Food service distributor transforms contact center operations with unified single-source solution

UPSTACK and Five9 deliver streamlined customer engagement and enhanced digital capabilities

Summary

When a major food service distributor sought to modernize its contact center operations, it called on the IT solutions experts at UPSTACK for guidance. UPSTACK advisory partners evaluated the company’s needs and desired outcomes. UPSTACK ultimately recommended Five9, a leading provider of contact center solutions, to help the company gain control over its customer interactions, enhance self-service capabilities, and integrate with Salesforce for a unified customer experience.

The challenge

In 2020, a leading player in the food service and distribution industry sought to modernize its contact center operations to support the company’s growing customer base across the United States. The IT procurement director was dissatisfied with  the capabilities and service levels of its current contact center provider but wasn’t sure where to start searching for a new solution. He reached out to UPSTACK advisory partners Daniel Mocny and Trish Van de Bovenkamp to understand the possibilities available in the market to achieve the company’s goals to streamline operations, improve customer satisfaction, and provide actionable insights through advanced reporting and analytics.

The food service distributor faced several challenges with its existing contact center provider, including high costs and long wait times for professional services, lack of self-service options and limited integration with its Salesforce CRM system.

The company also wanted improved reporting on agent performance with sentiment analysis as well as options to automate customer interactions with digital agents (i.e., chatbots) and AI-driven virtual agents.

“They were also looking to redefine their customer journey mapping, but they didn’t really have a place to start,” said Daniel. “They were seeking direction from a customer experience expert who could guide them through the process.”

Taken together, these challenges made it difficult for the food service distributor to elevate service levels for its downstream customers, including restaurants, hospitals, schools, hotels, grocers and other businesses.

The approach

To kickstart the engagement, Trish led a workshop with stakeholders from the company’s IT, contact center and Salesforce teams to help them define success. “Trish challenged them to understand their goals,” said Daniel. “They were looking for a partner, not a provider, that could continually optimize their contact center.”

From that workshop, UPSTACK created a scorecard with the characteristics of the ideal contact center platform supplier. Prospective suppliers were required to demonstrate their capabilities to deliver advanced reporting, integrate with Salesforce, provide self-service, support virtual agents and so on.

The solution

Following the vendor scorecard analysis, UPSTACK recommended a solution centered around Five9’s Intelligent CX Platform integrated directly with the client’s Salesforce CRM to provide a single source of truth for all customer interactions.

Key elements of the solution included:

• Self-service capabilities – The company can handle simple customer queries without human intervention, significantly reducing operational costs and improving response times.
• Advanced reporting and sentiment analysis — Real-time performance dashboards monitor customer sentiment and agent performance, allowing for continuous improvement and better customer engagement.
• Multi-channel integration — Customers can interact with the food distributor via their preferred channels (e.g., phone, web chat and digital/virtual agents), which are all managed through a single platform.
• Scalable infrastructure — Five9’s platform can accommodate the food service distributor’s growing needs, including the ability to add new services and capabilities as the company’s requirements evolve.

The outcome

Together, UPSTACK and Five9 delivered substantial benefits to the food service distributor, including:

• Cost savings — Self-service capabilities and streamlined vendor management have lowered operational costs.
• Improved customer satisfaction — Enhanced customer interactions through multi-channel support and advanced sentiment analysis have raised customer satisfaction rates.
• Operational efficiency — The ability to quickly adapt and scale operations has reduced downtime and ensured a seamless customer experience even during peak periods.
• Continuous innovation — The platform supports new capabilities to expand customer engagement, such as digital channels and AI-driven customer interactions.

UPSTACK has been working with the food service company for more than two years to ensure the successful sourcing, deployment and operation of its contact center platform.

“After the implementation, our job is to continue to stay on and help with adoption and optimization. Now, we’re helping with issues, escalating tickets, reviewing bills and helping with additional projects,” said Daniel.

Indeed, “one of the most significant benefits of working with UPSTACK,” said Trish, “is continuity of representation to drive comprehensive cross-functional outcomes across suppliers, sales reps, technologies, divisions and time.”

UPSTACK has since helped the food service company develop a knowledge base to enable digital/virtual agents and digital channels like chat and text. “We’ve helped them emerge into the digital and automated space to reduce human capital and further enhance the basic contact center feature functionality,” said Trish.

Encouraged by these results, the food service distributor is now exploring additional opportunities to work with UPSTACK to support other divisions like credit and collections, ensuring they remain at the forefront of customer service excellence in the food distribution industry.