone and internet service providers. A point-to-point connection is handed off to a second ISR installed at the Pre-Owned Sales office one block away. These routers include Survivable Remote Site Telephony so that phone calls can be made and received in case of a major hardware failure.

Cisco Catalyst 3560 switches with Power over Ethernet (PoE) handle all the network voice and data traffic at both locations. Call management and voicemail are handled by an appliance that runs Cisco Unified Communications Business Edition. The voicemail is handled by Cisco Unity Connection that provides enhanced voicemail access by allowing integration of the voicemails into email accounts for easier access.

Wireless phone coverage and secure wireless network and internet access for employees and customers throughout the facility is provided by Cisco access points that are all controlled and managed by a Cisco Wireless LAN Controller. This controller makes sure continuous coverage is available, customers cannot access the private network, and no unauthorized access points are installed.

Cisco Unified Contact Center Express provides complete call control for the Smart Motors Business Development Center, which handles the vast majority of the 1500 incoming calls, received each day. All network equipment in the three closets is backed up by online Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS’s) that ensure network availability for data and voice during a limited power outage.

Prior to this Unified Communications solution, Smart Motors’ email, wireless services, and voice were separate systems that had little or no integration with each other. This meant that information was often entered more than once and each network had its own wiring, separate information pool, and required its own maintenance.

Unified Communications enables these and many other formerly disparate systems to run over the same network and share information. This ability saves time and minimizes the necessity to re-enter information. Putting other applications on the same network allows for further integration and efficiencies, all while simplifying management.

This installation immediately allowed Smart Motors to increase business, future proof its investment, provide a connected facility, improve customer service, enhance employee productivity, and reduce costs. Specifically:

Benefits

Increased Business

• Customers inquiring about cars via the internet and/or phone are quickly attended to, which increases the sales close ratio and creates a more responsive and enhanced buying experience for the customer.

• Efficient communication between the service staff ensures more customers are serviced per hour, which is a better experience for the customer and employee, and increases the number of service appointments.

• Mobile wireless tablet communication reduces the check-in time for service customers; which increases the service rate per hour as well as customer satisfaction.

• Added amenities, such as free wireless internet access in the customer waiting areas, draws more service customers while increasing competitive advantage.

• The ability to quickly locate salespeople, for returning prospective customers, improves customer service and increases the number of sales.

• By enhancing its workplace with Unified Communications, Smart Motors has increased its ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees, which has resulted in more sales and repeat business.

Future Growth

• Smart Motors is the top selling hybrid dealer in the Midwest. As Smart Motors experiences more growth, it is positioned to easily and quickly expand its Unified Communications system without replacing equipment or going through major reprogramming.

• The Unified Communications solution has streamlined the company’s most important business processes, which ensures a more agile and competitive organization.

• After implementing DirectNetworks’ Cisco Unified Communications solution, Smart Motors has gone from several technology providers to one contractor and one partner that can swiftly and cost effectively meet day-to-day operations and future needs.

• New or more employees can quickly be added to the data network further positioning the company to easily and adeptly handle future sales and growth.

Connected Facility

• The wireless access that was added to the network provides wireless phone coverage throughout the facility and wireless network connectivity for Smart Motors’ staff. Employees can now work with greater efficiency and are accessible from anywhere in the building. Sage Research estimates that decreasing “telephone tag” by utilizing IP telephony and wireless saves 3.9 hours per week per wireless employee.

• As customers are waiting for their vehicles, in the newly designed waiting area, they are now able to browse the internet or accomplish business tasks using the wireless access points. The comfortable waiting area also features a kids section with toys and movies, a work area with desks for computers, a lounge section with current publications, a flat screen television for sports and news, and a social area for chatting and enjoying refreshments such as organic fair trade coffee and fresh popcorn.

• Plasma screens hang from the walls of the service center displaying current events and news relating to Smart Motors. These screens are all run by a single computer inside the server room that is connected via the Cisco infrastructure and can be accessed and modified by any computer with an internet connection or on the network itself. This feature enables Smart Motors to get current promotions to customers quickly and easily.

• Customers are now greeted by a service advisor with a wireless PC. This PC allows the advisor to enter and look up all information while customers are still inside the car. This assures, in a convenient manner, that all the latest updates are available to customers in order to maintain and protect their investment.

Improved Customer Service

• With dedicated staff in the new Business Development Center, Smart Motors is now able to handle all calls internally and with a live voice. Being immediately connected to a live consultant improves the customer experience and enhances customer service. Previously, Smart Motors was tied to land line phones and in some instances, when a customer phoned in they received a busy signal.

• A big benefit to Smart Motors employees and customers is Unified Mobility. This feature rings up to four additional phones, including cell phones, when a call is directed to an employee’s extension. This way, customers can reach their sales consultants quickly and through one number. If the sales consultant is simply unavailable for a call, the message is left in one central voicemail system rather than different voicemail repositories. The customer and the Smart Motors’ employee are now quickly and seamlessly connected.

• An Electronic In/Out board, which can be viewed throughout the building, shows which staff members are available and on the premises. As a result, Smart Motors’ customers can reach a particular sales consultant easily or be informed quickly if that person is unavailable (in that instance, they are given the option of voicemail or speaking to another sales consultant).

• Smart Motors’ Unified Communications solution was programmed and installed by DirectNetworks within just 7 weeks allowing the company to meet its goal of increased customer service through technology as soon as the new facility opened. The user training was also coordinated prior to go-live to ensure that Smart Motors’ employees could immediately and effectively use this new system.

Enhanced Employee Productivity

• Smart Motors fields approximately 1500 calls per day and is now able to quickly route calls to the proper party through the Cisco Contact Center. The Unified Communications solution has simplified the employee experience so workers can effectively manage call flows and at the same time it has increased employee satisfaction as they don’t have to spend valuable time on manual and cumbersome call management processes.

• Sales people save time because they can check voicemails in one place rather than on cell phones and desk phones. Communication barriers have been removed so sales and service managers can quickly and effectively connect with the customer. As a result, the Smart Motors staff is now more motivated and productive. They have replaced the checking of voice mail in multiple locations to being able to make more sales calls. Both vehicle and service sales have increased as a result of effective internal and external communication.

• The Cisco Contact Center provides real-time data on the volume of calls so staff changes can be made effectively and in accordance with the call volume trends. With real-time visibility the company eliminates over/understaffing and is another way they can swiftly and effectively meet customer demand with richer productivity.

• Employees can now view and listen to voicemails on their smart phones and PDA’s through the voicemail to email feature, which allows them to respond to client calls more efficiently. This added mobility is another way that Smart Motors is able to sell more cars and service more vehicles.

Reduced Costs

• Prior to the company’s Cisco Unified Communications solution, a majority of the service scheduling calls had to be handled by an outside call center. This resulted in monthly fees and a less personal experience for a portion of Smart Motors’ customers. With this new solution, the cost of outsourcing service calls has been eliminated.

• New employees phone setups and extension changes can be done onsite or remotely in a matter of minutes, thus saving time and keeping the system up to date.

• With the Cisco infrastructure that is in place, new phones and services for current and additional employees can be added, and the network can be scaled up in size, without replacing existing equipment.

• An industry survey showed that service technicians spend an average of 20 minutes per vehicle obtaining parts for that vehicle when they have to walk to the parts department to place the order. Smart Motors greatly reduced this labor cost by putting phones at each service technician’s workstation. Now a service technician need only walk to the parts department when the part is ready.

• Not only can Smart Motors now communicate more effectively with its employees and customers, but it can now also be reached by its vendors, partners, and suppliers with one phone call. Now when a parts supplier calls they can directly reach the right department and manager allowing valuable parts information (product specs, pricing, deliveries, etc.) to get to the right person the first time. Employees realize communication efficiencies, real time cost savings, and competitive advantage.

• Smart Motors has reduced costs and future proofed its investment by having an infrastructure in place that can be easily expandable for future technologies, services, and platforms.

Quotes

“We chose DirectNetworks because of its size and ability to work with Smart Motors and the knowledge that they wanted to learn what worked best for us. The installation went well due to the hand-holding and guidance that DirectNetworks provided. After the installation, DirectNetworks was at our call to come and change programming according to Smart Motors’ needs.” Nancy Lorrig, Office Manager, Smart Motors

“We are proud to have partnered with Wisconsin’s largest Toyota and Scion dealership. We appreciated the opportunity to design and implement Smart Motors’ Unified Communications Solution, thus improving the efficiency of the business and enhancing the customer experience.” Colin Mehlum, Vice-President, DirectNetworks