A world leader in sports merchandise, collectibles, and iGaming, Fanatics amplifies pride and connections. That means delivering unforgettable experiences every time fans buy its licensed products and memorabilia or bet through its digital platform.
Supporting its operations is a 22,000-person workforce and a global partner network of over 2,500 sports personalities, 900 properties, and 2,000 retail locations.
Keeping the fan experience on track is the job of more than 1,000 “athletes,” the Fanatics term for contact centre agents, worldwide. Many of these athletes are also passionate sports followers.
Together, they expertly handle several million annual contacts in nine different languages. Those conversations used to take place on different systems with calls handled by the Genesys Engage™ on-premises solution.
Challenges
“We loved the 99.999% uptime we got with Genesys Engage,” said Nigel Ponds, Senior Director, Global Resource Planning and Telephony at Fanatics.
“However, moving to the cloud offered greater flexibility for remote working and service enhancements, along with IT savings and the chance to consolidate different channels and solutions on one platform.”
A solid financial business case confirmed many reasons for moving from Genesys Engage to Genesys Cloud. “With everything factored in, we realized we could get a better tech stack with weekly feature releases and more capabilities for around 9% less spend,” said Ponds. “And that’s since proven to be the case.”
Greater IT efficiency was another challenge. Previously, standing up new sites and users relied on purchasing multiprotocol label switching circuits, which could take external providers up to 10 weeks to install. Handling contacts across multiple systems also caused inefficiencies.
Fanatics originally had three separate teams for calls, chats, and email. Middleware allowed some blended working, but routing errors still occurred, creating frustrations and inefficiencies.
Athlete engagement and resource management were additional concerns. The previous setup lacked tools to effectively handle workload spikes and ensure proper support for agents, especially during periods of high demand.
Solution
Fanatics transitioned from Genesys Engage to Genesys Cloud to address these challenges. “Now, with Genesys Cloud, most changes can be completed self-autonomously within 24 hours, without the need to buy extra IT kits,” said Diane Stephens, Lead Product Manager at Fanatics. “We’ve retired four legacy systems, further reducing cost and maintenance burden.”
On top of reducing IT infrastructure that generates carbon dioxide, an increased scope for home working is also contributing toward a greener operating model – eliminating the carbon footprint associated with regular commuting while lowering office electricity, heating, and air conditioning usage.
Moving from Genesys Engage has made it easier to develop multiskilled athletes. “We originally had three separate teams handling calls, chats, and email,” said Ponds.
“By adding middleware, we got some degree of blended working. However, the system would sometimes make mistakes routing contacts through to the wrong athlete. Those problems no longer exist with Genesys Cloud.”
Fanatics athletes can now meet fans on their preferred channels while efficiently managing all contacts through a single desktop interface – no matter which sport they want to discuss. “We climbed the learning curve real quick,” said Stephens.
“Genesys Professional Services did a great job with the cutover, building our IVR use cases, and deploying web chat. Issues are normally responded to within the hour. And they’re always opening our eyes to how Genesys products can do more. We just wish all our other vendors did the same.”
The Genesys Beyond learning subscription enabled Fanatics to develop certified in-house Genesys subject matter experts, maximizing IT training time and budget.
“Genesys Beyond is great, especially for career pathing,” said Ponds. “We encourage our team members to become Genesys Cloud-certified, which can benefit them here or in their next career move.”
Fanatics also leveraged the automation and AI-powered capabilities of Genesys Cloud Workforce Engagement Management (WEM). “The weekly updates are a marked improvement on workforce management with our old Genesys Engage solution,” said Ponds.
“Our team loves the Genesys Tempo app. They can now make work-life decisions from home, rather than sending an email every time they want to request time off or a shift change. We’re also able to set limits and place requests on waiting lists as well.”
Gamification tools were introduced, driving healthy competition among US and EMEA teams, and improving metrics like schedule adherence.
Genesys integrations also enhanced service personalization and fan experience. Tools like Thrive, Mindful Feedback, Email Wizard, and PureInsights streamlined workflows and improved agent well-being and operational visibility.
Results
Among the benefits realised by Fanatics since evolving to Genesys Cloud are a 13% fall in Average Handle Time (AHT) and an 8% rise in First Contact Resolution (FCR) – all while enabling a 9% financial savings.
Onboarding times have reduced by two days per new athlete. Automation through Genesys Cloud WEM forecasting and scheduling tools ensures Fanatics can correctly resource spikes in demand.
Athlete engagement has increased with features like automated time-off approval, gamification, and remote schedule viewing.
Triggered by analytics, Thrive injects 60-second clips of calming visuals, audio, and breathing prompts, significantly improving athlete well-being.
Mindful Feedback uncovers fan sentiment across multiple channels, while PureInsights provides supervisors with real-time stats and alerts to ensure smooth operations.
This blog post has been re-published by kind permission of Genesys – View the Original Article
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Author: Genesys
Reviewed by: Jo Robinson
Published On: 4th Dec 2024
Read more about - Industry News, Genesys