RightNow® Saves Internet Movie Site Leader Fandango $500,000 By Slashing Call Volume Even As Business Grows Tenfold
Goals
- Bring rapidly escalating call volume under control
- Eliminate obstacles to online ticket purchases
- Keep technology ownership costs low
Achievements
- First-year payback estimated at more than $500,000
- 76 percent reduction in call volume in first 30 days of implementation
- 51 percent reduction in email volume
- Improved conversion rates
- Improved agent productivity
If you’re looking for numbers that dramatize the impact RightNow’s industry-leading customer service technology and proven best practices can have on a business, then Fandango is a great place to start. As one of the internet’s top movie sites, Fandango has experienced tremendous growth over the past few years. But that growth was sending its call center costs through the roof, cutting deeply into the company’s already-tight margins. So CIO Rick Butler looked around for a better way to provide customers with answers to their questions online—and found it in RightNow.
Within thirty days of deployment, call volume dropped a remarkable 76 percent. And it stayed down, even as website volume and revenue continued to grow. As a result, Fandango realized savings of more than $500,000 in the first year of its RightNow implementation. The company also realized many other benefits, including increased conversion rates, enhanced agent productivity and valuable feedback for improving the design of its high-traffic site.
Before implementing RightNow's customer service technology, Fandango had the typical page of static FAQs (frequently asked questions). It also used an offshore call center as a way to try and offset the costs generated by spiraling phone volume. Butler wanted to transition the call center to a domestic outsourcer, but knew the cost would be prohibitive with such high volume. It was therefore imperative to bring that volume down.
After spending a few months evaluating potential technologies and seeing what other online businesses were doing to address their customer service issues, Butler decided RightNow was the best CRM software solution on the market. “RightNow had all the features we were looking for and had a proven track record of success,” he recalls. “Its hosted delivery model also offered us the fastest implementation time and lowest ongoing cost of ownership.”
Butler’s assessment of RightNow's CRM software solution turned out to be on target. Implementation took just one week. And hosting was only part of the reason things went so smoothly. “The RightNow team that came onsite to help us get started was very professional and obviously had a wealth of experience doing this for many other companies,” says Butler. “So we were up and running with a very powerful online customer service system right away even though we had absolutely no expertise in the technology ourselves.”
The results were immediate and dramatic. With just 40 question/answer pairs in its new online knowledge base, Fandango’s call volume dropped by a remarkable 76 percent in the first thirty days. This tremendous reduction enabled Butler to make his move to a domestic outsourcer while still keeping his costs below earlier levels. And, while Fandango’s business has continued to grow nearly tenfold since then, the number of agents handling Fandango’s call traffic remains at 25 percent of its pre-RightNow headcount.
But call volume reduction isn’t the only benefit Fandango has enjoyed as a result of implementing RightNow. According to Butler, conversion rates have also climbed as customers can more easily complete their purchases, even if they need to get a question or two answered on the site in the process. Call center productivity has also improved, since even rookie agents can refer to the RightNow-powered online knowledge base in order to answer customers’ questions as quickly and accurately as veteran staff. And email volume has dropped more than 50 percent.
Another benefit is the improved feedback Fandango now receives via RightNow about its services and the design of its website. Using this feedback, Fandango has been able to make a wide range of improvements to increase customer satisfaction and support further business growth.
“With RightNow, we have much greater visibility into the day-to-day issues on our customers’ minds,” explains Butler. “By acting on this information, we have continuously improved the customer experience and can pinpoint new business opportunities.”
Fandango’s diligence in pursuing continuous improvement is highlighted by the fact that a mere one percent of customers using the knowledge base have to use the site’s web form to submit question for personal attention by a Fandango agent. Fandango has achieved this outstanding knowledge base effectiveness rate by adopting the best practices that RightNow promotes—such as consistently adding content to the knowledge base to respond to emerging customer service issues and tracking customers’ keyword searches to ensure that appropriate answers are available.
With over a half-million dollars saved and a greatly enhanced customer experience resulting from his decision to implement RightNow, Butler is obvious pleased with his choice. “RightNow has been a great partner since day one,” he says. “The combination of RightNow’s technology, RightNow’s hosting model and RightNow’s people have made a vitally important contribution to Fandango’s business success.”
Fandango Inc Support Site | Fandango Inc Homepage
About Fandango, Inc.
Fandango, the nation’s largest movie ticketing service, sells tickets to more than 13,000 screens and 1,150 theaters (nearly 70 percent of theaters in the U.S. are enabled for remote ticketing) and to four out of the five largest U.S. theater circuits (according to National Association of Theater Owners, June 2005). One of the Web’s top movie destinations (according to Nielsen/NetRatings), Fandango allows moviegoers to read reviews, view trailers, quickly select a film, plan where and when to see it, and buy tickets up to 45 days in advance. Fandango is available at www.fandango.com, 1-800-FANDANGO and via your wireless mobile device at mobile.fandango.com.
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