Custom T-Shirt Retailer Improves Customer Service and Sales Capabilities With Avaya Communications Solution

Broken Arrow Wear Boosts Customer Satisfaction, Increases Customer Sales 15 Percent Over Previous Year With Avaya IP Office.

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. - Broken Arrow Wear, a custom t-shirt printing company and online retailer, recently deployed an Avaya small business communications solution to improve employee communications, customer service and sales capabilities. With strong competition in the online retail space - and a busy peak summer season just around the corner - Broken Arrow Wear required a communications system that was not only simple to deploy, but also enabled employees to be more responsive to customers for an improved customer experience.

To achieve this, Des Moines, IA-based Broken Arrow Wear implemented Avaya IP Office, which in addition to delivering more effective call handling, provided Broken Arrow Wear with advanced capabilities that allowed them to incorporate new practices such as telecommuting and work-at-home capabilities. This enabled Broken Arrow Wear to more effectively handle the growing influx of orders, and ensure they are prepared for the high volume of customer inquiries during the summer.

Printing an average of over 2,500 shirts a day, Broken Arrow Wear last year brought in Avaya IP Office so that their small number of representatives could better handle hundreds of calls daily. Broken Arrow Wear provides custom designs for its clients - a process that involves multiple steps, urgent requests and tight deadlines. Avaya IP Office’s call routing capabilities improved the process by implementing an ’always on’ communications system that eliminated the need for Broken Arrow Wear employees to manually take messages, which could easily get lost or delayed.

With Avaya IP Office, customers now call one number that will get routed to the appropriate department, whether it’s sales, art, information technology or marketing. This increases customer satisfaction, while enabling employees to focus on their assigned tasks instead of taking messages or routing calls. Calls now get to the right place, so that sales people, for instance, don’t get calls that were meant for artists or billing.

“With Avaya IP Office, we have been able to eliminate customer complaints about unreturned calls due to lost or delayed messages,” said Kortni Stocker, sales manager, Broken Arrow Wear. “This improvement, along with other Avaya IP Office capabilities, boosted customer satisfaction and employee productivity, helping Broken Arrow Wear see a 15 percent increase in sales just over the last year.”

The Avaya solution also allows employees to communicate effectively using three-digit dialing across the company’s two offices and remote locations, enabling better collaboration between its Des Moines and Polk City, IA locations, while cutting costs by combining two phone lines into one IP phone system.

A Seamless Customer Service Experience
With its new communications solution, Broken Arrow Wear can now take advantage of a more seamless, responsive customer service operation. For instance, Broken Arrow Wear can easily have any employee serve as a customer agent during peak calling periods by simply moving them into the sales function. And with Avaya monitoring software, the company can see who is on the phone and how many calls are being handled to gauge the effectiveness of its service.

An investment in Avaya IP phones also allows the company to provide employees with telecommuting options, allowing staff to work at home on an as-needed basis. No longer limited to its office space, Broken Arrow Wear can add highly-skilled home-based workers or extend communications capabilities to employees who need to work from home temporarily. Telecommuting helps ensure sales leads and orders aren’t missed, while maintaining a top-notch customer experience regardless of where representatives are located.

As is the case with many small businesses, Broken Arrow Wear was attracted to Avaya IP Office because of its ability to expand with the company as it grows. Now, management can easily add phone lines as the company expands and build a network of representatives that can operate in the company’s network or outside its four walls.

“T-shirts may seem low-tech, but investing in technology is actually our top priority,” added Stocker. “Avaya IP Office gives us the communications we need to use our people and budgets in the most efficient way. With the right solutions, we can do what’s best to serve customers and employees now and into the future.”

Broken Arrow Wear’s system was configured by ITC Communications, an authorized member of Avaya’s BusinessPartner program. The installation includes Avaya IP Office and phones at Broken Arrow Wear’s production site in Polk City and its headquarters in Des Moines.