Making vacations even more memorable

Twiddy & Company, the Outer Banks vacations rental leader, helps create memories with access to over 1,100 vacation rental properties along 25 miles of the North Carolina coastline. Much has changed since the family-owned business started over 40 years ago. In addition to other professional property management companies in the Outer Banks barrier islands, Twiddy now competes with digital players like Vrbo.

Its customer experience starts from the minute a potential guest browses its website or calls a Twiddy office for a reservation. It continues when they check into their spotless holiday home. Previously, Twiddy managed those interactions via on-premises Cisco VoIP technology that had reached capacity and end-of-support. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit, exposing legacy system limitations and making it clear it needed to modernize its tech stack and move to the cloud.

“We saw enormous spikes with up to 10 times more calls a day from owners reaching out to our owner services team to inquire about their properties, and guests contacting our guest services team with questions ranging from whether or not they would still be able to stay in their vacation home to inquiring about refunds,” said Blake Stockslager, CIO at Twiddy. “Our legacy phone system simply could not cope. So, many of our homeowners and guests sat in long queues or kept getting a busy tone.”

An impressive migration

Twiddy quickly arranged regular virtual briefings to keep its owners and guests informed, while the company sought advice from an independent consultant for a permanent cloud-based solution. “After this experience, we knew that we never wanted to worry about managing hardware, scaling issues or complex licensing models again,” said Stockslager. “Plus, we wanted a better approach for employees who now found themselves working remotely. Genesys ticked all the boxes, especially for ease of use.”

The migration to the Genesys Cloud platform was equally impressive. “Genesys said it would take just 60 days and we just couldn’t believe it,” added Stockslager. “We had 60-plus call flows; over 100 people to train; admin skills to acquire; and various integrations with Salesforce, databases and our telco provider. But amazingly, they delivered as promised.”

Business continuity procedures that were already in place to deal with seasonal events like hurricanes now involve fewer steps. There are no VPNs to provision and no softphones or desktops to configure. Instead, agents can connect to Genesys via a web browser on their laptop or tablet — saving more money on hardware.

More personalized service

Integrating Genesys Cloud with Salesforce was particularly important to Twiddy. “By dipping into our CRM, we’re able to intelligently route each call to the best-placed vacation specialist, eliminating frustrating IVR menus and transfers,” said Stockslager. “We already know who the customer is and the most likely reason they’re calling. This means we can answer their questions faster and provide better advice based on knowledge of the property’s location and amenities.”

The Genesys Architect low-code tool made it easy to extend capabilities like identifying returning callers and reconnecting them with the agent they dealt with before — building rapport and deepening relationships. Similarly, outbound calling campaigns can be designed in Salesforce and imported into Genesys Cloud through a simple drag-and-drop interface.

Innovation and KPI improvements

On its previous system, Twiddy was limited to 75 concurrent and 100 named agents, which meant it could only handle 40% of the calls it received when the pandemic hit. Now, it has virtually limitless scalability and can spin up new seats and innovation on the fly.

“Our supervisors can do so much more without involving IT, which lightens our reactive workload and allows us to continue to build for our future,” said Stockslager. “Before Genesys, we’d often work overtime and it could require several weeks to design, test and push service enhancements. Now, it usually only takes a few days.”

A better user experience provides powerful adaptability. The next stop is a chatbot to speed up check-in, balance inquiries and requests to add beach rental equipment.

Agent productivity has also improved with faster logins and less time spent on after-call work and wrap-up codes. Resource planning is automated through Genesys Workforce Engagement Management, releasing supervisors from manually gathering data and maintaining spreadsheets. Previously, it took three days to schedule and forecast — now it takes only a few minutes.

“We produce monthly forecasts in minutes and the system assigns tasks and decides the best time to take breaks, arrange training or switch an agent to outbound,” said Stockslager. “And we’re able to review calls and deliver targeted coaching, which again we couldn’t do before.”

“With coaching, we can provide relevant feedback to our agents through call recording to help everyone become better at customer engagement. We all strive to do more and through WEM’s coaching our supervisors can review calls, make notes at the appropriate times, and then discuss training opportunities with agents. This also ties in to WEM’s scheduling of when the best time for these meetings would be and make sure it doesn’t impact call center KPIs.”

These gains have translated into higher performance numbers. After eight months on the Genesys Cloud platform, Twiddy customer satisfaction (CSAT) is up to 90%, while average wait time dropped by 90% and abandonment rates are down 26%. “For us, super human service means that we can now deliver southern hospitality digitally, and at scale,” concluded Stockslager. “Genesys allows us to do that and focus on people, not technology.”

The migration from legacy on-premises technology to modern cloud leaves Twiddy fueled for the future — no matter what comes its way.