C1 Helps Road Runner Sports Deliver Personalized Customer Experiences

The Challenge:

A Drive to Implement Solutions That “Wow” Web-based Customers as Much as Retail Customers 

Road Runner Sports’ dated, premise-based system had failed to grow with the company and was approaching the end of its life. In addition, RRS was limited as to what changes it could make to the system without involving the manufacturer or partner. This slowed down their pace of business. 

RRS maintains a policy to exceed the expectations of customers who interact with it in retail outlets with personalized one-on-one fittings. But it needed a way to support phone- and web-based customers with the same kind of intensive, personalized service in-person customers had come to expect.  

“We'd love to be able to have customers connect with us via chat, which we did dabble in many years ago,” said Sapidah Shefa, Vice President of Operations at RRS. “I think we were ahead of our time. It's come a long way now, so chat is our next big area of contact for customers.” 

RRS’s goal was to build a better connected and personalized human experience online and over the phone to mirror the one-on-one relationships customers experience in retail stores. While the company had made strides in its phone-based support, the real challenge came in translating those experiences for customers who are browsing RRS’s website. 

“How can we bring that level of experience, that level of ‘wow,’ that interaction customers get at the store to a website? That's huge for us,” said Shefa. 

RRS determined that it needed to transition to a cloud-based telephony and unified communications solution that would offer longevity, flexibility and the ability to scale with company needs. 

The Solution:

RSS Makes Investments in Scalability and Customer Experience Management 

RSS underwent an upgrade from its Avaya IPOCC and IPO system to Genesys Cloud. A unified communications (UC) system now connects RSS’s corporate offices, two distribution centers and 47 retail outlets as well as the remote contact center workforce. C1 was RRS’ partner throughout the transition process. 

C1 Services implemented a multi-stage solution for RRS that followed a “crawl, walk and run” methodology framework in implementing the new solution. 

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• Crawl – For this phase, C1 helped RSS get up and running with all past functionality. Since completion, RRS has seen improvements with customer call-back and reporting. 
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• Walk – With this phase, C1 is proceeding with call center integrations to RRS’s APTOS and Oracle systems. 
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• Run – The “run” phase will include additional enhancements such as artificial intelligence, intelligent virtual assistants and more. 
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• “C1 has been our partner through multiple implementations, and the level of due diligence on their part, and the information and education they provided to our team, was what made it such a seamless process,” said Shefah. 
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• With its previous telephony solution, RRS found that it took multiple days to get in touch with the right people who could implement the changes. Genesys Cloud, and its implementation and maintenance by C1, made an enormous difference in response time.  
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• “It's all in our control now,” said Shefah. “If I want to change something today, I can do it today. For us, the ease and the flexibility have been phenomenal.” 
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• Additionally, C1 upgraded RRS’s aging Cisco switches to Meraki, connected them to their Cisco core 9Ks and enabled all devices in their Meraki dashboard. C1 has also provided RRS with access points for both corporate and retail operations.  
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• Earlier, in 2022, C1 brought in GTT to replace RRS’s carrier services provider, as it had proved less than reliable. RRS’s corporate offices as well as many of its retail outlets now have primary and backup broadband circuits with GTT. 
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The Result:

Increased Call Handling Efficiency Results in Reduced Call Volume 

After the implementation of Genesys Cloud, RRS saw an immediate improvement in call volume, with a reduction of approximately 40 percent on customer service calls by increasing first call resolutions. Thanks to expanded features and improved visibility into why customers are calling, the company has been able to reduce hangups and callbacks. Notably, the transition to the new system came without delays or hiccups and remained invisible to customers and seamless for contact center agents, who logged out of the old system one day and logged into Genesys Cloud the next. 

“Before, we couldn’t see how many customers were hanging up and having to call back because they didn't want to wait,” said Shefah. “Now we have that visibility.”

The callback feature RRS gained with Genesys Cloud has been a resounding success with customers, who can choose to wait for an agent, or schedule a callback for a convenient time. This callback feature alone has significantly boosted contact center efficiency, and additional gains have been made with expanded reporting.

C1 has helped RRS gain a wider perspective to get the most out of its Genesys Cloud choice.  

“C1 helped us see things that we weren’t seeing ourselves,” noted Shefah. “They helped us understand how the product can scale for us and grow with us. That’s why we rely on a partner like C1 to help guide us, and that’s exactly what they have done.”

RRS reported that call handling KPIs have improved, routing is more efficient, and the company and individual agents have gained better visibility into workflows and customer needs.