Virgin Games delivers 5 minute customer response time with multimedia contact centre application from NEC Philips

Virgin Games, Virgin's on-line gaming offering announces an average email response time of less than five minutes to customers, following the implementation of a multimedia contact centre solution from NEC Philips Unified Solutions.

The company went live with the new solution, which utilises the latest IP and contact centre technology from NEC Philips, in November 2008 with the launch of its in-house Customer Support Team, beginning the process of replacing its previously outsourced customer support functions to ensure full ownership of and a better more streamlined customer experience.

With the new, dynamic all-in-one solution from NEC Philips, which combines call, chat and email customer contact facilities to enable communication through a variety of preferred channels and improved customer experience, Virgin Games has seen a 200-300% improvement in service delivery.

In addition to a dramatic improvement in response times, Virgin Games has announced a drop in average abandonment rates to below 1%.

Operations Director Christina Thakor-Rankin explains, "Most companies consider 2-5% abandonment acceptable, however Virgin Games has proved that with a dynamic and cost-effective solution like the one offered by NEC Philips, a better level of customer experience has been made possible. Of course, at launch our volumes went through the roof and whilst we aim for First Contact Resolution wherever possible, the fact that some customer interactions require some investigation means that unfortunately it is not always possible to give an instant response. However, aside from this and exceptional events, we treat all customer contacts irrespective of channel as 'on demand' and aim to respond accordingly, with an average combined response time of under five minutes. The challenge now is to maintain this level and ensure that our customer service delivery continues to improve in spite of a rise in traffic through the site - we remain quietly optimistic that we can sustain this esteemed level of service. "

The Virgin Games combined multi-media contact centre is a first within the Virgin Group, breaking away from traditional telephony based applications and embracing new and evolving customer contact applications. Thakor-Rankin says, "We regularly compare ourselves against the industry standard and we're really pleased to be able to say that our response rates are some of the very best out there, especially in the case of e-mails where we operate to a standard service level of minutes rather than hours."

Commenting on the selection of NEC Philips, Thakor-Rankin says, "We must have looked at the best part of a dozen systems before we came across the NEC Philips solution. We were instantly impressed by the proposition, and NEC Philips has continued to demonstrate a thorough understanding of our business needs and a quality and dynamic solution that has revolutionised the way that we operate and pushed Virgin Games up the leader board."

Thakor-Rankin continues, "Critical to the instant success of the new solution is that it is an all-in-one application. In the last five and a half months we have received 25,000 hits across all media, be it call, chat or email. Nevertheless, the system we are now running is so dynamic that our 24/7 contact centre, offering support for three distinctive products (poker, casino and bingo) including all query types and escalations, is staffed by 11 people against a perception that the minimum required is around 14. This is another metric by which we can demonstrate that we are running a more cost-effective service than our competitors, which in turn will enable us to offer a better service to our customers."

The customer experience is critical both to an online business model such as Virgin Games and the Virgin brand, and relies on a cohesive and intelligent customer management processes. The intelligent solution from NEC Philips is a critical element of the customer relationship management strategy at Virgin Games, and the company continues to work closely with NEC Philips to maximise the potential of the new system and to identify any further areas for improvement.

Thakor-Rankin concludes, "We are using the application from NEC Philips to measure first time resolution as well as other key performance indicators, to better understand the customer experience and to continue to deliver improvements across all communication channels. We are delighted with the system and the service from NEC Philips and we look forward to continuing our relationship with them."