COUNTRY FOCUS: EAST COAST
When the COVID-19 pandemic
hit, Ohio-headquartered Cincinnati
Bell needed to rapidly enable its
employees to work from home. It
turned to Avaya and within three
weeks hundreds of its contact center
employees were safely working
remotely with the result that the
telecommunications company’s call
center was able to meet a call volume
increase of more than 50%.
Cincinnati Bell keeps
community connected
and protects employees
For more than 145 years, the
residents of Ohio, Kentucky and
Indiana have relied on Cincinnati
Bell, to keep them connected.
Founded in 1873, the company has been
around as long as the telephone itself.
How does an organization not only
survive, but thrive, across multiple
centuries? Reinvention and near-constant
evolution. It’s in Cincinnati Bell’s DNA.
When the World Health Organization
declared COVID-19, the illness caused
by the novel Coronavirus, a pandemic,
Cincinnati Bell’s culture of innovation
was crucial to its swift and effective response.
As Christina Neises, Vice President of Contact
Center Operations for Cincinnati Bell,
explains the company was battling this new
enemy on two fronts.
“The safety of our contact center employees
was paramount. We knew we needed to
enable them to work remotely to allow for
social distancing,” she said. “At the same
time, our call volume increased by more
than 50%, compounding our staffing issue.
We were in a situation of ‘figure it out, and
figure it out yesterday.’ And that’s exactly
what we did.”
Neises turned to long-time partner Avaya for
a stable and reliable solution that could be
implemented quickly and cost effectively. As
a result, the company’s staffing levels were
normalized by week three.
Navigating a Crisis Ohio’s stay-at-home
order caused a surge in subscribers seeking
help to connect at home – whether for
work, school or entertainment. A Cincinnati
Bell survey conducted during that period
revealed that a surprising 35% of new
residential Internet customers didn’t have
a service provider prior to the pandemic.
On the business side, Cincinnati Bell saw
increased demand for bandwidth upgrades.
“We have great relationships with Avaya and
our partner STARTEK, and we said ‘this is the
time where we need you,’” recounts Neises.
“The teams from both companies came
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