Portugal Telecom’s smart workflow solution is the right call for customer service

Minimizing customer waiting time is critical for any retail business. MEO, Portugal Telecom’s leading consumer brand, understood this in its DNA. The company recognized that even a small difference in wait time at its phone and broadband stores could go a long way toward improving customer experience and ensuring satisfaction. That meant staff had to have—at their fingertips—all the knowledge they needed to make sales and service go smoothly and quickly.

The firm wanted a single-source, efficient business process management (BPM) software solution to guide staff through all the necessary steps and that would integrate with legacy technology. But PT understood that before it could select a solution, a proof of concept stage would be vital. That was the only way for the company to properly understand the market, clarify the results it was seeking, and get a sense of the timeline involved.

The company evaluated several vendors during this process before it settled on Cora Orchestration. Ultimately, PT chose Cora Orchestration because it was not only compatible with the company’s existing technology architecture but also extremely user-friendly.

The company chose well. The Gartner Magic Quadrant, research that compares vendors based on standard criteria and methodology, has singled out Microsoft-centric Cora Orchestration as a “visionary” for its attributes as an intelligent BPM system. With a graphical interface that lets business users drag-and-drop shapes onto a canvas, it fosters collaboration between business and IT stakeholders, at all stages of any BPM project.

Using Cora Orchestration and with Genpact’s help, the firm developed SHOP Box — a framework that interacts with PT’s legacy systems with advanced, wizard-based integration. Then, the IT and business teams used the software’s visual canvas to collaborate smoothly on workflows that aligned with its customer-pleasing principles. The team consisted of four non-technical members and two staff from IT, so this digital transformation project was cost-effective. PT required zero additional technical support and was self-sufficient in no time, making changes on the fly. And with brisk new workflows in place, retail staff began handling customer requests and activities more efficiently and with better results.

SHOP Box, now in 200 stores, has cut average customer wait times by one-and-a-half minutes. That’s a small change on the surface, but one that translates to annual savings of about $300,000 for a company that handles 12,000 customers a day.

Management also believes that, because of SHOP Box, retail staff will solve more cases at the store instead of turning to the back office for help. And because the new BPM platform is intelligent, they anticipate that it will support continuous improvement. Cora Orchestration can view and measure each person’s actions at every step of the process. That offers huge potential to improve workflows even more.

Of course, improving customer experience is good for a company’s bottom line. But just as important, it helps firms feel proud of the products and services they offer, and keeps employees and clients happy. Good news for this telecom major.