EnerSys

KEY STATS

EnerSys is a leading global producer and supplier of stored energy solutions that meet the growing demand for energy efficiency, reliability and sustainability. With the acquisition of Melbourne-based ICS Industries in 2015 in Australia and New Zealand, those solutions extend to include shelters and enclosures to protect critical equipment including electronics and telecommunications infrastructure, with clients including Bureau of Meteorology, NBN Co, BHP, Rio Tinto, Vodafone, Optus and Telstra.

The acquisition also resulted in multiple PABX systems operating across the combined organisation’s manufacturing plants and offices in Auckland, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. The original set up created a lack of visibility on calls nationally, complexities in telecommunications administration and management, and multiple service provider and support contracts. While EnerSys advertized national 1800 numbers in Australia for customer service (such as its NBN™ backup battery replacement program) it was difficult for EnerSys to ensure a positive customer experience with no visibility or reporting on calls and no national telephony queue or IVR system in place.

Catalysts for change

A focus on improving the customer experience and the imminent shutdown of PSTN services in Australia were the catalysts for change for EnerSys. Following the lead of its global operations, EnerSys explored the market alternatives for a cloud-based telephony and integrated customer care solution that would provide centralized operations and ease of management. The solution also had to integrate easily with both EnerSys’ Microsoft Teams environment and Salesforce.com, which was already in operation as its core CRM platform.

“RingCentral ticked all the boxes,” said Michael Dang, IT Management ANZ, EnerSys. “It offered us tight integration with Microsoft Teams, which we had already been using across the business for the past three years, advanced PABX functionality, and operation on an integrated platform when we were ready to implement a full contact center for our newly-formed national customer care team.”

The key advantage of RingEX was its native integration with Microsoft Teams, allowing EnerSys to embed telephony functionality into its Teams interface and avoid any added complexity for its staff. The same functionality extended to the Teams mobile app, so users were already familiar and comfortable using the same interface across their different devices.

Enterprise telephony and advanced customer care

RingEX has given EnerSys the enterprise PABX functionality it needs across Australia and New Zealand, providing the option to easily set up and configure multiple inbound queues and IVR, as well as visibility on the status and availability of all users in the business.

Advanced reporting through RingCentral Live Reports is already helping the newly established customer care team to start tracking against key calling metrics and KPIs, before the introduction of more advanced functionality with the implementation of RingCentral Contact Center and integration with Salesforce.com later in 2022.

“RingCentral has already transformed our customer service. We now have queues and call flows, and proper management and reporting for our national 1300 and 1800 numbers, which our customer care team can continue to develop and refine as we add new capabilities and functionality,” said Dang.

The deployment process was “seamless”, stated Dang, with the RingCentral project team’s deployment framework ensuring that all elements, including the decommissioning of services and porting of numbers, were factored in and scheduled for completion well in advance of go-live. “It was a pleasure working with the RingCentral team. They just knew what had to be done.”

The telephony upgrade also gave EnerSys the opportunity to dispense with physical handsets, reducing its overall hardware footprint.

That meant a subsequent major office move in NSW over the summer was very simple from a telephony perspective.

“We just had to move our users, and that was it,” said Dang.

From an administrative perspective, EnerSys now receives just one monthly itemized invoice for ANZ telephony, rather than the multiple invoices it was receiving from its different telco and support services providers. Also, telephony platform management can be completed in-house.

“We have the ability to make most of the moves, adds and changes and call flow configurations ourselves – the RingCentral system is very user-friendly and intuitive,” said Dang.

A showcase for the APAC region

EnerSys is treating the RingCentral deployment as a test case for the Asia-Pacific region, with its other regional operations watching with interest as the ANZ business benefits initially from its new UCaaS platform (and subsequently CCaaS, when that is deployed later in 2022), particularly the positive impact the RingCentral solution is having on the customer experience.

“With RingCentral, we are showcasing to our other regions how you can build a world-class customer care team,” Dang concluded.