Pieroth Wines reduces communications spend and increases call centre capacity with Azzurri

Sydney, Australia – 20 February 2013 - Pieroth Wines, a global leader in direct wine sales, chose Azzurri Communications to provide their managed services to improve the quality of customer service and reduce overall costs.

Pieroth Wines is a global leader in direct wine sales with operations in 20 countries worldwide. In business since 1675, with headquarters in Germany, the ‘direct’ business model started in 1953 and has now developed into the business of today. The Pieroth sales team operate across Australia providing quality personal in-home wine tastings.

Critical to the success and smooth running of the Pieroth business is their communications system. Pieroth felt they were falling behind in customer service capabilities with their incumbent system so it was imperative to find a new partner who understood their needs and business drivers and could make proactive recommendations, whilst providing better quality service at reduced costs.

After researching and shortlisting a number of providers, Pieroth selected Azzurri, and its comUnity service platform, because they demonstrated the best understanding of Pieroth’s requirements and the financial proposition was very compelling.

“Pieroth relies on sales orders coming into the office daily from our sales team and directly from clients so any downtime equates to lost business. We wanted a partner who understood our business and would take the initiative with our communications needs. Azzurri stood out from other potential providers because they quickly grasped what our objectives were, they are focused on quality customer service, and their proposal would save us money,” said Mr Bjoern Strassburger, Pieroth Wines, Director of Finance and Administration.

Jon Evans Azzurri Communications Managing Director added, “Many mid-size businesses in Australia are getting a poor return for their legacy voice and data services spend and paying more than they should. The alternative is a proven communications provider that can supply the latest and best technology as a fully managed service delivering significant cost savings and enhanced communication capabilities.”

New infrastructure and telephony platform modernise business

On Azzurri’s comUnity service platform Pieroth now has a fully managed WAN and firewall, a single telephony platform, and system-wide reporting tools. These system transformations have increased productivity across the business and reduced overall communications costs.

“We have reduced our costs by a third and the improvement in Customer Service is striking with the ability to manage workflows across the call centre and automatically route calls to interstate offices when capacity or time zones dictate. We’ve also greatly improved and simplified our outbound call reporting and staff have commented on the high voice quality experience,” said Strassburger.

“These significant cost savings and improved flexibility are delivered via Azzurri’s comUnity Voice service which enables companies to replace their legacy PSTN and PRI telephone line rentals with enterprise grade SIP voice services at a fraction of the cost,” said Evans.

With guaranteed 24/7 local support Pieroth also benefits from a lot less down time and if issues do arise they are resolved quickly and thoroughly. Based on the success of the new system Pieroth is now looking to roll out a live order and stock system for sales reps to efficiently place orders on site in customer’s homes which will greatly reduce order processing times and improve the customer experience.

“The feeling now within the business is that we have modern quality systems in place so the perception of Pieroth as a premium wine company is now the reality behind the scenes too,” said Strassburger.