02 January 2020

Hillarys Blinds is one of the best-known players in the UK, owning one third of the market share.

The Nottingham-based digital specialist company, IPI is to deliver a programme of digital transformation across its contact centres.

For almost 50 years, Hillarys’ IT needs have continually evolved to keep pace with the company’s growth, with its call centre at the heart of operations.

IPI was charged with delivering solutions and consultancy to enhance Hillarys’ two dedicated call centres, as well as supporting the contact centre operations of a sister company, to better manage its 17,000 weekly call volume.

This strategic approach to IT was designed to enhance the customer journey for Hillarys’ expanding customer base and improved staff engagement.

Hillarys decided to bring in-house its management of outbound calls to improve efficiency and better ensure consistent quality and turned to IPI to provide an appropriate technology solution.

The latter rolled out Avaya’s Proactive Outreach Manager (POM) to provide an automated outbound campaign management tool.

This implementation alone has saved £500K in the first year on the previous system.

IPI has delivered solutions and consultancy to enhance Hillarys’ two dedicated call centres, as well as supporting the contact centre operations of a sister company, to better manage its 17K weekly call volume.

This strategic approach to IT has both enhanced the customer journey for Hillarys’ expanding customer base and improved staff engagement.

“We are hugely proud of our call centre and the strides we have made as a team to improve our operations at Hillarys,” says Helen Dodds, the firm’s head of contact centre. “We are committed to investing in our team to deliver changes that foster better working practices. IPI plays a key role in this, delivering both the underpinning technology and the expertise to drive this part of our digital transformation journey.”

Over time, IPI’s relationship with Hillarys has expanded to now include computer telephony integration (CTI) for Hillarys’ call tracking and analysis solution from Infinity.

This complex project links together 16 different IT systems and allows Hillarys to better understand the effectiveness of its different marketing activities in facilitating customers’ journey from first browsing on its website to picking up the phone.

Following these successful project deliveries, IPI was awarded Hillarys’ Nortel CS1000 system support, replacing the incumbent partner which was growing rapidly but at the expense of the service provided.