Driving modernization at Melbourne’s EastLink

Many enterprises are familiar with the challenges of managing a high-stakes operation. But for ConnectEast, an unexpected disruption could affect hundreds of thousands of people and interrupt supply chains stretching across an entire city.

As the operator of the EastLink tollway, the company is responsible for connecting Melbourne’s eastern and southeastern suburbs to the rest of Melbourne, principally via its direct connections with the Eastern, Monash, Frankston, and Peninsula Link freeways. Not only does it manage and maintain the freeway, but it also handles customer inquiries and ensures toll payments are processed efficiently. Thus, the contact center is a vital part of its daily operations.

However, as time passed, the limitations of its communication infrastructure became increasingly apparent. ConnectEast needed a solution that wouldn’t only meet current demands but also support future needs. This is where Webex, in partnership with BroadSource, came into the picture.

By 2018, the legacy systems that ConnectEast relied on were showing their age. The company’s on-premises contact center had several constraints, including geographic limitations, licensing issues, and a heavy dependence on private networks. Additionally, the aging infrastructure had limited support for digital channels.

These challenges were especially significant given the Victorian government’s rules around contact center availability. ConnectEast is legally required to provide paid access to the road and allow customers to pay their toll up to 72 hours after their trip to avoid additional fees. In turn, the government holds the company to strict key performance indicators (KPIs).

“We have to answer 90% of calls within 20 seconds and 99.9% of calls within 120 seconds,” explained Sue King, contact center manager. “Meeting those KPIs is critical.”

Why? Because breaching these KPI benchmarks repeatedly can lead to multi million-dollar penalties.

And, since they accept credit card transactions, King was also concerned about complying with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Her team’s manual processes posed a risk to their PCI obligations, increasing the chance of human error.

To address these challenges, ConnectEast turned to BroadSource, a trusted partner with extensive experience modernizing communication infrastructures. BroadSource began evaluating the organization’s current technology and soon determined a cloud migration would be essential.

Back in 2018, with strict government KPIs in mind, the evaluation team determined there wasn’t a cloud solution available with the requisite capabilities ConnectEast needed. But, having heard of Cisco’s plans for Webex Contact Center, it was decided to stage the transition from the on-premises solution to the cloud.

Webex ultimately offered the scalability, flexibility, and security that ConnectEast required, along with advanced features that could significantly improve its operational efficiency, KPI performance and customer satisfaction (CSAT).

Jason Thals, BroadSource’s Chief Operating Officer, explained how they approached the migration to the cloud.

"We took advantage of the Cisco Gold Tenant facility to prototype and give ConnectEast a sense of how something might work,” he said. “It was a collaborative, educational process. We formed a really strong working team between Cisco, ConnectEast, and BroadSource.”

The migration to Webex Contact Center marked a significant turning point for ConnectEast. However, even though it was a big change, employees took to the new platform with ease.

“It was a smooth transition,” King said. “It was easy to train and the team picked it up really well.”

The ability to manage interactions across multiple channels—whether voice, email, or chat—allowed ConnectEast to offer a more seamless experience for their customers. The platform also enabled supervisors to listen in on real-time conversations, helping them ensure excellent quality of service.

According to King, one of the key features has been the platform’s messaging capabilities.

“If staff need help, they can reach out to a supervisor and message them through the system,” she said. “That’s especially helpful when you have a hybrid working environment and you’re not all in the office.”

Most critically, Webex Contact Center’s open architecture allowed the team to integrate BroadSource’s SecureCall service extension. Mathew Alvaro, Service Delivery Manager at ConnectEast, explained how this has helped mitigate noncompliance risks.

“SecureCall by BroadSource stops credit card information from entering our business,” he said. “And with Webex being PCI-compliant, it ensures that when we’re audited we don’t have to go through 500 questionnaires—we can go through the main ones because we can easily demonstrate the system’s security. It’s unlike any other solution.”

From a communications perspective, telephony is one of ConnectEast’s most important channels, handling roughly 29,000 inbound calls per month. Although the vast majority of these calls are customer service inquiries to the contact center, some calls relate to on-road incidents and are directed to the company’s 24/7 traffic control room.

This room is one of the company’s most mission-critical operations, as it’s responsible for the operation of the freeway, including detecting incidents, dispatching response vehicles, and engaging with police, fire, and ambulance emergency services.

Initially, ConnectEast wanted to use Microsoft Teams in these environments. However, testing soon revealed several significant problems, prompting a shift to Webex.

“The major factors were call delivery latency and poor quality, which would negatively impact our KPIs,” Alvaro said. “We didn’t have those issues with Webex Calling at all. It’s a better experience for the contact center and the traffic control room.”

Given they were already leveraging Webex Contact Center, it made perfect sense to implement Webex Calling. Not only are they both cloud solutions, but they’re highly reliable. This is especially important when uptime is non-negotiable, such as when emergency responders call the control room.

"We’ve enjoyed great stability on the Cisco cloud,” Thals added. “If we were experiencing outages regularly, Sue’s team would miss their KPIs and be exposed to huge penalties. Webex’s sustained availability has proven it is the right fit for our client."

Looking ahead, ConnectEast is excited about leveraging artificial intelligence via the Cisco AI Assistant. The company sees AI as critical to improving efficiency and customer service by automating and optimizing various aspects of its contact center operations.

Alvaro points to several trials underway that focus on conversation summaries, which use generative AI to communicate the key takeaways of past customer interactions. The ability to quickly get up to speed on a customer’s history could significantly reduce response times and improve the overall customer experience.

“If we can make an agent more productive by helping them with AI technology, that’s something we’d like to do,” he said. “We are actively working with Cisco and BroadSource to see what these tools can do.”

Bill Advic, EastLink’s technology director, also shared his enthusiasm for AI in the contact center.

“We’re excited about the prospect of AI eventually transacting without an agent, which would deliver improvements for customers such as 24/7 phone service,” he said. “Cisco's tools and technology can potentially help turn our ideas into reality, enhancing the customer experience in meaningful ways.”

After years of partnership and careful planning, Cisco and BroadSource helped ConnectEast take its contact center to the next level. With modernized, efficient, and secure technologies, Webex solutions provide exactly what EastLink needs to help keep Melbourne moving.

“We prefer vendors that stick with us for the long term,” Advic said. “That’s why we see Cisco and BroadSource fitting very nicely into that partnership arrangement and align with our long-term way of thinking.”

Contact our team today to learn more about how Webex can improve collaboration and customer experience for your organization.