Altitude uCI Revolutionises Email
Handling for 400 Magazines’
Subscription Services and Increases
Agent Productivity by 50%
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Dovetail Services
Dovetail Services is a subscriptions bureau representing
approximately 70 different publishers, handling
subscription services for over 400 magazine brands.
The contact centre provides different services such as
handling new subscriptions and dealing with enquiries.
Currently the contact centre provides these services
over the phone, by email and by mail.
The phone is king with an average of 20,000 calls a week followed by email with
15,000 emails a week. This almost doubles during the Christmas peak period.
Dovetail has been using Altitude uCI as their email handling solution since 2009.
“The secret to
Altitude’s success is in
its flexibility. It easily
adapts to our business
needs.”
Dominic Simmons,
Contact Centre
Dovetail Services
Manager
at
The problem and the solution selection
Dovetail’s email turnaround time was around 72 hours, and this situation was hindering their
competitive edge, hence the search for a new email handling tool.
From the new solution, the company was not only looking for faster email response times but also for
a powerful reporting capability which was virtually non-existent at the time.
Altitude Software was shortlisted with two other suppliers, and finally selected because of its ease of
use, flexibility and because it proved to be the most efficient in providing detailed reporting on all
different categories. Dovetail can now have detailed information on how the contact centre is handling
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emails and also filter the information by different indicators such as date, agent, publication and
publisher, as well as get crucial key performance metrics such as how quickly emails are answered.
Implementation
Customer Profile

“Dovetail is a unique entity, representing
multiple different brands, and Altitude was
very helpful in tailoring the system to our
specific needs.” Dominic Simmons, Contact
Centre Manager
Together with long-time partner CCT, the
implementation process was heavily focused on
customising the tool to Dovetail’s very specific
needs.
“We had the whole system tailored for Dovetail
specifically and that enabled us to do a lot
more” claims Lyndsay Bootes, Email Marketing



Dovetail Services is a subscription
services bureau representing 70
different publishers and over 400
magazine brands
Has been using Altitude uCI since 2009
Receives over a million calls per year
They service 2.4 million subscribers
Project Profile

Team Manager.

Dovetail Services needed a new email
handling solution that could provide
them with more flexibility and detailed
reporting.
The solution was highly customised to
fit Dovetail’s need to adapt to different
publications’ requirements.
Dovetail’s approach to this major change was to involve the entire team. This helped in two ways.
Firstly, by getting input from the people that use the tool daily and have to manage and report on the
results it is more likely that recurrent issues are addressed and solved right at the time of the
implementation process, avoiding tweaking and further customisation projects. Secondly, it worked as
a way of attenuating the resistance to change that always occurs when something new is replacing what
is already familiar to staff.
Altitude Software also worked with Dovetail’s IT department during the implementation process and
according to Lyndsay “Altitude’s Software services and assistance is really quick and supportive of our
own IT department. They worked well together.”
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3
Results
The first goal was quickly achieved having
email turnaround going from 72 hours to 24
actual hours, not working hours, with extra
room for improvement.
The company now aims to decrease response
time to 12 hours in some instances, and has
already done so with some customers for the
past 12 months.
The agent productivity rose by 50%, going from
12 emails an hour to 18 emails an hour per
agent on average.
“Altitude is a lot more efficient than the
system we had before. It gives us a lot more
details and options, and we can make it more
specific to fit with our job role.” Says Lyndsay
Bootes, Email Marketing Team Manager.
Business Benefits



50% agent productivity increase (from 12
to 18 emails answered per hour on
average)
Email turnaround decreased from 72
hours to 24 hours on average. (some
publications experience a 12 hour
turnaround already)
It takes only 10 minutes to train a new
agent to use Altitude uCI
Solution Profile



Altitude uCI used for email handling
Real time KPI’s and detailed reporting
Heavy solution customisation so that it
can be easily adapted to serve different
clients
The detailed reporting was one of the most desired features as it allows management to see how the
contact centre is performing, and agents to view their progression and work towards a target.
The contact centre management can now have a clear view on how the contact centre is performing
and provide exhaustive reports to their customers. These reports are greatly appreciated by the
publishers, as they can easily analyse the campaign progress and evaluate the service level provided to
their customers.
With Altitude uCI agents now have at their disposal, customised email templates and signatures for
each publisher, which greatly eases their job and gives them much more insight into what they need to
do. This is also reflected in the training time, which is as little as 10 minutes to get a new agent working
on Altitude uCI.
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The solution layout is another advantage pointed out by team managers, as it makes everything
available on a single page. Dominic points out that Altitude’s flexibility is a key feature for management
as it enables the contact centre to adapt to new issues and business needs, without the need to invest
more resources.
“Flexibility is Altitude’s biggest advantage, as well as the solutions that can be drawn up to solve
unique problems and challenges that arise. Altitude has been very resourceful in finding ways to help
us overcome these challenges without creating a lot of different rules and lots of different policies.
Probably the secret in its success is its flexibility to adapt as our business grows, evolves and develops,
and Altitude has certainly proved itself capable of doing that.” Says Dominic Simmons, Contact Centre
Manager.
Adrian Wright, account manager for Dovetail services claims that, “Dovetail Services is living proof of
Altitude’s uCI adaptability. Being a solution mostly used to handle voice it shows how powerful it can
be in multimedia channels as well. The capabilities Dovetail now has for email handling are far superior
than before and there is still room for improvement, so we will continue to work on that with them”.
Dovetail is currently running a proof of concept to implement web-chat with Altitude Software.
Video case study available on: http://www.youtube.com/altitudesoftware
Contacts
Dovetail Services
Altitude Software
Kent Science Park
Reading, UK
800 Guillat Avenue
Tel: +44 (0)1189 838 010
Sittingbourne ME9 8GU UK
www.altitude.com
Tel +44 0844 815 0855
[email protected]
www.dovetailservices.com
Email: [email protected]
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