Helping FCA Automotive Services bring its contact centre in-house
A simple, affordable solution for a global finance powerhouse.
Overview
When FCA Automotive Services UK needed to set up an all-new financial services operation, Moiz Sheikh had the challenge of setting up a contact centre from scratch. But partnering with us and using Cloud Contact made the process a breeze.
Cloud Contact doesn’t need onsite hardware or software. This makes it fast and straightforward to set up – and, because it’s pay-as-you-go, it requires no capital expenditure either. Moiz can increase or decrease the service instantly, so he gets the exact contact centre his new business needs.
The challenge
FCA Automotive Services UK offers a huge range of finance options for vehicles from Fiat Group Automobiles, as well as other household names like Jaguar Land Rover. It focuses on three areas: contract hire for personal and business customers, dealer financing to provide working capital for vehicle stock, and customer financing for personal contract purchase or regular hire purchase.
Until recently, FCA Automotive Services outsourced its customer financing operation to a large financial services company. But as the financial climate changed, it decided to bring the operation in-house. Moiz Sheikh, IT Services Manager at FCA Automotive Services UK, explains: “Insourcing our customer financing operation meant building a new business from scratch, finding accommodation, and recruiting around 80 people.”
FCA Automotive Services chose serviced offices to house the new team, which meant it needed a contact centre. The centre had to be robust enough to deal with the company’s existing 120,000 customers, and be scalable for potential business growth. With Fiat Group’s worldwide contract already sitting with us, it made sense for FCA Automotive Services to work with us, too.
Moiz Sheikh continues: “Initially we thought we’d build and run our own physical contact centre and I looked at various solutions including those in use by Volkswagen and Citroen. But ultimately we chose BT Cloud Contact. As a hosted service it enabled more rapid deployment and helped conserve our capital.”
BT gave us the guidance we needed to get our business up and running quickly. BT Cloud Contact was the most cost effective solution.”
The solution
Available worldwide, Cloud Contact is a web-based contact centre that can support over 1,000 agents. It has full multimedia capability, so incoming voice calls can mix with email, web chat, co-browsing, and call-back requests in one seamless queue.
There are no hardware constraints and it doesn’t need physical infrastructure or software on site. With Cloud Contact, agents can literally be anywhere – a company site, at home, or on the move. The only equipment agents need is a PC with a headset or laptop with an internet connection.
Cloud Contact has a range of advanced features, like interactive voice response for customer self-service. Enhanced call steering and skills-based routing direct customers to the best qualified agent, wherever they are. It can also integrate with other back office systems via an open API (application programming interface).
FCA Automotive Services has paired the capability of Cloud Contact with a range of Inbound Contact freefone and non-geographic numbers for different customer segments. We also supplied One Voice Featureline fixed line centrex voice services for contact centre agents at the new office. As well as IP Connect wide area network connectivity for corporate network and internet access under our global agreement with Fiat Group.
We delivered an initial 30-agent package on schedule. And we gave new users and administrators on-site training. “BT Cloud Contact is proving to be perfect for us,” confirms Moiz Sheikh, “as it’s hosted we didn’t need to do anything internally. It was very fast to set up and the flexible commercial terms give us the business agility we require. You can move it anywhere and add or even reduce the number of agents connected – and you only pay for what you need.”
The result
Thanks to Cloud Contact, FCA Automotive Services have been able to quickly bring its customer financing operation in house, using an agile multimedia contact centre to provide customer service excellence. And they did it all without spending a lot of money or taking on a big business risk.
Cloud Contact’s multimedia capabilities will continue to support the business as it grows and evolves. Plus, the transportable nature of the contact centre platform has also allowed FCA Automotive Services to become more resilient and plan for the future – safe in the knowledge that their agents can work from anywhere.
“BT Cloud Contact has met our expectations in every way,” sums up Moiz Sheikh. “It’s been straightforward to deploy, it’s easy to use, it’s proving to be simple to administer, and it gives us the information we need to manage our business.”
FCA Automotive Services has already extended the contact centre to around 60 agents – incorporating its dealer financing and contract hire businesses, as well as supporting two other Fiat Group operations. We’re now discussing using Cloud Contact for FCA Automotive Services in Italy.
Meet the experts
Want to know more? Connect with our team of digital transformation specialists.
Kate Denison
Kate has responsibility for marketing our global portfolio and partner marketing.
Andrew Small
Andrew was appointed Director of Digital Workplace in October 2021.
