Consultant seeks a call center solution (virtual PBX) for a trading and craft business

The company I support in the trade and craft sector (construction components) operates a customer service department and requires an efficient and reliable telephony solution to improve the quality of its customer service. The company is based in southern Germany and is a medium-sized manufacturing company with exclusively B2B customers, an internal sales team, a field sales team, and technical support.

The current telephony infrastructure is outdated and has numerous shortcomings, such as inadequate call distribution, poor audio quality, and limited integration with other customer service tools. It is not an adequate telephone solution or call center solution. As a result, there are no interfaces to other systems.

Other problems to be solved include significantly increasing availability, establishing optimal routing for customers and field staff, obtaining better reports and transparency, and improving and simplifying call flow management. The solution should offer added value for customers and employees, improve internal collaboration with field staff, and enable or support the significant development of a customer self-service solution.

The introduction of a central CRM system (add-on) is planned for the end of 2023/2024. There is a desire for a state-of-the-art solution that significantly optimizes the current cumbersome handling for the user. The company has a field service and a technical service that needs to be integrated. There is a very good dealer portal that is currently not integrated into the technical solution.

Goals to be achieved with the solution:

A modern call center telephony solution is to be implemented that increases the efficiency and productivity of customer service and field service employees, ensures high audio quality, enables seamless integration with existing customer service tools, and provides a scalable solution for future growth.

The existing telephone hardware will no longer be used.

The virtual PBX system must meet the following requirements:

• Omnichannel integration, omnichannel communication
• Chat/bot – AI in the dealer portal as a voice supplement or replacement, if necessary
• Support for various communication channels such as telephone (inbound and outbound)
• Establish and connect interface to Salesforce
• Set up an integrated application (Salesforce) for the customer
• Telephony should be via the connection to Salesforce, CRM integration
• Seamless integration and consolidation of all interactions in a central Salesforce platform
• Automatic call distribution (ACD)
• Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
• Workforce management – optional requirement, not a must-have
• Interface to existing BI software – optional, not a must-have
• Call monitoring and quality assurance
• Set up optimal queue management for customers
• Set up active callback management for customers
• Restructure or integrate a knowledge management solution for customers and employees => if part of the call center system
• Integrate a video chat tool (MS Teams or other)
• Integration of MS Teams as an internal communication tool
• Integration of field service mobile phones into the system (one phone number for field service externally and internally)
• High-level support for call flow management
• Introduction of chat as a voice supplement in the dealer portal
• Postal code routing for customers – alternatively via ABC cluster or phone number
• Field service integration via mobile phone
• Modern, expandable, scalable, and user-friendly system for employees and management
• Day-to-day business management must be simple and intuitive
• AI solution as an optional extra
• Application should be integrated into Salesforce (one application for the user)
• Simple routing structure thanks to integrated routing designer
• Simple supervisor control options
• Integrated dashboard
• Integrated standard reports
• Modular structure of the call center solution
• Scalability and flexibility
• 100% GDPR compliant
• Data storage only in Europe, preferably in Germany
• Existing interface to the existing DMS

Please describe the acceptance procedures and protocols that will be created, the definition and structure of the implementation, and how the test phase, trial operation, and test procedures are to be carried out.

Approximately 30 software workstations are planned. MS Windows systems will be used.

A detailed specification sheet (including questions from the tenderer) can be requested from SoftGuide if necessary.