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Bilia Instant Contact - A fast and convenient way to contact car sales

Bilia and Lekane announce an innovative way to serve web customers and streamline contacts

Bilia Oy Ab and Lekane Oy announce a jointly developed new and innovative service for contacting sales. Bilia aims to make web based business easy and straightforward for the consumer. Aligned with this goal, Bilia deploys TalkNow solution by the mobile software company Lekane on Bilia’s used car website.

A customer looking for a used car can now do business with Bilia easier and faster.
When the customer finds a car he likes on www.bilia.fi used car search, the contact with a car sales person is created without delay by the TalkNow-solution. All the customer needs to do is to enter his phone number, and Bilia’s sales representative will call him right away. The customer can also see if sales people are available, and after having entered his phone number, he is shown who will call him.

Bilia takes customer centricity to a new level with Lekane technology. “Web business grows continuously, and we want to make it as easy and fast as possible for our customers. Lekane’s technological expertise and understanding of our services has made the co-operation straightforward and fruitful.” says Bilia CEO, Mikael Malmsten.

Lekane CEO Aarne Ylä-Rotiala: “Bilia is a clear front-runner in service innovation development and deployment. Customer service is extended throughout the business. The natural contact between the expertise in the business and the customer creates a competitive edge. Like other Lekane customers, Bilia focuses on customer service and responding to customer expectations during every service situation and contact.”

Bilia Oy Ab operates in Helsinki metropolitan area, and is Finland’s largest Volvo and Renault dealer. Bilia concentrates in active and customer-centered service. New challenges in automotive industry are exciting opportunities for Bilia. Bilia has a mission to lead and develop car industry’s customer service.

Lekane is an innovative company developing mobile solutions for customer service. Lekane solutions open new customer service channels for businesses by introducing essential customer information to the communications systems of the business. Lekane acts in close co-operation with the world-leading customer service and contact center software provider Genesys. Lekane solutions scale for small and large business alike, with carrier customers such as TeliaSonera and retail outlets.

Finnish press release: Bilia Pikayhteys - nopea ja vaivaton yhteys automyyjään

Lekane was selected along with AT&T, BT and UniCredit from more than 500 applicants as a recipient of the third annual Genesys Customer Innovation Awards. The awards program is designed to recognize the world’s most innovative customer service organizations. This year’s theme was to recognize companies that provide excellent customer service through the innovative use of technology in highly dynamic environments.

Presenting to a panel of independent analyst judges at the Genesys Analyst Conference in San Francisco, Lekane described how to utilise mobility to deliver excellent customer service. The presentation detailed how Lekane helps organizations drive down the cost of delivering expert advice to their key customers. This is achieved by utilising mobility to connect the existing expertise of their organisation to their customer service channels.

“Mobility has happened. It is a strategic asset to gain competitive advantage”, said Petri Pellinen, founder and CTO of Lekane. “With our solution we enable the entire organization to act as a customer service asset. The people that should be reached to serve your key customers are not going to be sitting at their desks with a headset. To create excellent customer service you can either train your contact center to be experts or you can use your existing experts as a strategic resource for customer service. With a mobile solution you can deploy the solution quickly and in a cost effective manner using the existing mobile capabilities.”

Describing the success that TeliaSonera has achieved using Lekane’s solution to support their mobile telephony core network, Mr Aarne Ylä-Rotiala, CEO of Lekane, explained “By utilising Lekane Mobile Contact Center, TeliaSonera has achieved significant improvements in communication between their network operations experts, and the field maintenance staff”.

Please see our benefits and case studies for more information on utilising your experts as a strategic resource.

For more information, please also see the Genesys press release on the Customer Innovation Awards.

Lekane TalkNow is an innovative product that streamlines customer service for your key customers.

Whilst online, key customers can see the availability of their account manager and request to speak to them immediately. The account manager receives a popup on their mobile phone with the customer information and what they are looking at online. The account manager can then call back to the customer and quickly deal with their enquiry.

TalkNow Demonstration

A live demonstration of TalkNow is available on the front page of our website. The telephone image shows our availability as green if at least one of our staff is available to call you back, or red if we are currently busy.

Please enter your phone number (and any extra details) and press the Go button to send a call request direct to the staff members mobile phone.

The latest release of Lekane’s solution to connect customers with experts expands device support and offers enhanced administration capabilities.

BlackBerry™ support
The Lekane Mobile Contact Center (MCC) solution now supports BlackBerry™ smartphones, allowing enterprises that have standardized on BlackBerry™ to enjoy the benefits of utilizing the expertise within their organization to serve their customers better.

Lekane’s solution can be deployed out of the box against an existing BlackBerry Enterprise Server. Alternately, Lekane MCC can be easily deployed to support BlackBerrys configured with an Internet service. With both deployment channels supported, Lekane’s product can be installed with minimal effort.

Windows Mobile device support
Lekane Mobile Contact Center client is also in beta testing for a number of devices running on Windows Mobile 2003 as well as Windows Mobile 5 and 6. Users benefit from a consistent user experience and branding independent of device.

Enhanced device support
Lekane Mobile Contact Center client has expanded its supported device range to include the latest Nokia E and N series devices, including the Nokia E90 Communicator with dual screen support.

Enhanced administration capabilities
Lekane introduces tools to simplify management of client installations. Using a web based application you can now see the status of your Lekane environment at a single glance. You can rapidly deploy Lekane clients to your employees to tap the talent of your entire organization where it really makes a difference: enhancing the customer experience.

Lekane offers relevant contextual information on incoming calls, to allow your employees to respond appropriately. The dynamic Mobile Contact Center can be customized on a per call basis so that essential facts can be delivered to a mobile device.

Lekane has been accepted into the exclusive BornGlobal™ program that is financed by Tekes and run by Technopolis Ventures. BornGlobal™ is a program that offers internationalization services for growth companies. Program members are able to enjoy a global network of services that help grow market presence and identify partners and customers around the world.

“We are excited to get this opportunity to further accelerate our expansion efforts. BornGlobal™ is a natural fit for Lekane at this stage and will help us strengthen our foothold in European and Asian markets.” says Mr Aarne Ylä-Rotiala, CEO of Lekane.

Lekane CEO Aarne Ylä-Rotiala is giving a key note presentation at the annual Contact Center and Helpdesk conference Yhteys 2007 in Helsinki, Finland on August 30th.

Mr Ylä-Rotiala’s speech addresses the expansion of the customer service interface deeper into corporations. A customer only needs to speak to one person if that person has the correct expertise. There is untapped potential outside the contact center to serve customers. The same experts that could deliver a superior customer experience would also benefit from better understanding of the customers’ needs. With current mobile technology contact center quality and measurability can be extended to all customer interactions driving up revenues and customer satisfaction.

TeliaSonera in Finland becomes first production site to implement mobile contact center with Lekane

LONDON, June 6, 2007 - Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc., an Alcatel-Lucent company (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU), and Lekane today announced a major technology breakthrough that extends the contact center to reach mobile and field service staff, while managing their availability and presence. Finnish-based Lekane has leveraged the Genesys suite to create a small, lightweight Java-based agent desktop that confirms the presence and availability of field service personnel and enables a centralized contact center to easily transfer customer inquiries when appropriate. The software is significant because it enables contractors, back office workers, and branch experts who may not be on a centralized system to tie into the main contact center, with virtually no significant investment in new telephony systems.

Lekane’s software, unveiled at Genesys’ annual G-Force London conference (June 4-6), enables a wide range of contractors, subcontractors, and employees in the field to answer customer inquiries. One of the first implementations of the mobile contact center is already underway at the telecommunications company, TeliaSonera, in Finland. The solution is an application that enables mobile employees to execute key customer service tasks while on the move.

Using a mobile device, remote workers or staff currently out of the office can become part of the contact center, empowered for both inbound and outbound interactions, with wireless access to the Genesys contact center along with all customer data. Remote agents have the ability to preview on their mobile phone who is calling and why before connecting to the call. Once the call is complete, any new data the agent puts into the mobile device can be sent back to Genesys reporting for further business analysis.

“For Genesys this is the natural extension of our strategy to increase the flexibility of customer service for both businesses and customers. It extends the concept of the Dynamic contact enter to the mobile arena and further extends customer service outside of the classic contact center,” said Wes Hayden, president and CEO, Genesys. “This flexibility will mean major cost reductions to businesses through optimizing the activity of staff who need to communicate with customers but are also often on the move. It will provide customers with speedier service and more likelihood of first call resolution through having the right expert available to deal with their request.”

There has already been great interest in this application and TeliaSonera have successfully completed an installation with the network operators that maintain the 2G & 3G networks equipped with the solution. The operators are constantly on the move, visiting operations and ensuring the network is running properly. They also provide technical support to field maintenance staff. With the new solution the network operators do not need to be in the central office to take calls and make changes. All this can now be done on the move meaning both cost reductions and improvement in service.

“In our previous setup a call might have needed to be processed by five people but now, with the Genesys and Lekane mobile solution, the call can be delivered directly to the right expert,” said Mikko Raitio, Senior Corporate Manager at TeliaSonera. “It also improves the flexibility of working hours, for example during the weekends the backup shift can now be remotely handled from home. The project has created a myriad of ideas on how we can apply the mobile contact center in our customer service.”

“Mobility and the expanded contact center provided by Genesys and Lekane makes customer service significantly more efficient - the right people can be enabled to help the customer as efficiently as possible. There are no lost opportunities, as calls are offered to those who can add the best value to the interaction,” said Aarne Ylä-Rotiala, CEO of Lekane. “This solution is suitable for all companies who have expert workers who are on the move but still need to be available to communicate with customers - from insurance brokers to field technicians.”

About Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.
Genesys, an Alcatel-Lucent company, is the only company that focuses 100% on software to manage customer interactions over the phone, web and in e-mail. The Genesys software suite dynamically connects customers with the right resources - self-service or assisted-service - to fulfill customer requests, optimize customer care goals and efficiently use resources. Genesys software directs more than 100 million customer interactions every day for 4,000 companies and government agencies in 80 countries. These companies and agencies can leverage their entire organization, from the contact center to the back office, to improve the overall customer experience. As a result, Genesys helps stop customer frustration, drive efficiency, and accelerate business innovation. For more information, go to www.genesyslab.com or visit the industry blog at www.betterinteractions.com

About Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) provides solutions that enable service providers, enterprises and governments worldwide, to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. As a leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications, and services, Alcatel-Lucent offers the end-to-end solutions that enable compelling communications services for people at home, at work and on the move. With operations in more than 130 countries, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach. The company has the most experienced global services team in the industry, and one of the largest research, technology and innovation organizations in the telecommunications industry. Alcatel-Lucent achieved adjusted proforma revenues of Euro 18.3 billion in 2006 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. [All figures exclude impact of activities transferred to Thales]. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

About TeliaSonera
TeliaSonera is the leading telecommunications company in the Nordic and Baltic region, with strong positions within mobile communications in Eurasia, Turkey and Russia. At the end of 2006, TeliaSonera launched mobile services in Spain. We provide reliable, innovative and easy-to-use services for transferring and packaging voice, images, data, information, transactions and entertainment. In 2006, TeliaSonera’s net sales amounted to SEK 91 billion, and at the end of March 2007 the total number of customers exceeded 100 million in 15 countries. The TeliaSonera share is listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange and the Helsinki Stock Exchange, and the company is included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. Simplicity and service are important tools for us in creating profitable growth and value for our customers and shareholders. Read more at www.teliasonera.com.

About Lekane
Lekane produces software to enable superior customer service and drive sales effectiveness by mobilizing and expanding the contact center solution. Lekane has extensive experience in the communications and IT industry and are a Genesys InterWorks partner. For more information, go to www.lekane.com

Media Contact:
David Radoff, Genesys, 650.466.1078, dradoff@genesyslab.com
Lekane contact: Aarne Ylä-Rotiala, +358 40 8443355, aarne.yla-rotiala@lekane.com

Lekane will be presenting a live demonstration of the Mobile Contact Center at G-Force 2007 London. Please stop by for a chat to find out more about this exciting product.

Petri Pellinen, CTO and co-founder of Lekane will be presenting Lekane’s innovative technology at G-Force 2007 San Diego. Drop by the “Innovate. BEYOND with Genesys” booth to see our mobile solutions in action.

Rob Winder, VP Technology Strategy at Genesys, wrote about us in his blog .

The first mobile CC using Genesys & Lekane

February 5, 2007

I’ve been working with a new company called Lekane for the past 12 months. A group of smart people in Finland, plus the brains behind the operation: a British guy, got together to develop a mobile client for Genesys.

Using this client on a mobile device remote workers can now become part of the contact center receiving both inbound interactions from Genesys along with the data that accompanies the call. Remote agents using this solution have the ability to preview on their mobile phone who is calling and why before choosing to accept the call. Once the call is complete any new data attached at the mobile device can be sent back to Genesys reporting for further business analysis.

There has already been great interest in this application and a first customer has been piloting the solution. A mobile phone network provider has equipped the network operators that maintain the 2G & 3G networks with this solution. They are on the move, constantly visiting operations and ensuring the network is running, they also provide technical support to field maintenance staff. Until this point, being mobile and answering the support calls has been an exercise in juggling between running the network and sitting at the desk.

Now they can be available for support calls while they do their “real” job of running the network. Less stress for them and better support availability for their customers.

At a recent training event the users of the system gate these fantastic quotes:

“Finally we have the tools that let us do our job with minimal hassle”
“Customers are going to get SO much better service now”

Of course, once people start using a new system there are plenty of suggestions with group managers wanting information from CC Pulse on a mobile device!

During the training with the users an actual production call request overflowed to our training queue, making this call the first production mobile contact center call. Apparently the expression on the guy’s face who answered the call should’ve been captured for history! It’s a pity someone didn’t think to take a photo with their camera phone.

There have been many people involved in this from Genesys and Lekane, this team together has created a unique and very interesting solution. Congratulations to the team!