Speedy Hire

Speedy Hire Plc is the UK’s leading tool and equipment hire company. Since its foundation in 1977, turnover has grown to £350m and its customer base now exceeds 100,000. Speedy’s 4,000 employees offer an efficient service through more than 350 depots across the UK and Ireland.

In spite of its massive growth and expansion into different markets, Speedy Hire has maintained its commitment to providing a high quality, responsive customer service. In 1995, to meet customers’ needs, Speedy launched Speedy Hire Direct, a ‘one-call’ national service.

Speedy is undoubtedly the industry leader in customer relations and to ensure its 150 strong call centre was at the forefront of development the company turned to Armstrong Communications. The outcome was a bespoke call centre solution which enhanced customer experience, providing the additional benefits of increased staff productivity and extensive management information.

Audited Results

In consultation with Speedy, Armstrong’s engineers conducted an initial audit to help them fully understand the call handling process and the performance capabilities of the call centre’s teams. Armstrong responded with a solution which delivered increased productivity, cost savings and improved call management capabilities.

Making The Right Call

In its crusade for industry leading service levels, Speedy needed access to statistics such as call duration and rates of transfer, in order to monitor the speed and efficiency of each call. Armstrong reacted to this need with CSM which produces automatic reports, providing managers with the necessary data to analyse and identify any problem areas in its overall call management.

Training For Success

Producing reports, although useful, sometimes only provides limited information. Speedy is committed to the continuous improvement of staff, therefore the ability to drill down into the data to highlight areas for training and development was a key requirement. Recording calls through technology such as the Xarios Call Recorder now enables supervisors to instantly play back calls and identify areas for training and support for individuals or groups.

Time is Money

Armstrong recognised that, if Speedy wanted to improve customer loyalty, they required a system that recognised the caller’s number, automatically redirected them to the right team and popped-up the customer details on the screen of the most experienced call operator available. By combining such technology solutions, Armstrong is able to assist clients like Speedy in improving the satisfaction of its customers, in addition to saving time and money.

Right People, Right Time, Right Place

In these competitive times many companies are looking for new ways to manage resources more effectively. In a call centre environment where the pace can be frenetic at times, an intuitive system that automatically directs calls to the most appropriate available operator ensures the customer’s needs remain a priority. It has the additional benefit of ensuring resource is deployed efficiently which reduces the need for more people and drives costs down.

CSM Real Time allows Speedy Hire Direct’s supervisors to see the ‘live activity’ on the phone system, including calls waiting and agents busy, and then redirect appropriate resource as required.

Speedy’s process supervisor Sarah Roberts said: “The system supplied and installed by Armstrong Communications has provided us with a wide range of benefits. CSM has improved the efficiency and routing of customers’ calls and enabled us to undertake staff training in areas that make a real difference to our business. We now feel more confident we have the correct staffing levels necessary to ensure our customers receive an excellent experience when speaking to someone at Speedy.

“As well as sound advice and good project management, Armstrong has provided superb ongoing support and I have no hesitation in recommending both the company and the systems they supply.”