Accelerating the digital future

Schwäbisch Media, headquartered in Ravensburg and known as “the media house in southern Germany,” specializes in digital, print, TV, radio and logistics. Its merger with Nordkurier Mediengruppe, based in Neubrandenburg, led to the creation of “SV Gruppe,” which resulted in further products and business diversification. SV Gruppe recognized that times were changing and that print would no longer be a main revenue driver. This is one reason why it developed an innovative strategy and created corresponding new business areas that are clearly showing signs of success.

New operations require a modern contact center

Thanks to its newspaper subscription business, the media group is close to its customers and has decades of experience in logistics. Its subsidiaries südmail, and the letter and parcel service provided by Nordkurier, have grown to become one of the most important private delivery services in northern and southern Germany. They offer a broad portfolio of services ranging from classic letter and parcel delivery to individual and nationwide logistics solutions, as well as digital shipping solutions.

“We quickly hit our limits with our existing customer service solution in this area of logistics,” said Manuela Lüdke, Managing Director of the subsidiary SV Dialog GmbH & Co. KG, who heads up B2C customer service for the entire group.

“Bad weather or illness-related short-term delivery staff absences hinder timely and error-free newspaper delivery, causing scores of subscriber complaints,” said Lüdke. “In the past, high volumes of calls literally burst the physical limits of our traditional telephone system. That was no longer acceptable.”

Seamlessly integrating an open solution

The new contact center solution needed to support the overall strategy while providing reliable, flexible integration of inbound and outbound telephony, email, chat and social media channels. The company also needed to deploy an open contact center solution to easily integrate its various third-party systems, such as CRM and ERP solutions.

“We are planning a real revamp of our IT, which is why these requirements had to be fulfilled,” said Lüdke.

To address customer service needs and position itself for the future, SV Gruppe implemented the Genesys Cloud platform with the help of its partner, infinit.cx. The platform fulfilled all the requirements, and it took just a few weeks for implementation and go-live.

Goodbye legacy telephone system

SV Gruppe currently has a total of 70 agents using Genesys Cloud at two sites, with plans for further expansion. Starting with subscriber support, the software will be successively deployed in other publishing divisions and subsidiaries of the SV Gruppe.

“We have been very satisfied with Genesys Cloud and the excellent collaboration with the Genesys partner infinit.cx — from the project inception to present,” said Lüdke.

Blueprints for expanded deployment

Since telephony was deployed so seamlessly, Luedke now plans to start digitizing mail. This means all incoming mail will be processed via the Genesys solution. The company also plans to rapidly integrate Genesys Cloud with its CRM system.

“We want to improve our customer engagement and our goal is to also use voicebots to handle specific standardized service requests with a high degree of automation,” said Luedke.

In the long term, Genesys Cloud will play an essential role for the entire media group.

“Our trusted traditional business has allowed us to be physically present at almost every doorstep in southern Germany,” said Lüdke. “We are easily positioned to offer delivery of packages, groceries, government letters and documents — and additional services are being planned. Our service-intensive business areas require a high-performance service center and that’s what Genesys technology provides.”

The company’s evaluation of Genesys Cloud has been extremely positive.

“The most important factor for us is the high degree of transparency of the solution,” said Lüdke. “With Genesys Cloud, we can provide the group management with meaningful and reliable statistics at any time. Thus, we all can constantly monitor what is going on at any moment.”

An additional advantage is that she and her team can adjust the system independently, without IT support. The contact center teams, who are also happy with the solution, easily use Genesys to onboard new employees, define and adjust workflows, or route emails based on specific rules.

“The decision to implement Genesys solution was the right one in every respect,” concluded Lüdke.