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VEGAS.com Bets on IP Telephony, Hits Jackpot of Higher Agent Efficiency and Revenue

"After implementing the SOS contact center solution, our revenue per agent increased to record breaking levels, while our efficiency increased to allow us to handle more activities with fewer agents on staff. And honestly, we are probably only utilizing 40% of the system's capacity" Rob Cate, Director of Contact Center Operations

Overview More than 60,000 visitors a day plan and book their Las Vegas trips through VEGAS.com. The official Vegas travel site is a one-stop source for hotel reservations, vacation packages, tours, show tickets, restaurant reservations, car rentals, golf tee times and more. Located in Henderson, Nevada, VEGAS.com was launched in 1998 and is owned by the Greenspun family, which has significant interests in the media, communication, real estate and gaming industries. In addition, the family is partners with Cox Communications of Las Vegas and Landmark Communications in a 24-hour local, all-news cable channel.

Challenge With nearly 2 million unique visitors per month, VEGAS.com is the largest city travel and tourism website in the world. Traditionally, VEGAS.com agents interacted with travelers via phone or via the website to book hotel rooms, flights, schedule tours, get show tickets, or arrange tee times for golf. Unfortunately, VEGAS.com agents had an unreliable phone system.

"We had a contact center in place that required us to overstaff at egregious levels," said Rob Cate, director of contact center operations. "VEGAS.com realized it may have been missing out on as many as 2,000 calls a day. Each missed call was a missed revenue opportunity."

Moreover, VEGAS.com needed real-time business intelligence. The company wanted to know who its customers were, where they were coming from, how often they responded to calls and what it all cost per agent per call. The agents needed the flexibility to up-sell, cross-sell, and build traffic.

One thing was certain - VEGAS.com didn't want to gamble with its customers' loyalty. VEGAS.com placed its bet on investing in the upgrade of its contact center.

Solution "SOS helped VEGAS.com open up new revenue streams to make their services that much more available for anyone regardless of their communication method" said Cate. "Our customers can now contact agents through voice communication, fax, email, voice messages, recordings, and much more through one multi-media solution. Our next customer facing phases include live agent interactions from the Web, automated responses, and screen pops from our new custom build CRM application." Cate indicated that the future plans of a comprehensive customer interaction solution are designed. A fully integrated contact center is scheduled for completion in 2006.

Cate noted that from the initial contact, SOS took a consultative approach. SOS first asked about VEGAS.com's business philosophy and key areas where there seemed to be deficiencies. Only then did SOS propose the best solutions to match those communications challenges. SOS recommended a phased approach, which allowed VEGAS.com to implement a reliable call center, and then judge its efficiency. The center provides extensive real-time and historical information to Cate's team, when and where needed.

Phase two allowed VEGAS.com to integrate e-mail, fax, call recording, and voice message queuing with its new phone system. Phase three will enable real-time business intelligence feature and call control through CTI (computer telephony integration), Integrated Web Services (Web Chat), and automated response services to their multi-media contact center. Before they even pick up the call, the agents already will have information at their fingertips, such as who is calling, the time of the call, and purchase history.

According to Cate, this type of intelligence helped him significantly reduce agent errors. "Before CTI, the customers' word was the end all be all. If they said the agent booked the wrong date, we had no recourse. Now we can pull up the information immediately, see the interaction, and email an audio recording of the call to the customer. We've reduced our monthly agent errors by 80 percent."

Phase four will further improve VEGAS.com's ability to proactively manage customer relationships using its integrated customer response system. With the new open standards-based system, VEGAS.com's exceptional customer relationship management will help it continue to stand out from the competition.

Thriving businesses like VEGAS.com want to interact with customers in multiple ways (inbound calls, web chats, and auto-email response) and integrate with a customer relationship management application. There is more than one way to get that result, but often it takes a lot of boxes, different servers, and applications running on different operating systems. That creates a lot of hassles. SOS is a one-stop shop offering a unified platform from a single management console.

About VEGAS.com VEGAS.com is the No. 1 destination travel site in the world. VEGAS.com features extensive, constantly updated information for travelers to Vegas, and provides a full range of travel products including hotel rooms, air-hotel packages, show tickets, tours and golf. The site also offers exclusive inventory and products such as dining reservations and front-of-the-line nightclub passes. VEGAS.com operates Casino Travel & Tours, with 26 retail and concierge desk locations throughout the city at locations including the Palms, Paris, MGM Grand, Bally's, Mandalay Bay, Excalibur, New York-New York, Luxor and Stardust. Casino Travel & Tours also offers city tours, limousine service, as well as tours to the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon. VEGAS.com is a member of the Greenspun Family of Companies, a privately owned company operating in Southern Nevada for more than 60 years.

About SOS SOS helps organizations choose and use advanced communications technology to serve customers better, work smarter, and increase profits. SOS is a nationwide expert in voice and data solutions for business, including Voice over IP (VoIP). Since 1992, hundreds of businesses have chosen the SOS team for IP communications, call center technology, and network security solutions.

Clients can experience 100% return on investment in 6 to 36 months from SOS's simple, smart, secure technology solutions. In 2006 SOS was recognized yet again by the Sacramento Business Journal as one of the fastest growing companies in the region, a distinction SOS also earned in 2001, 1997, 1996, and 1995; named a Baby Blue Chip company by Prosper magazine, meaning SOS is one of the 10 area companies showing the most economic potential for 2007; and awarded the highest distinction within Cisco Systems' Channel Partner Program.

SOS shares its expertise through 20 free tools at its website. "Secrets of the Pros: the SOS IP Communications Checklist," a business brief written for executives at midsize and small companies telling how to evaluate and implement business VoIP, is one of the most popular downloads.

SOS is headquartered near Sacramento in Loomis, California. For more information, visit the Company's website at www.team-sos.com or call 916-632-8800 x 1711.