Elevating IT support with seamless cloud integration.

Speed. Accuracy. Excellence.

Few values matter more to the customer experience—especially in IT. According to CEO Pascal Wolf, that’s where pidas earns its reputation as an industry leader.

“pidas is a European outsourcing company focusing on smart IT support,” he explained. “Our customers are medium-sized and large European and global companies from all sectors, which means their employees contact us when they have any IT problems or questions.”

In short, pidas combines expertly trained professionals, known as “support champions,” with the latest innovative technologies. The goal? Exceeding customer expectations with top-tier assistance that solves issues while adding tangible business value.

For a company like pidas, which handles over 100,000 IT support tickets monthly, the ability to scale operations is crucial. However, its old system couldn’t keep up with this demand.

So, the company decided to migrate to a new platform. When looking for the right solution, it prioritized five key elements:

1. Core functionality: This included basic and advanced telephony features, like call-back capabilities, skill-based routing, and more.

2. Availability: pidas needed a reliable solution to handle its rapidly growing customer base across multiple channels simultaneously.

3. Provider flexibility: With a stack of essential technologies, the company wanted a tool that integrated seamlessly with the rest of its ecosystem.

4. Cost: Tired of its inefficient licensing model, pidas needed a more cost-effective tool without sacrificing quality.

5. Cloud-based: Finally, pidas prioritized cloud migration. Why? This would allow the company to adjust capacity according to its changing needs and receive regular updates and new features without manual upgrades or service disruptions.

After narrowing down from 10 potential vendors to three, it was clear which one checked every item off the list. Not only did Webex by Cisco meet these requirements, but it also offered the assurance of certified cloud security.

Ultimately, pidas deployed two Cisco solutions:

1. Webex Contact Center, an omnichannel customer experience platform.

2. Webex Calling, a cloud-based telephony service.

With Webex Contact Center, pidas gained a robust tool that could handle high volumes of customer interaction across their most significant channels, including phone, email, and chatbot. Additionally, it offered extensive reporting capabilities via Control Hub—a centralized management dashboard for all things Webex.

“Real-time analytics provide immediate insight into performance metrics, enabling our supervisors and team leaders to make data-driven decisions to monitor and optimize operations,” said Manuel Frühstück, Head of Service Excellence.

The platform’s advanced features allowed pidas to manage interactions more effectively. For example, skill-based routing matches incoming cases with agents who have the skills to best meet those needs. Not only does this improve distribution, but it also enhances first-contact resolution by connecting customers to the ideal agent.

Meanwhile, Webex Calling has made an equally significant impact on pidas’s external communication.

“The voice quality is excellent, and the advanced noise reduction features work really well during peak hours when our service desk locations can get quite noisy,” Frühstück noted. "The system is highly reliable, with a robust infrastructure that guarantees consistent uptime, and it meets crucial data security requirements, including having data centers located in Europe."

Since implementing Webex Calling, pidas employees have greatly embraced its capabilities. They’ve leveraged various interactive voice response (IVR) setups, callbacks, call recordings, and smart call deflection—a tool that diverts incoming inquiries away from traditional support channels (like phone calls) towards self-service options. This frees agents to handle more complex tasks.

Beyond improving operational efficiency, Webex has left a positive mark on both customer and employee experiences.

“We often get feedback that the user-friendly interface makes it easy for our support champions to navigate the Webex Contact Center app and manage their interactions,” Frühstück said. "And, for our customers and employees, the solution significantly enhances our image when our support champions use software from a brand like Cisco, compared to less well-known providers."

As for Webex Calling, the platform’s call flow management tools have not only led to productivity gains, but also a simpler workday. Setting up call flows is now much easier for pidas, which is reducing the administrative workload for its technology services team.

Critically, both solutions integrate seamlessly into the company’s already innovative technology stack. For instance, the NEXT Experience platform is one of its most vital business applications, providing customers with a digital self-service channel, direct access to pidas agents, and performance reporting tools.

“Webex is integrated into our NEXT Experience platform,” Frühstück explained. “This integration enhances our business outcomes by providing a single point of contact for our end users, streamlining communication, and improving overall efficiency.”

Likewise, by integrating with pidas’s KMP database, Webex can flag VIP customers in the queue. This ensures support champions prioritize VIPs, handling their inquiry as soon as possible.

As pidas looks to the future, Frühstück and Wolf are particularly excited about Webex’s artificial intelligence (AI). The company plans to leverage several advanced AI capabilities to further enhance their services.

“Automation and AI features are crucial to optimizing processes and enhancing performance,” Frühstück said. “We’re looking forward to new Cisco AI Assistant features like conversation summaries, live translation, topic analytics, sentiment analysis, and virtual hold and callback systems. We believe both our customers and pidas itself would benefit from these features due to increased time efficiency and enhanced service quality.”

Ultimately, the company hopes to reduce wait times as much as possible, which Frühstück said would yield immediate benefits. Not only would it significantly improve customer satisfaction and increase the first-call resolution rate, it’d create a more positive work environment by reducing stress.

The migration to Webex Contact Center and Webex Calling has provided pidas with the tools it needs to scale its business, improve operational efficiency, and deliver an exceptional customer experience. As the company continues its impressive growth, it’s safe to say Cisco is along for the ride.

“Cisco's reputation as an industry leader ensures that we have access to cutting-edge technology and innovations in our contact center,” Frühstück said. “Together with our partner, CANCOM, this contributes to a strong, productive partnership that supports our organizational goals.”

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