"We had a ready-made switchboard in two hours! By then we had set up all the technical stuff, created call loops, all the steps in the IVR and read in all the IVRs that were needed. Two hours!"
Magnus Rodén
Senior IT Manager, Kicks
About the company
The Kicks cosmetics chain aims to be the Nordic leader in perfume and cosmetics. They offer beauty products in makeup, fragrance, skin and hair care.
The company has 2 000 employees, an extensive online presence and 250 stores in Sweden, Norway and Finland. The company has a net turnover of SEK 3 351 million (2019).
The challenge
Magnus Rodén, Senior IT Manager at Kicks, had long been tired of the company’s old switchboard. It was both expensive and complicated to manage. He was looking for a user-friendly communication solution for the entire company – a solution that was not limited by geography.
“We wanted one supplier, one system and one contract – for all our Nordic countries. And we got that with Telavox,” he says.
The solution
New gear in 2 hours instead of 6 days
The first thing Kicks did was to cancel its old switchboard solution for the company’s service desk. Magnus then set up the new switch himself together with Henrik Svedberg, Project Manager at Telavox.
“We had a ready-made switchboard in two hours! By then we had set up all the technical stuff, created call loops, all the steps in the IVR and read in all the IVRs that were needed. Two hours!”
Magnus notes that it means a huge saving in both time and money to be able to manage all parts of the switchboard yourself, without either waiting times or expensive consulting hours.
When Magnus realized how much resources it would free up to change systems, the choice to switch to Telavox was easy.
“Just for fun, I checked with our old supplier. They told me that the equivalent would take about 150 hours to create,” he says.
New numerical response in 2 minutes instead of 2 weeks
With Telavox, Kick’s service desk can now manage their switches themselves. This has resulted in lower costs, increased efficiency and much appreciated flexibility.
“In the past, we had to use our supplier to replace messages in the IVR, for example. It was expensive and it took time, often several weeks. Now our service desk can record their own messages in just a few minutes,” says Magnus.
He highlights a number of unreasonable situations that arise when you can’t control your own gear and voice responses without help. For example, you might want to record a message to promote a campaign.
“In the past, we had to book a studio. Each time it cost at least SEK 16,000 per message. But by the time the studio was available, the campaign was often already over,” says Magnus.
Today, all messages are recorded by a Kicks employee – a person who is also featured in the company’s advertising and is part of the brand.
“The old giants of the industry simply haven’t kept up. They are limited by being stuck in cumbersome legacy systems and cannot offer a good customer journey,” says Magnus.
"It's great to have one supplier for all the Nordic countries. It provides a uniform experience for both us and our customers."
Magnus Rodén
Senior IT Manager, Kicks
The result
Efficient with a Nordic-wide solution
With Telavox, Kicks has gained better control over both functions and costs.
“Both contracts and invoices are transparent and easy to understand. Today we can predict fixed costs for switchboard and telephony down to the last krona, which makes budgeting much easier,” says Magnus.
He is also very pleased with the decision to choose a common solution for the whole Nordic region.
“Today, we can make changes to the switchboard ourselves, move licenses and change the amount of data on employees’ surfing without any help, no matter what country they are in.”
A single platform for the whole of the Nordic region means that the whole company now works in the same way, using the same interface. This facilitates collaboration and makes it easy to route calls between offices in different countries.
“It’s incredibly nice to have the same supplier for all the Nordic countries. Everything is connected in the same product. It provides a uniform experience for both us and our customers.”
