HD Supply has more than 40 years of experience serving customers across the maintenance, repair and operations market. The company delivers supplies and services needed to maintain and upgrade multifamily, hospitality, healthcare and institutional facilities. While its customers are largely other businesses in these industries, any consumer can set up an account with HD Supply and make purchases.
The company sells about 160,000 SKUs and operates over a hundred fulfillment centers in the U.S. and Canada, meaning collaboration and communication are essential to its success.
To meet growing demand and ensure customers leave every interaction satisfied, HD Supply needed a modern tool to improve workforce collaboration, better the customer experience and streamline communication in a hybrid environment.
Struggling to collaborate and communicate
The team at HD Supply had three main areas of concern with the company’s existing operations: connecting with partners and vendors on a multitude of different platforms, managing a highly distributed workforce and delivering a positive customer experience.
Collaboration with partners, vendors and customers across Webex, Teams, Google Meet and Zoom was difficult, leading to frustration surrounding meetings. Since the team didn’t have a consistent method to speak with customers, a lot of time was spent preparing for calls and waiting for platforms to load, rather than using those minutes to do value-adding work.
Another key roadblock for HD Supply was in managing people scattered across North America, working in a variety of styles, from in-person to remote and hybrid setups. In fact, 87% of the company’s IT associates are remote in 30 different states. Also, core business functions were spread across four geographic regions, making it essential that the team find a way to get rid of siloed systems that prohibit fast data sharing and easy access to information.
Lastly, from a customer perspective, order confirmations were a struggle for HD Supply. While shipped orders were easy to check on the website, people had to call customer care or use the online chat to check on in-progress orders, both requiring human agents. Not only did this take away time from employees who could be making more complex phone calls, but if customers called after hours, they wouldn’t be able to get the help they were looking for.
Choosing a modern solution
When it was time for HD Supply to make a change from its existing infrastructure, Emil DiMotta, Vice President of IT Infrastructure and Operations at HD Supply, looked for a modern collaboration tool that would integrate workflows, remove friction and enhance engagement, whether team members are in-office, at a distribution center or working remotely.
“Our vision for the employee experience is simple, flexible and efficient,” said DiMotta. “We want the technology to be invisible. We want to support how people work, not force them to adapt to it.”
The team selected Webex Suite to get the job done. From Webex Meetings, a cloud-based video conferencing platform, and Webex Webinars for hosting large-scale virtual trainings for internal teams, to Webex Events, a platform to help put on town halls and nationwide sales meetings, HD Supply chose platforms that would be able to keep up with demand. In addition, they use Cisco Unified Communications Manager (UCM) and 8800 series phones across their storefront locations and distribution centers, and are planning on expanding their use of Webex Calling as well as the 9800 series phones.
HD Supply desired a way to give employees more time back in their day and automate manual tasks. It accomplished this by implementing Cisco AI Assistant, which takes notes, encapsulates action items after calls and creates meeting summaries so employees can focus on talking to the person on the other end. Additionally, Webex AI Agents assist with 24/7 customer support, so people can now get help when the HD Supply team has logged off for the day. The AI solution also handles many of the mundane tasks that often distract team members from real work.
Unifying a distributed team
The Webex and HD Supply partnership immediately benefited the internal team. When the COVID-19 pandemic forced everyone to go remote, the team was able to do so smoothly on a Friday and be ready for work the following Monday. Plus, the company worked in this style for almost two years with no issues.
The platform continues to provide the team freedom and flexibility to fully engage with one another, no matter where they’re located or what style of work they do. Now, meetings aren’t frustrating and time-consuming, but a chance to touch base and fully connect with internal and external individuals as if they were standing face to face.
“The high-quality video and voice help you feel like you’re in the same room during remote meetings, and that improves engagement and helps the team stay connected,” said DiMotta.
With the introduction of AI capabilities, Virtual Agents can provide faster, 24/7 updates that don’t require actual human interaction. Customers receive the help they need without having to wait in a queue for the next available agent or call back in the morning if trying to get answers outside of traditional hours of operation. This provides chances for more authentic interactions and upsell opportunities that may have been missed before.
On top of better employee and customer experience, all data now has extra layers of protection built in. The team can also have full reassurance that every detail is handled with care within the Webex platform, building reliability and client trust.
“Webex ensures that our data is secure and protected,” said DiMotta. “It’s not going to leak outside our four walls, so we can feel confident that our data is in a safe place. Security is baked in from the start, and the Webex team ensures that anything that’s inside of our tenant remains inside our tenant.”
Looking forward: What’s next for HD Supply?
Webex enabled HD Supply to overcome distributed workforce and collaboration challenges, but the partnership doesn’t end there. The team is excited to potentially deploy Webex Contact Center to further utilize AI and advanced technology to refine interactions and prepare the business for anything.
No matter what’s next for HD Supply, utilizing up-to-date systems will help the team take the next right steps — and Webex is excited to be there every step of the way.
“Cisco has shown us that they continually stay in front of how technology is evolving,” said DiMotta. “Future-proof in the workspace to me equals allowing us to work effectively in any condition. And Cisco developed solutions and products to make our work lives easier.”
Want to see the same types of benefits in your own organization? Contact our team today to streamline communication and improve your organization’s workflow.
The post Discover how Webex unified communication and management for HD Supply appeared first on Webex Blog.