New dataforest hotline

Time for the next development step

With the announcement from our previous provider that the existing telephone system would be switched off in the foreseeable future, we had the opportunity to fundamentally modernize our hotline system. This gave us the opportunity to design various processes from scratch while making full use of current technical options.

When planning our new solution, we paid particular attention to flexibility when forwarding to mobile phones, improved organization of our 24/7 on-call service and greater independence when making system adjustments. In addition, we wanted to choose an established provider instead of taking over the operation ourselves. This ensures that we remain available to you in the event of disruptions to our infrastructure.

Innovative approaches instead of conventional solutions

Implementing a powerful hotline system is more technically demanding than you would initially expect. After thorough market analysis, we have opted for one of the most advanced telephone systems currently available. “Our goal was clear: We not only wanted to remain available around the clock in an emergency, but also to create real improvements for everyone involved,” explains Jens, who has mastered the planning and implementation of our new hotline solution.

“We need a solution that, despite continued strong growth of dataforest, provides our customers with a quality of support that is typically only common in the enterprise sector or for small companies and is often lost at some point during growth phases,” adds Tim L., managing director at dataforest.

Since avoiding endless queues was an important requirement for us, we were surprised at the response from many providers. Hotlines are usually deliberately implemented in such a way that a certain percentage of callers “give up”by placing them in a queue from which they won't be able to get out even if an employee is available on our site again. This approach was out of the question for us, so we had to be technically creative — with success.

Call group chains, which enable a much more flexible management of incoming calls, are therefore a core part of our new solution. These replace the classic queue concept and allow transfers to a variety of physical and virtual devices, which can be flexibly controlled by our employees themselves at any time.

A particular advantage of the new solution: Our employees now have significantly more flexibility when it comes to arranging their availability. They can decide for themselves when and on which devices they want to be available for calls. “What we now have is a system that brings tangible added value for both our employees and our customers — shorter waiting times, more flexible availability and overall more professional processing,” summarizes Jens.

Customer-focused improvements

For our customers, the new solution primarily means shorter effective waiting times. If all of our supporters are in conversation, (potentially “endless”) queues are now dispensed with and instead offered to leave a structured message, which is immediately forwarded to our support team. This is done during our business hours via a ticket and outside of these also via a direct notification of our readiness. We are clearly committed to calling back immediately if a call is missed — as an alternative, email contact is also available.

As part of this, we have implemented intelligent announcements that specifically guide our customers to the right solution for them. In this way, callers receive helpful information even before the call — for example on our status page in case of possible faults or on the ticket system for specific concerns. This saves everyone involved time and ensures that customers get the information they need more quickly.

Well-thought-out transition for seamless service

To ensure a smooth transition, we have introduced the new system in parallel with the existing one. The previous solution was still available as a fallback throughout the transition phase — with the aim that our customers would be as unaware of the changeover as possible and be able to reliably contact them at any time.

Extensive testing was particularly important to us, in particular of so-called “edge cases” — unusual or extreme scenarios that rarely occur but still need to be reliably covered, for example because they involve our 24/7 emergency support.

We are convinced that this change represents another important step towards keeping our service at the highest level and continuously improving it — in the interests of our customers and our team.

Important notice for our customers

As part of the changeover, the Essen telephone number (which has been out of date for many years and previously switched on as a forwarding) has finally been switched off. As usual, our current number can be found on our website.

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