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Customer Profile
Thrifty Car Rental—Increasing Operational Efficiencies While Making Industry-Leading Advances in Customer Care with Cisco IP Communications
Background
Dollar Rent A Car was founded in 1965 in Los Angeles, where its executive offices remained until August 1994 when Dollar relocated its world car rental headquarters to Tulsa, Oklahoma. In August 1990, Chrysler acquired Dollar and made the company part of its Pentastar Transportation Group, along with Thrifty Car Rental, Snappy (Snappy was sold in 1994), and General Rent A Car. When General was closed in January 1993, non-duplicating car rental locations merged with Dollar.
In November 1997, DaimlerChrysler Motors Corporation announced that its subsidiary, Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, Inc. (DTG)—successor by merger with Pentastar Transportation Group—had filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to offer its common stock. Following divestiture, Chrysler no longer owned any of the DTG common stock.
Currently, DTG owns Dollar Rent A Car and Thrifty Car Rental which operate separate car rental businesses and license independent car rental franchises to rent vehicles under their brands. Thrifty Car Rental operates more than 1200 locations in 64 countries, including in-terminal rentals at 86 U.S. airports, off-terminal rental services at 57 additional airports, and at all major airports in Canada.
Challenge
"More than 30 percent of Thrifty Car Rental callers were rate shoppers," says Bob Dupont, vice president of reservations for Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, Inc. "Our agents were becoming bogged down in providing pricing information that could easily be retrieved from an automated self-help system. We wanted to use our agents in a more prudent manner that would allow them to provide value-added services to those that requested it, while reducing the operational dependencies we had on human talent for each and every customer interaction."
At the same time, online reservation requests (at http://www.thrifty.com ) were growing by leaps and bounds and while the company's Web site had strong transactional capabilities, like most of its competitors, it lacked the same high-quality customer service Thrifty was known for in the brick and mortar and telephone-based world. The company quickly recognized an opportunity to improve its Web-based customer service functionality and break away from other car rental providers in its market.
There were a number of compelling reasons for upgrading Thrifty's customer contact solution, which consisted of an MCI call allocation and load balancing system and a generic, rudimentary e-mail distribution system.
"Our two contact centers are located in Oklahoma, home to many of the nation's largest call centers," explains Dupont. "Competition for human capital is fierce and turnover rates are historically high. We set out to reduce our dependency on human talent, while stabilizing existing staff and earning overall higher job satisfaction rates among employees."
Dupont saw the opportunity to meet his company's operational goals for Thrifty Car Rental, while also improving the levels of service online customers receive at Thrifty.com through deploying customer contact solutions from Cisco® Systems, Inc.
Thrifty took its first steps towards meeting these challenges in 2000.
Solution
To enable Thrifty Car Rental to realize its vision and keep pace with the industry, its new customer contact solution would judiciously blend the use of valuable human capital with the automated, self-help services across all channels of interaction, including phone, Web, chat, or e-mail. For Thrifty, the integration of these channels and the ability for customers to experience the same high-quality service levels across all of Thrifty's brands was paramount. Cisco IP Communications is a comprehensive system of enterprise-class solutions—including IP telephony, unified communications, IP video/audio conferencing, and customer contact—that provide the foundation for effective, integrated communications and substantial cost savings. Thrifty selected IP-based customer contact solutions from Cisco as the cornerstone of its new customer contact technology infrastructure.
"While we looked at other vendors for intelligent contact management, including Periphonics and Genesys, the Cisco solution required a lot less customization and was an open, standards-based system," explains Milo Morrison, section manager for call center technology for Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, Inc. "For Web collaboration, we looked at other vendors as well but Cisco's products were deployed and in production with reputable, brand-name companies with whom we could speak and gain valuable insights."
The Thrifty solution includes Cisco Intelligent Contact Management (ICM) Enterprise Edition, an intelligent, multichannel routing system that delivers an integrated suite of capabilities that enable a company to interact with its customers via phone, Web, and e-mail across an enterprise of automatic call distributor (ACD), private branch exchange (PBX), interactive voice response (IVR), database and desktop applications. Cisco ICM interoperates with a variety of TDM platforms, while providing a smooth migration path to IP.
Thrifty also selected and installed Cisco Web Collaboration Option, a Web-centric visual collaboration tool that enables customers to interact with agents over the Web, while conducting a voice conversation or text chat; Cisco E-Mail Manager Option for managing high volumes of customer inquiries submitted to company mailboxes or Web site; and Cisco Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) Option for desktop call control, CTI screen pops, and CRM integration.
Thrifty's new customer contact technology infrastructure works with its Aspect ACD and integrated with speech recognition technology from SpeechWorks and an Intervoice Bright IVR.
After selecting Cisco customer contact solutions, Thrifty began work on configuring and installing the new solution. Morrison explains, "I joined Thrifty in July 2000 and began training to install and use the new system immediately. We installed Cisco ICM in September. Deployment went very smoothly and I was writing call-routing scripts on the new system the very next day."
Results
Thrifty is reaping a wide variety of quantitative and qualitative benefits from its new customer contact solution.
"As anticipated, powerful CTI capabilities have resulted in significantly improved operational efficiencies," explains Dupont. "Now, when a caller contacts Thrifty via one of its more than 30 toll-free numbers, he or she has the option of self-service through the IVR to obtain rate information. Once obtained, the caller can either move on, or elect to speak with a live agent for sales assistance. That agent then receives a screen pop with all the caller's relevant information. This has significantly reduced the unnecessary burden on our contact center and allowed agents to focus on more substantive and rewarding tasks like closing business. Since our agents are compensated in part on business closed, they were happy to use the new system and have higher job satisfaction rates."
Prior to installing Cisco ICM, Thrifty worked with a small team of agents to introduce them to the benefits of the new system and encourage its acceptance early on. This turned out to be a key benefit once the system was installed more broadly and recognized as both a productivity and a revenue enhancer, rather than a potential threat to human resources.
When a customer calls a Thrifty toll-free number, the call is received by the IVR platform and the caller is asked to press "1" for rates and reservations, "2" for blue chip express customers, "3" for all confirmations, changes and cancellations, and "4" to speak with a Thrifty associate. If the caller selects one of the first three options, the IVR system walks the caller through a series of questions relating to their area of interest, such as location from which a reservation is requested, account information, or changed travel plans. In all scenarios, the caller is given the option to speak with an agent at any time for assistance. If assistance is required, Cisco ICM looks across Thrifty's two customer contact locations to find the next available agent and sends the call to the agent and the information collected during the caller's interaction with the IVR to the agent's desktop via a screen pop. The agent sees the caller's data appear on his or her screen, then the phone rings and the agent can pick up the phone and say "Hello Mr./Mrs. Smith, how can I help you today?" With the help of a CTI screen pop, agents do not need to waste time collecting the same information twice. Plus, customers are pleased to see that the agent knows who they are and understands why they might have elected to speak with a person in realtime.
Thrifty receives between three and a half and four million calls per year and relies on 150 agents in its 2 customer contact locations during regular seasons and 180 during the peak summer season. Dupont estimates that between 35 and 40 fewer agents are required today as a result of using Cisco customer contact solutions. Equally significant, employee turnover has dropped to a staggering 20 percent from a high of 40 percent since installing the Cisco solution.
To provide better customer service and drive sales full cycle online, Thrifty has had positive results from its use of the Cisco Web Collaboration Option. This option has enabled the company to integrate the personal value of agent interaction with the information value of the thrifty.com Web site.
According to Jim Provenzano, technical analyst for call center technology for Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group, Inc., "We analyzed and determined the most strategic way to leverage the live help option at thrifty.com and rather than place help buttons everywhere on the site, we selectively made our `Need Help?' button available at only certain times during the rate inquiry and reservation process. For instance, first, we ask customers to select a desired rental location. If they enter a wrong code or select a wrong location more than twice, a `Need Help?' button will appear. If a customer moves on to the second step towards confirming their reservation and is idle for more than 30 seconds, the `Need Help?' button appears again. This enables us to offer higher levels of service to those customers most likely to close business now, versus those comparison shopping for the future."
When a customer clicks on the "Need Help?" button, a screen appears asking them if they would like to speak with a Thrifty customer service representative via phone or live Web chat. If they choose the phone option, the customer is asked to provide a name and phone number. One of Thrifty's eight Web agents is then notified that a customer is requesting help and would like to talk over the phone via the Cisco Web Collaboration Option. The agent dials the customer's phone number and once the caller answers, the two engage in a collaboration session where the agent helps the caller complete the online reservation form, passes information back and forth—such as images of car makes and models available for rent—and shares Web pages. If the customer chooses to engage in a live Web chat, a chat box pops up and the agent greets the customer and begins to offer assistance using Web chat.
Dupont is delighted with the business impact that the Cisco Web collaboration technology has had on the company's ability to better service online customers. "On average, thrifty.com receives 200 Web requests for live help during weekdays and 100 Web requests on weekends. These live interactions have resulted in a 10 percent sales conversation rate. In total, all of DTG's online reservations have increased by 60 percent since last year, and thrifty.com represents over 25 percent of the company's total online bookings."
Additionally, Thrifty has been able to more accurately control internal resources. Dupont explains, "Because we prudently control when we offer up the `Need Help?' button, we are able to monitor agent availability more closely and only make real-time personal assistance an option when enough agents are logged into the system. So, agents are never sitting idle. In fact, we intend to add more Web-enabled agents soon since the demand for live interaction has increased over time."
With the deployment of the Cisco E-Mail Option for customers that want to contact Thrifty through asynchronous channels, the company is able to immediately respond to customer inquiries. The system can send an e-mail notifying the customer that he or she will receive a specific response to their question in a matter of hours, if the inquiry requires the personal attention of an agent. Or, the automated response function instantly detects the nature of the question, such as an inquiry about "driver's license requirements" or "age restrictions," and then automatically suggests a relevant response to the agent, including the hyperlink for where more information can be found to answer the question.
Provenzano continues, "Questions that are more complicated and require the attention of a subject matter expert in a particular department, such as customer care or sales and marketing, are extended outside of the E-Mail Manager system to area experts that can receive and respond to messages via their existing e-mail client while maintaining full message tracking inside of E-Mail Manager."
Overall, Thrifty receives anywhere between 200 to 250 e-mail inquiries per day and relies on its 8 Web-enabled agents to also respond to e-mail requests for assistance.
Dupont concludes that upgrading to an IP-based customer contact solution from Cisco has been very successful. "Our return on investment has been clear and measurable," notes Dupont. "Our investment paid for itself in only one year, while at the same time lowering our operational costs and increasingly efficiencies. From a customer perspective, satisfaction rates have continued to go up while employee turnover has sharply declined. Our partnership with Cisco continues to serve us and our customers well."