Improving Customer Support Efficiency by 20% With a Remote-Friendly, GDPR-Compliant Solution

Adevinta is a global online classifieds specialist, operating in 11 countries. Their technology-based services connect buyers and sellers and facilitate transactions, including job offers, cars, real estate, consumer goods, and so on.

The Hungarian branch is present in the local e-commerce market with two market-leading brands, Használtautó.hu and Jófogás. Their goal is to provide useful but simple solutions for both their clients and their team. The customer support at Adevinta switched to fully remote operation due to the COVID-19, and they plan to continue partially remote work in the future. 

Challenges

Adevinta’s client base is almost exclusively within Hungary, so the regulations they need to follow are strict. The previous contact center solution they used stored customer data outside of the European Union, and setting the deletion time for the recorded calls was not flexible. They needed a GDPR-compliant solution with a European server and one that would allow them to store sound files for custom durations. 

While the absence of a server to store data locally was the main motivation for change, there were other struggles as well. 

As Adevinta decided to switch solutions in the middle of 2020, it was crucial to not have physical contact at any step of the process, such as crafting the contract, installing the software, or onboarding. Currently, their entire customer support team works remotely, so training their agents had to be done remotely as well, with as little friction as possible. 

Adevinta wanted to organize their contact center operations as well. As they had many incoming calls concerning different issues, not being able to separate their agents based on the skills slowed down their service. On top of this, supervisors had a hard time accessing daily statistics, as their previous solution only offered export, but no real-time in-app data. 

In addition to the aforementioned challenges, it got frustrating that the old software did not offer phone support. 

Solution

Adevinta switched to VCC Live in the second half of 2020, and while the GDPR-compliant data storage was their main concern, they were also looking for a solution to improve the quality of their service and workflow. 

VCC Live is a 100% GDPR compliant solution with ISO 27001 and ISO 22301 certifications, and many other servers are inside the EU, therefore security is guaranteed.

The storage, archiving and deletion time can be personalized and also set depending on the label the call got, allowing Adevinta to store each sound file for as long as it is required and legal. 

The VCC Live team was able to quickly react to the pandemic situation and adapt to remote operations. Thanks to this flexibility and the software being entirely cloud-based, Adevinta managed to integrate the VCC Live software remotely.

Also, all the onboarding training sessions happened with a dedicated Key Account Manager via Zoom. They can now revisit the recordings whenever needed.

With VCC Live, Adevinta has been able to hire, train, help, and monitor agents easier.

Admins can create new users within the software and set their roles, rights, and limitations which can be different for each user. This is a huge advantage because their clients call for many different reasons, so they need dedicated agents to tackle any problem. One of VCC Live’s features, skill-based routing, is especially useful in this case, as supervisors can assign different expertise or skills to each agent.

This way, the customer does not have to waste time being redirected from one agent to another but gets the appropriate service right away. This is a great boost in their customer satisfaction! 

When it comes to training new agents, Adevinta often uses call monitoring and real-time training features. They promote remote work, but the training period used to be tricky to do from home because there was no way to help the agents while they are on the call. It had to be done with a split headphone, physically sitting next to each other. 

The Call Whispering training feature allows supervisors to let agents fly solo, but listen to the calls and give them instructions in real-time, in a way that the agent can hear it, but the client cannot. 

But this is not the only way they promote fast and effective training, even for remote agents.

Adevinta uses the scripts for their customer support. The purpose is not only to display client information but also to help agents stay in motion. For example, they add cues, prompts, FAQs, and links, which saves agents from getting stressed when they are not sure about something. This way, it rarely happens that they have to put the customer on hold to search for information.

Supervisors can now track the efficiency of their agents and their customer support with in-app real-time monitoring, reporting, and statistics.

Finally, once Adevinta switched to VCC Live, they got a dedicated Key Account Manager and all-day customer support that they can reach via phone, email, chat, or Messenger.

Although this was not their main motivation for change, they can now work with significantly more efficiency as they do not need to wait days for a response, and they get the necessary 1-on-1 training to be able to use the software without hand-holding.

Results

By switching to VCC Live contact center solution, Adevinta was able to store customer data in a safe, secure, and 100% GDPR compliant manner. The real-time reporting system allowed the company to stay on top of data and potential needs for change. 

Thanks to the onboarding and training solutions, now they can keep their operations entirely remote, training their newcomers just as efficiently as if they were in the same room. 

The supervisors’ job also got easier with real-time monitoring, in-app statistics, and reporting. As opposed to their previous contact center solution, Adevinta’s team can consult any data within VCC Live software. The information is always up to date, saving significant time in service optimization.

Because of the better operations, the number of calls disconnected in queue has improved by 20%. 

Employee satisfaction among agents improved, thanks to the continuous real-time and written support they get from their supervisors. Since the training features (such as Call whispering) and detailed scripts fully prepare them for unexpected situations, they can handle customer queries more professionally, with more confidence, less stress, and a better work ethic. Thanks to the improved training process, Adevinta managed to expand its team since using VCC Live.

During the pandemic, it was extremely important for Adevinta to keep their services running without interruption and their employees’ jobs safe while switching to fully remote operation. With VCC Live, it was possible to carry out the complete integration without jeopardizing the quality of the services Adevinta provides to its customers.