RINGCENTRAL CONTACT CENTER HELPS THE DETROIT LIONS MOVE THE GOALPOSTS ON CUSTOMER SERVICE

AND FOR THE EXTRA POINT: THE NFL FRANCHISE LEVERAGES RINGCENTRAL TO IMPROVE THEIR OWN COMMUNICATIONS

THE CHALLENGE:

As the fifth-oldest team in the NFL, the Detroit Lions have built up long-standing traditions with their fans. But with their Avaya legacy contact center solution, the team’s staff was having difficulty providing the high-quality customer service they knew their fans deserved. The team turned to Converged Technology Professionals for guidance.

THE SOLUTION:

The Lions rolled out RingCentral Contact Center for support, guest services, and box-office agents. They also implemented RingCentral’s unified communications for anywhere, any device phone, conference line, video calls, and team messaging. These solutions resulted in significant improvements in customer service and internal operations.

If you ask the Detroit Lions about their greatest sources of pride, they’ll almost certainly tell you about the loyalty the team’s fans and the City of Detroit has shown the organization over the decades.

That’s why the Lions’ front-office team places such a high priority on delivering outstanding service in every interaction with the team’s customers and fans. But with an outdated Avaya contact center solution that increasingly belonged on the injured-reserve list, the team’s ability to provide VIP-level service to every customer was becoming a challenge.

The Goal: A Contact Center That Enables More Personalized Service

“Our contact center system didn’t integrate in the same way with our CRM, so we couldn’t give our agents a heads-up on who was calling or easily direct callers to the right reps,” explains Scott Howland, the Lions’ Senior Manager of CRM & Research.

Scott adds: “Our Avaya contact center had trouble with the basics, like routing calls and setting up call queues. Anytime we wanted to add functionality, we had to find another vendor and bolt on another app.”

After Studying the Field, with Help from Converged Technology Professionals, the Lions Chose RingCentral

Converged Technology Professionals, the Detroit Lions’ longtime technology partner, helped evaluate their present needs and introduced the Lions to a number of viable contact center solutions. The team found RingCentral Contact Center to be the most flexible, sophisticated, and feature-rich. “Here was a solution that had everything we needed in one platform,” says Steve Lancaster, the Lions’ IT Director.

“It also allowed all of our agents to log in and join call queues from anywhere, which was extremely valuable because we rolled out RingCentral Contact Center just as the lockdowns were going into effect.”

Delivering the Personalized Service Their Fans Deserve

By integrating RingCentral Contact Center into their CRM platform, the Lions could finally deliver real-time information to their call agents before they pick up a call. “Now when a call comes in, RingCentral Contact Center and our CRM work together to figure out if the caller is assigned to a rep, and if so, it routes the call directly to them,” Scott explains.

“It also pops up the caller’s CRM profile, so the agent has useful information—Does the caller have kids? Who’s their favorite player?—before starting the call. The system also makes it easy to collect more of these details during the call and input them for the next time. This solution is helping us provide more personalized service than we’ve been able to before.”

In another example of how the Lions leveraged RingCentral Contact Center for VIP-level service, Scott describes the team’s 2020 Holiday Message campaign. “We were able to use Contact Center’s outbound dialer to call all season-ticket members around Thanksgiving, just to wish them happy holidays,” he says. “The system made it so easy. When a rep finishes a call, it automatically calls the next number to dial.”

Scott adds: “We received lots of positive feedback from these holiday calls. Many season-ticket holders told us they were surprised and delighted by the unexpected, non-sales call.”

“From customizing our solution to the implementation, the training, and onboarding, RingCentral and Converged worked like a seamless team to help us. It was a great experience all around for the Lions.”

Tom Wyatt, Senior Director of Corporate Partnership Sales
Detroit Lions

Improving the Staff’s Internal Operations As Well

Although they were initially looking for a better contact center solution, the Lions’ staff found additional benefits from RingCentral’s unified communications platform—which integrates voice, audio, video conferencing, and team chat in a single app.

“Now, instead of hundreds of employees having to share a handful of audio bridges, we all can schedule and host conference calls and even video conferences from anywhere,” says Steve. “That’s been huge for our operations and a real lifesaver while everyone was forced to work remotely through the lockdowns.”

For Making the Contact Center Selection and Rollout Successful, Converged Earns an MVP

Converged Technology Professionals worked closely with the Lions’ staff to identify the right set of applications and services for the team’s communications upgrade.

“Converged’s hard work and the company’s expertise in implementing these solutions for professional sports teams really paid off,” says Tom. “We’re now enjoying a fully customized solution suite perfectly tailored to the unique needs of the Lions.”

“Converged Technology Professionals was truly a strategic partner throughout the whole process. We’d definitely recommend them as a technology partner.”

Steve Lancaster, Director of IT
Detroit Lions