Colt, Europe’s leading information delivery platform, today announced that Shurgard Self-Storage, the world’s largest owner and manager of storage solutions has deployed its enterprise Unified Communications solution across 200 European sites. The solution has enabled Shurgard to provide a significantly improved customer service experience by answering 50 percent more inbound calls. This has resulted in a huge increase in sales conversions and increased annual turnover by €5 million, representing a return on investment in much less than a year.
Shurgard has a highly successful sales conversion rate from phone enquiries, with one in three calls received being converted into a signed customer contract worth on average €1,500. However, Shurgard estimated that up to 40 percent of all calls were going unanswered because there were no options for routing calls during peak periods. Shurgard realised that a more effective, centralised model of managing the calls would enable them to unlock significantly more revenue for the organisation across Europe. By introducing a small central contact centre and deploying Colt’s unified communications solution, Shurgard has been able to answer significantly more of the calls it receives and reduce outbound telephony costs by 30 percent.
“Thanks to Colt’s unified communications solution we’re converting more prospects to sales and raising customer service levels by meeting our target of answering at least 90 percent of incoming calls – that’s 50 percent more than before – and our turnover has gone up by €5 million in one year,” explains David Coupez, CIO of Shurgard Europe. “We can also now generate daily, weekly and monthly reports easily and efficiently, and use them as a reliable basis for optimising our services and our income flow. The new system has played an essential role in improving the performance of our business in Europe.”
Shurgard already had a Colt managed MPLS network connecting all of its sites via DSL links. The same network now carries Shurgard’s IP voice traffic, enabling the company to consolidate its voice and data requirements with Colt as its sole managed service provider and to benefit from a single SLA covering the entire solution.
Fully scalable to support future growth, the system is integrated into Shurgard’s own reporting platform to provide full visibility of telephone sales and support performance including call pick-up rate and contact centre performance as well as conversion of sales opportunities. This has become a critical key performance indicator (KPI) on the company’s standard operating dashboard.
“Colt’s starting point with Shurgard was to understand their real business needs and identify a simple solution that quickly and cost-effectively enabled them to transform their customer service and sales channels by taking advantage of the benefits that unified communications brings,” explains Nils Garbisch, UCC solutions specialist Colt. “The in-built flexibility available through Colt’s European information delivery platform means that Shurgard has full control of the call routing across all its European operating countries and is able to gain a comprehensive overview of revenue generated via this critical sales channel.”
About Colt
Colt is Europe’s leading information delivery platform, enabling its customers to deliver, share, process and store their vital business information. An established leader in delivering integrated computing and network services to major organisations, midsized businesses and wholesale customers, Colt operates a 21-country, 35,000km network that includes metropolitan area networks in 39 major European cities with direct fibre connections into 17,000 buildings and 19 Colt data centres. In 2010, the Colt Data Centre Services business was launched to deliver innovative high quality modular data centres which are rapid to deploy and power efficient.
Colt is listed on the London Stock Exchange (COLT). Information about Colt and its services can be found at www.colt.net.
For more information, please contact:
Press contacts
Colt, François d’Essertaux
DDI: +44(0)20 7863 2953
Mobile: +44 (0) 7538 095 485
Email: [email protected]
Weber Shandwick, Tim Focas
DDI: +44 (0)207 067 0532
Email: [email protected]
Industry analysts’ contact
Octopus, Agi Donnithorne
DDI: + 44 (0)8453 700655
Mobile: +44 (0)7595 003328
Email: [email protected]
Analysts/investors’ contact
Colt, Gill Maclean
DDI: +44(0)20 7863 5314
Email: [email protected]
What's your goal today?
1. Are you on the Colt IQ network?
Our network connects over 31,000 buildings worldwide powering companies such as Hitachi, Atos, Forbes, Arthur D Little, Brussels Airlines and thousands of others. Find out if you're Colt connected now.
2. Learn about digital infrastructure
We've written thousands of guides and white papers, regularly publish content on our blog and host regular events on everything from enterprise network connectivity, to cloud, digital transformation and the hybrid workforce.
3. Join our team
To learn more about joining our team of over 5000 people around the world, and to browse our current open roles visit https://careers.colt.net/.
