NCUA Member-Owned Credit Union

Unified communications seamlessly integrates branches and customers of acquired credit union.

CLIENT CASE STUDY

THE CHALLENGE

When this NCUA Member-Owned Credit Union agreed to acquire a South Florida counterpart with more than 30 branches, the most immediate business opportunity was establishing a seamless integration process for the newly acquired branches and customers.

As a non-profit mindful of its expense structure, the Credit Union was already using Cisco® Voice Communications to efficiently direct phone traffic for its branches to a centralized contact center, where most questions could be easily handled without burdening branch-level operations.

With the acquisition only weeks away, the Credit Union was poised to double its number of branches on the closing date and needed a proven transition plan for handling the regular daily traffic of inbound calls, plus the thousands of additional calls that were expected with questions about the acquisition, account transitions, loans, and so forth.

Here’s how the Credit Union worked with Greyson Technologies and their Florida-based team of certified, trusted professionals, to integrate voice communications for the new branches and achieve its goal for customer retention.

THE SOLUTION

Greyson worked closely with the Credit Union to design an integrated voice communications solution that would meet the following requirements:

1. Fixed cutover date
2. Maintain direct-dial phone numbers for all existing and acquired branches
3. Re-route calls for acquired branches to the central contact center
4. Handle calls at contact center as if answered by branch
5. Seamless transition, no hiccups

To address these requirements, Greyson developed a technology adoption plan for the Credit Union that included components from several partners.

• Cisco® Unified Communications Manager
• Cisco® Unified Contact Center Express
• Cisco® IP 7900 Series Phones
• Cisco® Unified Border Element Voice Gateway
• SIP technology (session initiated protocol)
• MPLS technology (multi-protocol label switching)
• Greyson Professional Services

The basis of the solution allowed customers of the acquired credit union to direct dial their local branches and have their calls seamlessly answered at the Credit Union’s central contact center. To accommodate the increase in daily call volume, the contact center was increased in size to more than 225 agents.

As calls arrived at the contact center, agents could quickly identify each call by the direct-dial number of the branch and provide special attention to those calls arriving from acquired branches, knowing that customer retention was a key goal for a successful acquisition.

Having designed and delivered numerous versions of this solution for other clients, Greyson was able to ensure the solution performed flawlessly on the cutover date enabling the Credit Union to efficiently and effectively service the needs of its newly acquired branches and customers.

THE RESULTS

The integrated voice communications solution delivered by Greyson generated:

• Operational efficiency for newly acquired branches and customers:
  • 85% customer retention
• Operational effectiveness allowing contact center agents to:
  • Quickly identify calls arriving from acquired branches and customers
  • Provide special attention to those calls
• Expense reduction at acquired branches:
  • Centralized contact center operations