As this country's division of the world's fastest-growing automaker, KIA Canada is experiencing rapid growth of its own. The company offers a full range of vehicles, from economy, compact, family and luxury automobiles, to SUVs and minivans. And like every other automaker, KIA has to satisfy two very different markets: the people who purchase the company's vehicles and the dealers who sell them.

To provide the ultimate in satisfaction to its end users, KIA Canada offers what it calls Total Care Coverage, which includes an outstanding comprehensive warranty and roadside assistance at no additional charge. To ensure that KIA dealers have the parts and technical support they need, KIA Canada recently established a primary parts distribution centre operating out of a completely new warehouse at its head office in Mississauga, Ontario.

From the ground up

With the new warehouse under construction, KIA Canada's MIS department realized that they had a unique opportunity. The company needed a new communication solution, while the new building required both a data network and a contact centre implementation.

"It gave us the opportunity to look at changing our infrastructure and kicking up the back end a notch," says Donald Knowles, KIA Canada's MIS Manager. "We wanted to increase our capabilities and introduce functionality that just wasn't available to us with the old system."

KIA was particularly impressed with CISCO IP solutions for voice communications, but initially thought they would be too expensive. Then they began talking to TELUS. "TELUS was able to supply the CISCO solutions we needed, within our price range," says Knowles. But TELUS didn't stop at just providing the voice products KIA wanted.

TELUS created a completely new solution for KIA that enabled unprecedented levels of collaboration across the company. The solution includes:

• a new local area network
• a new IP phone switch with full voice mail capabilities
• a Cisco IP Contact Centre solution
• IP phones and wireless access points throughout the building
• tight security

Wireless freedom

Now, when dealers call KIA's warehouse, an Interactive Voice Response system greets them. Coupled with skills-based routing, this system ensures that each dealer reaches the person most qualified to help them with that particular request, as quickly as possible. And wireless Cisco IP phones enable warehouse personnel to take calls, no matter where they are.

Employees who staff the technical hotline desk are also equipped with wireless phones, ensuring that dealers can get support whenever they need it, no matter where the employees are in the building. Plus, if an employee needs to physically check any stock while on a call, they can move around the building without hanging up.

The benefits of wireless don't stop there. Parts pickers use wireless scanners, ensuring that inventories are kept up to date in real time. And other staff members who have wireless capabilities on their laptop computers can connect to the network whenever they need to, wherever they are in the building. In fact, just about every device used in the warehouse is now discretely addressable. "It's allowed us to do away with a lot of paper and speed up our processes," says Knowles.

Top grade reports

For Knowles, one of the most important benefits of the Cisco IP Contact Centre solution is its reporting capabilities. "We can now pull off reporting on call centre status whenever we need it. We can see hang-ups, unanswered calls and any other stats we need, allowing us to manage our resources more effectively."

KIA Canada is also in the process of introducing computer telephony integration to its contact centre solution. Soon, when a dealer calls, their caller ID will call up a screen displaying full information from that dealer's file. As a result, the person taking the call will have an instant, real-time picture of the dealer's activities and will be better able to provide the answers, service and parts the dealer needs.

Facilitating the handover

With so many different needs being addressed simultaneously, the KIA installation was naturally complicated. "There were a lot of things going on," says Knowles. "We had to bring up the Cisco IP Call Centre, the Unity Voice Mail system and more. We started some CTI and a lot of IVR. We spent hours getting down to the nitty gritties."

However the plan from the outset was for KIA Canada's own network personnel to take over the day-to-day management of the new solutions. They had to be ready when TELUS moved out. "Our network guys worked with the TELUS team to understand everything. They shadowed TELUS throughout the set up and they are now able to take it over and run with it." All in all, Knowles has been impressed with TELUS. "They are very professional and solid. They provided very good project management, great teamwork and real team dedication."