Virgin Holidays are the largest and most successful transatlantic tour operator, catering for over 300,000 people a year. With over 20 separate branded holiday types from Safari to Snow, Virgin holidays are "passionate about making holidays perfect". They operate call centres in the UK and abroad, plus a network of branded high street outlets and home-working agents. Callstream have operated a network based telephony solution for Virgin Holidays for several years.

The Challenge

• Provide a complete inbound call management solution
• Improve customer service at peak call times
• Manage direct customer and agent calls to multiple brands across different call centre operations
• Record calls and evaluate enquiry source
• Provide business continuity

By placing the Virgin Holidays telephony platform within the virtual network, Callstream manage capacity supply to exactly meet call demand. Engaged tones and unanswered calls mean disappointed customers and lost sales opportunities, but with calls answered automatically within the virtual telephony network, callers never hear an engaged tone and calls are always answered. With average call levels of 7,500 per day at peak times, both new business and customer service experiences were improved.

With over 20 separate Virgin branded holiday types, and numerous marketing campaigns for each one, the company required hundreds of non-geographic numbers to be available. Callstream source, activate and manage these numbers, operating a sophisticated real-time monitoring system to identify any issues at source and provide management information to enable Virgin Holidays to measure activity on any number.

The technology that Callstream deploy within the virtual environment enables a host of other communications benefits for the company. Each call is answered professionally by the system, with brand consistent recorded messaging. The caller is provided with ‘friendly' options. Callstream worked with the Virgin Holidays to understand their business and ensure that calls are efficiently routed to the correct team. Callstream also provide the facility for Virgin Holidays to play targeted marketing messages to the caller whilst they are waiting.

Once the operator becomes available, and the call is taken Callstream provide a recording service for Virgin Holidays that digitally captures the details of calls. This is particularly useful for monitoring service levels provided by 3rd party call centre operations. Each recording is then digitally encrypted and securely stored for future reference.

Callstream provides a seamless telecoms structure to link the different sites. The solution allows overflow capacity to be automatically placed with available operators at any of the sites, allowing calls to be placed quickly with operators and the expertise of Virgin Holidays store staff to be channelled to customer calls when necessary. The solution also allows mid-call transfers to take place, no matter which site holds the initial call. Whether transferring to a store, or to a department in another country - there is never any need to ask the customer to call another number.

Floods, snow, fire, power outages, pandemics - whatever the crisis, Callstream's disaster recovery solutions mean that all Virgin Holidays calls can be routed elsewhere with the flick of a virtual switch. When recent bad weather conditions prevented employees from reaching the main call centre, Callstream were able to redirect calls to other centres and designated homeworkers.

Callstream ensures that new technology is always applied to add value to Virgin Holidays business. By understanding business needs now and in the future Callstream enables Virgin Holidays to continually deliver excellent customer service through telecommunications.

"Callstream have been providing solutions for Virgin Holidays since 2001.They have worked closely and proactively with us by managing all our inbound telephone calls, helping us ensure that first class customer service is achieved whenever someone calls one of our contact centres. From consistent branding to disaster recovery solutions, Callstream have successfully continued to assist us in meeting our operational and strategic aims."

General Manager, Direct Sales, Virgin Holidays