A recent partnership between Everise — a next-generation Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) company — and Microsoft was inked aimed at transforming the former’s customer experience (CX) across all touchpoints for its clients.
To deliver an experience that matches the expectations of its customers, Everise empowers its agents with the tools and intelligence they need to succeed, as well as the flexibility to work from anywhere. The company chose Microsoft 365 to meet its goals based on the productivity, security, and mobility features it offers. Today, Everise provides crisis-resilient, anywhere/anytime support to some of the world’s top B2C brands with the help of its globally dispersed teams.
“In the past, we used different communication platforms, which failed to fully meet our needs. We needed a platform where agents can communicate within the organization and get responses quickly,” according to Alvin Laggui, Director for Operations at Everise’s Manila Experience Center.
Focusing on providing services that transform customers into fans, and products into passions, Everise adopted a strategy that blends the flexibility of work-at-home with the stability of a brick-and-mortar office to empower its employees to work from anywhere while continuing to deliver consistent performance. To ensure that its agents can provide outstanding customer experiences even as they work from home, the BPO company needed a collaboration and communications platform that provided versatility and improved security.
With the help of Softline, a member of the Microsoft Partner Network, Everise successfully adopted Microsoft 365 and moved to the cloud. Now, it uses Microsoft Teams to create a more secure and high-performing work-at-home environment.
Mirroring Face-to-Face Coaching
“With Microsoft Teams, we are able to mimic a brick-and-mortar location and have the same level of engagement,” says Michael Stevens, Director for IT Business Systems and Microsoft Teams Lead at Everise. The Microsoft Teams environment also helps with organizational management. Using channels and sub-channels within Teams, employees can create an online environment that mimics different call center floors with teams for each line of business. Agents interact and help each other in real-time, much as they would if they were seated side by side, as traditional contact centers were designed.
Advantages go beyond management structure as Microsoft Teams allows for real-time coaching. “During a call, one of the agents needed assistance. So, she started a chat with her supervisor, shared her screen, and was able to provide a great customer experience with the help of her supervisor’s virtual guidance,” Friggle added.
Shortly after the company’s transition to the cloud, COVID-19 arose, affecting normal operations. With the scalability of Azure, Everise was able to transition 4,000 desktops and 8,000 agents to a work-from-home environment within 72 hours.
“In disruptive times like these, companies investing in home-based talent and technology are transforming their resilience to achieve growth. Everise has made these investments, which empower our people to connect and engage, ensuring we are able to quickly adapt to meet the needs of our partners,” according to Sudhir Agarwal, Founder and CEO of Everise.
As of today, the company has expanded from 15 physical experience centers to 10,000 micro-experience centers based in the cloud. Most importantly, its resilience is translating to growth, as the company is currently recruiting thousands of remote workers from places where it did not previously have a physical presence.
“Our ability to source, recruit, hire, train, engage, and performance manage a large global workforce in a work-at-home environment has turned out to be a real competitive advantage and we think it will continue to be going forward,” says Dave Palmer, Everise President.
Meaningful Work-From-Home Experiences
While remote working gives flexibility to employees, it’s not without its issues.
“One of the biggest challenges of working from home is staying connected with colleagues,” says Peter Tapia, Operations Manager at Everise. “But Microsoft Teams solved that issue for us. We use channels to constantly reach out to team members. It’s helping us to connect with people who are not seated with us in the same building.”
Everise is focused on enhancing customer experiences and improving employee experience. To boost employees’ camaraderie and team spirit, the company introduced gamification via Teams. Working from home is providing benefits that also improve the customer experience.