Mobile Software Company Deploys Global Self-Service System

Summary

A major global software company (MSC) wanted to improve its customer service offerings without sacrificing developer resources. They chose Plum Fuse to build their self-service application and IVR system. The company was able to streamline interactive voice response (IVR) development and increase its control over its telephone channel without adding new code bases. Plum Fuse’s multi-language support and cloning feature enabled the company to develop and deploy voice applications worldwide.

Company Story

Based in Vancouver, Canada, MSC is a leader in creating market-specific mobile products for entertainment, games, social media and self-care applications. As a mobile entertainment content supplier, their products inform, entertain and connect people. For more than 20 years, more than 100 million consumers worldwide have used MSC products and services, generating over $1 billion in revenue.

Challenge

MSC needed to build an IVR application that provided self-service options to incoming customer callers to improve their call containment rate and lessen the number of calls handled by live agents. They also needed a way to build an IVR system that wouldn’t deviate their developers from their current responsibilities.

MSC sought complete, in-house control of their voice-based customer service and IVR applications. The company already had developers managing code bases for multiple products and information systems, but not telephony. Adding to their developers’ already heavy workload and building something from scratch wasn’t appealing. That would require pulling developers off of product development and having them learn a new programming language. 

For MSC, the goal was to prioritize developer resources in the most innovative way possible while gaining control over their telephony systems. Because telephony is complicated, non-technical staff could do little to help offset the development and management needs of a self-service voice application. However, MSC wanted to give non-technical marketing and customer service team members the ability to modify certain aspects of their voice applications.

MSC had a limited number of live customer care agents to field calls; therefore, they wanted to offer self-service phone options. “We wanted to be able to allow the customer to self-serve before deciding to transfer to Customer Care,” said MSC’s Senior Manager of Customer Relations. As the company grew in foreign markets, efficient self-service became increasingly important to support customers in various languages their live agents didn’t speak.

Solution

MSC considered several software solutions for its call routing and IVR needs. One of the main criteria in their selection process was that the solution needed to be user-friendly and manageable for their developers. They chose Plum Fuse to handle call routing for its different self-service functions: billing, account inquiry, subscription management, automated billing, product/password support inquiries, etc. Plum Fuse did everything they wanted and more.

No Coding Required

Plum Fuse is an intuitive drag-and-drop, low-code, graphical user interface (GUI) tool that allows developers and non-technical users to create and manage IVR systems and virtual agents. With the visual call-flow editor, it was easy for anyone to create, modify and manage powerful communications applications that automate customer interactions without writing code. Fuse allows users to visually model workflow logic and design applications by choosing components from a library of modules and then connecting them. These modules cover all the requirements for IVR, messaging, telephony, and data management. Fuse enabled MSC developers to assign development tasks to other company members, including non-technical customer service stakeholders. 

This visual interface also benefited developers because they didn’t have to decipher someone else’s code. With a glance at the call flows created in Plum Fuse, users quickly understood how an application functions, creating a seamless development approach. On top of all this, learning or managing legacy code was unnecessary.

Easy Life Cycle Management

Plum Fuse’s native life cycle management features made sharing responsibility for creating the applications easy. They enabled MSC’s team to have the control they wanted over their communications application. Administrators can control, at a granular level, other users' access to modifying the application. For example, MSC’s expansion into Latin America brought many Spanish-speaking customers. When analyzing the call records, MSC noticed customers often called with the same issue and were transferred out of the IVR to speak with live agents.

Plum Fuse eliminates the burden of updating an active application. An MSC administrator clones their application to update Spanish-language audio. The admin then uses permissions controls to determine which team members can access the app, effectively delegating the task to another stakeholder. Once the audio is updated, the administrator can test the revised application to check proper functionality before deploying it. Anyone can update a given component in the application without breaking the entire thing.

MSC modified its IVR application by adding a new message to respond the Spanish-speaking callers. It drastically increased call containment and lessened the number of calls handled by live agents. “Not only did this provide a quicker response to our customers, but it also improved our employee satisfaction,” said MSC’s Senior Manager of Customer Relations. Plum Fuse enabled MSC customer service agents to provide better, high-touch service to its customers by allowing them to focus on more complex customer inquiries. 

Cloning Makes the Iteration Process Easy

MSC created and managed voice applications globally, requiring a flexible and scalable platform and IVR tool. With Plum Fuse, they could extend their coverage to other regions and languages quickly and easily. Fuse natively supports dozens of text-to-speech languages, and with its one-click cloning feature, there is no need to build an application from scratch for each region.

Once MSC had a working call flow, they could clone it, adjust the language settings and deploy the modified call flow to a new phone number in a new region. Updating these applications to reflect regional or linguistic differences by translating scripts or prompts and uploading new voice-over audio is simple to complete by those given permission.

Results

Plum Fuse helped MSC harness and control their telephony technology and offer self-service offerings for incoming customer callers. Using Plum Fuse, MSC was able to deploy its first voice app in a mere two weeks. The cloning feature aided in deploying additional apps easily and quickly. 

By building a customer-friendly self-service application with Plum Fuse, MSC increased call containment and improved customer service without taxing developer resources. At the same time, the IVR application delivered a better customer experience and improved employee satisfaction.

Contact us today to learn more about Plum Voice products and voice automation solutions for your business.