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Lyris Inc.

The Client
Lyris, Inc., (OTCBB:LYRI.OB) is a leading marketing technology company that provides hosted and installed software solutions for marketers at mid-size businesses.  Over the past few years, Lyris Inc., (under its former name, J.L. Halsey) acquired four companies – Lyris Technologies, ClickTracks, EmailLabs and HotBanana – and worked to consolidate the operations and the various marketing solutions of its four acquisitions into a single integrated company.  As a result, the company recently launched Lyris HQ – the only product to give marketers a centralized place from which to manage email marketing, Web analytics, Web content management and PPC campaign management, with one vendor, one bill and one source for customer support. 

The Challenge
The combined companies faced multiple challenges as they sought to integrate capabilities in a swiftly changing business environment:

1. Upgrading legacy systems – Each new Lyris division brought with it legacy IVR and ACD systems, making it nearly impossible to exchange information or technical support in a way that was seamless for customers.
2. Fast deployment – As a high-growth company with immediate integration and service expansion needs, Lyris sought a hosted solution that could be deployed quickly.
3. Reshaping service and support models – As an on-demand solutions provider with a full complement of consulting and software products, it was mission critical at Lyris to ensure every customer would reach the right expert at the right time. In addition, Lyris sought real-time access to key support data so the company could respond to customer service call volume in real time – to make sure wait times remain low and company resource management is cost-effective and efficient. 

 The Solution

Upgrading legacy systems to better manage information
Angel.com offered a fully integrated and comprehensive hosted IVR solution to address its service requirements and integration challenges and keep pace with the company’s rapidly expanding service and product offerings.  It eliminated the complexity of using disparate technologies and hardware systems, enabling Lyris to easily and cost-effectively integrate each division and share data, enabling Lyris to be more responsive and more effectively manage customer inquiries.

“With Angel.com we can respond to our customers faster and more efficiently,” said Jeff Book, senior manager of service programs for Lyris, Inc.  “It was critical that we bring all customer service operations into one overarching system.  Angel.com offers a solution that can keep pace with our continued expansion, to make sure our customers are always taken care of as rapidly as possible.” 

Integration of customer information
To enhance customer self-service and improve its overall level of support, Lyris also took advantage of Angel.com’s integration capabilities by tying its IVR solution with Angel.com’s SupportByFone application. With SupportByFone, Lyris customers can indicate the Salesforce.com support case they are calling about, and information from the case is automatically presented to the technical support engineer – enhancing the data and information provided to the support team while reducing the time required to resolve the customer issue or request.

Fast Deployment
Using a combination of the Angel.com Site Builder interface and Angel.com’s client services team for IVR design expertise and consulting,  Lyris was able to build and deploy the system with a pilot support team in less then 30 days.  The Lyris team continued to enhance the system as the team extended the implementation across the entire support organization – building on the quality and level of sophistication as they went.

In addition, the Angel.com solution enables callers to be transferred to a Lyris agent with the specific skills and customer knowledge to provide service.  This ‘smart routing’ enhances the efficiency of the agents and increases the customer experience. 

“SupportByFone from Angel.com serves as our ACD system, and it is an absolute must for what we do,” said Book. “We have products launching and updating constantly, so the ability to perform call routing based on the skillset of our agents is critical to our promise of providing peerless customer support.”

The Results
Book says that under the new system, Lyris Technical Support has been able to significantly reduce call wait times, and increase customer satisfaction and responsiveness.  

“The savings in time and money we experienced with Angel.com’s hosted solution were immediate and dramatic,” said Book. “But equally important measures, such as SLA response time and resolution success percentage, have also improved. We aim to be the industry leader in our level of expertise and service, and Angel.com is a big part of helping us get there.”