Q & A with Matt Lautz, Founder & President of CorvisaCloud
Executive Focused
1. What are the biggest challenges businesses face in regards to managing their customer service needs and how is CorvisaCloud trying to solve them?
The universal challenge that businesses face is providing quality customer service to every customer, every time. Whether they are calling into a contact center or tweeting at a company, businesses need to address customer issues quickly and effectively. To see if they are doing this successfully, operators turn to reports and survey results - which leads me to another constant struggle, reporting.
Reporting is the ears and eyes of business operations. Unfortunately, in this industry, strong reporting isn’t always easy to obtain. I can’t say I’ve ever had a prospect say how easy and fun it is to pull reports! Between waiting for the reports to be pulled and combining reports from different operations systems to paint the big picture for management, reporting can quickly become a burden rather than a tool to enhance business operations.
As operators ourselves, we struggled to find a solution that would fulfill these needs so we developed our own and then integrated with the CRM we use internally, Salesforce, to create a seamless solution. CorvisaCloud’s cloud-based contact center suite directly integrates with Salesforce so that businesses can easily track and manage their customer service operations and customer data from a single source. Data saving is automated to prevent the number one cause of error- human mishaps. With CorvisaCloud’s combined, automated reports on communications and production data, businesses gain insight into their contact center or outbound sales efforts and can quickly address inefficiencies. Plus, with instant screen pops providing detailed caller information, customers enable their agents to provide a more personalized experience.
2. What are the top three ways businesses can maximize their contact center operations?
First things first, when businesses are dealing with their contact center operations, it is essential to take preemptive measures to maximize efficiency. Based on best practices we’ve learned in our own experience and in consulting with clients, there are a few things I would recommend:
· Streamline Your Customer Data—Embrace the cloud to make it easier for your contact center technology to talk to your CRM and dynamically update customer information. Stop pulling reports from one system just to feed it right back into the other.
· Invest in people—Instill a sense of purpose in each of your contact center employees and make sure they understand how important each call is to your business. Also, be open to ideas from your employees and encourage them to share ideas for service improvements.
· Enhance Your Inbound & Outbound Call Practices – As the president of a technology firm, I truly believe one of the best ways to invest in your employees is by investing in tools that allow them to be more successful on a daily basis. Advancements in technology have simplified processes and allow agents to focus on the most important thing - the customer. Take our product for example; one of our customers’ favorite features is our lead nurturing tool which allows agents to develop a strategic follow up plans for their customer or prospect. Personal touches can go a long way in closing a deal or providing a great service experience.
3. How did you get started in the industry?
I started my first software development company in my parents’ basement when I was 16. Over the years our products evolved and we began offering VoIP services and software. I served as CEO of that company for over 8 years and during my time as CEO, I led a team that managed customers in over 15 countries and processed over 4 million VoIP transactions per day. After exiting that business, I helped found a new software firm called Corvisa Services. Last fall, Corvisa Services acquired a small IVR software company which we rebranded as CorvisaCloud. We’ve been rapidly growing the business and expanding features of our product suite since.
4. Tell me a bit about the vision behind CorvisaCloud and its product and services.
As a part of the Novation Companies family, our sister companies all operate contact centers, so we had a very clear understanding of the shortcomings of the current solutions on the market and the challenges that business operators face in general: increasing productivity, streamlining workflows and ensuring data integrity. As contact centers, phone systems are the life-blood of the business and we needed a solution that could address these issues. When we couldn’t find a solution that worked for our business or our sister businesses, we decided to build the product and company from the ground up to fit our needs.
Another continual frustration we noticed as we tried different providers was a general complacency surrounding customer service. As a contact center solution provider you would think customer service would come with the territory, but unfortunately it’s just not a priority for many vendors. A “customer first” culture has always been a big part of who CorvisaCloud is and we work hard to fuse that into our business operations. We go the extra mile so that we can be a single source provider for our customers – and to be a vendor they’ll actually enjoy working with.
You are based in a rather unique location for a tech company. How has being located in Milwaukee influenced your experience as a start-up?
CorvisaCloud is headquartered in Milwaukee, WI in one of the old Schlitz brewery bottle houses. I grew up in Milwaukee and I think it has been a great place to start and grow a new company. Businesses in the healthcare and financial industries call Milwaukee home, which gives us an advantage because many times the need for technology solutions in these industries go forgotten. In reality, these industries can leverage the same type of technology as other contact center businesses.
Milwaukee has challenged our company in new and exciting ways with recruitment and maintaining a culture that combines a Silicon Valley mentality with a Midwest heart and work ethic. The tech startup scene in Milwaukee is growing fast, and we are glad to be a part of it.
Technology Focused
1. Tell me about CorvisaCloud’s solution and what makes it different from others on the market.
At CorvisaCloud, we focus on one thing: building communication solutions that businesses and customers love. We accomplish that by providing a cloud-based, multi-channel business communications platform that is scalable for businesses of all sizes and industries.
A few features that set our suite apart include our a dynamic integration with Salesforce, lead nurturing tool and configurable call routing capabilities. We also offer a cloud-based enterprise PBX product that works seamlessly with our contact center suite.
Although features are great, I’d have to say is our largest differentiator is our background as contact center operators. It’s invaluable because it gives us a unique perspective on what our customers are looking for and allows us to introduce them to functionality they didn’t even know they needed.
2. There is a lot of discussion around cloud-based contact centers right now. Why do you think this is a growing trend and how does it benefit businesses?
There are a lot of macro trends that are contributing to the growth of cloud-based contact centers. The rise of cloud computing, as well as the wide proliferation of mobile devices and workers, are changing the way businesses operate. Contact center operators are looking for solutions that fit with this new way to work.
Cloud-based contact center solutions are helping businesses to streamline their customer data management, increase productivity, and make it easier for executives to manage their contact center from mobile devices anywhere in the world. I also think there is a general flexibility, scalability and often, affordability, that you gain with a cloud-based solution compared to a traditional on-premise system.
3. What is the number one mistake you see taking place with contact center agents and how can companies avoid it?
Ironically, the most common problem is that agents don’t provide personalized, unique customer service even though that’s what they are hired to do. Whether it’s because they don’t know how to leverage their technology fully or become mundane from redundancy in their position, employers need to put customer experience at top priority because it’s a key component in making your business stand out from the rest. Find ways to motivate your agents and make sure they are fully trained in both the technology and customer service to ensure that every customer has a great experience.
4. Technology is a complicated thing. What do you recommend for companies who are making large technology changes to help them minimize downtime and maximize user adoption so that they get the most out of their investment as soon as possible?
Investing in a software implementation partner to establish a knowledge base and confidence with the new system from the get-go will be one of the easiest investments to get a return on. By receiving direction and guidance from a software implementation partner, you can outline a plan for smoother transition from your legacy systems, increase employee adoption and acceptance of the technology, learn tips and tricks for best practices, and determine customization and integration needs. Another tip I tell people is to make sure the system you invest in is user-friendly because quite frankly it’s worthless if no one uses it! If your staff is happy, it’ll show and in turn your customers will be happy.
5. What are the top three benefits that customers see from your Salesforce partnership and integration?
Right now many contact center solutions don’t integrate directly with CRM software, so many times, the complete picture of contact center operations is not represented and a lot of time and money is spent running reports to get it. Through our partnership with salesforce.com, CorvisaCloud eliminates that problem and delivers comprehensive reporting with true insights that can lead to actionable next steps. I think another key benefit is the ability for data and functionality to natively sync between the applications, which saves considerable time and effort for agents and management alike. In addition, as a certified Salesforce partner, CorvisaCloud helps companies with their implementation for both our integrated product and for Salesforce itself which allows us to be a single source partner for our customers.