Case Study: Hastings Direct

CUSTOMER PROFILE

01 THE BEFORE

The end of an era

Hastings Direct previously operated its contact centre operation spanning three countries and 2,500 colleagues on eight distinct on-premise platforms. Communication between several of the systems was poor or unreliable. Colleagues were routinely frustrated by a credential-recycling system which sometimes required sourcing a new login ID multiple times per workday and leadership had limited understanding or ability to generate significant insights from the contact centre operation. Call quality was frequently poor and disconnects were frustratingly common. As the contact centre core platform approached the end of the contract term, Hastings Direct recognized the need to either significantly improve its performance or move on to a new solution.

02 DESIRE TO CHANGE

Pivoting to the cloud

Hastings Direct tried to work with its incumbent provider to expand and enhance functionality, but those experiments fell short of the goal. Amid an enterprise-wide investment in cloud capabilities, the company recognized that the time was right to take the contact centre in the same direction. “We wanted to leapfrog, not go through iterative processes, from legacy, tired, on-premise solutions and significantly move the needle by moving into the cloud,” said Lisa Irons, Head of Operational Transformation at Hastings Direct.

The company conducted an RFP in 2021 for a customer experience platform that would offer seamless integration of digital channels, enhanced reporting, improved automation, and superior workforce management. The impending contract expiration created substantial pressure for a quick rollout after commitment.

03 THE SOLUTION

A rapid rollout in the NICE cloud

In late 2021 Hastings Direct decided on NICE CXone as the backbone of its new customer experience platform and worked with BSL Group on a high-speed implementation with July 2022 as the go-live date. The six-month transition was split evenly between a planning phase and an implementation phase, focusing on the stability of all seven sites and migrating 2,500 colleagues while the implementation revamped workstreams and unlocked new business opportunities for customer communications. After a June 2022 “dress rehearsal”, the Hastings Direct retail operation went live on July 7, with claims colleagues added on July 28.

Today, NICE CXone is the common platform for voice, live chat, and email interactions between colleagues and Hasting’s policyholders. Tight integration with the Hastings Direct policy system and mParticle/Snowflake-based back-office data platforms provide superior, timely insights for callers and colleagues. Hastings Direct invested heavily in knowledge management and training in the three-month transition phase, minimizing disruption as workforce planning and management were substantially changed from the previous contact centre environment.

The new NICE CXone IVR and data connections help Hastings Direct perform more sophisticated call routing based on policy purchases and customer lifecycle. Callers are now routed to the appropriate colleague to conduct a renewal if the policy is nearing expiration, streamlining the process with a complex set of behind-the-scenes routing rules. Test environments, which were unavailable on Hastings Direct's previous architecture, make it possible to trial and stress-test new capabilities or functionality changes before rollout, keeping the caller and colleague experience free from disruption by unanticipated consequences.

04 THE RESULTS

All the right surprises

The implementation exceeded Hastings Direct's expectations, hitting both on-time targets and delivering business value almost immediately. Irons credits the modular nature of NICE solutions with easing the path to operation. “To build, test, and implement an entire contact centre platform, including workforce planning, in three months was a pretty mean feat. I’m surprised by how well it went, considering the nature and size and scope of the change!” she said. This helped improve the business while avoiding a substantial payment to the outgoing vendor. “The previous provider was going to charge us another £1.5 million to even somewhat extend the platform,” Irons said. “BSL Group was so flexible working with us and did whatever we needed to get this implementation done.”

Hastings Direct has already measured annualized productivity gains of 26% attributable to NICE CXone. “NICE has effectively given us better transparency and visibility into the contact centre, and therefore a better way to schedule our colleagues,” Irons said. Other key quantitative benefits include a 6% reduction in total cost per policy largely attributable to the improvements in the contact centre, a 3% reduction in contact transfers system-wide from colleague skill auditing and realignment, and one IVR routing enhancement reduced call transfers for a specific inquiry by 98%. The implementation has been invisible for Hasting’s customers. Improved call quality and an end to random disconnects deliver a seamless customer experience.

Colleague experience has been substantially upgraded by a single sign-on (SSO) process, providing faster access to support resources including knowledge management and eliminating the headaches caused by recycled credentials on the previous platform. Multi-skilled colleagues now have a more consistent experience between queues and tasks, making it easier to transition between calls and chats. Supervisors give high marks to the improved call listening function, making it easy to explore recordings on a variety of dimensions including per site, per team, and length. Improved call barge capability has helped Hastings Direct better onboard new colleagues.

Delving through insights from NICE Performance Management exposed areas of work avoidance (unplanned shrinkage) which is now addressing to positive effect, contributing to the 26% overall productivity gain by tightening oversight. Hasting’s data integration exposed some extremely long data lookups, revealing a problematic number of fraud policies associated with certain phone numbers, indicating that policies are being illegally aggregated and resold.

05 THE FUTURE

Upgraded caller experience and more anti-fraud measures

Hastings Direct is now looking ahead to refining and enhancing its use of NICE CXone. “Last year we made it functional, this year we’re making it effective,” Irons said. Expected next steps include activating voice-enabled IVR capabilities, integrating more asynchronous contact channels, and making better use of speech-to-text analysis and automation. The company has also identified £2 million in cost savings potential by attacking fraudulent behavior through better analysis of speech interactions and caller behavior.