Starwood Hotels moves to IP to improve customer service at its new global HQ contact centre in Ireland

Sabio deploys Avaya intelligent call-routing for 400 multi-lingual call centre agents

Goes live in just 16 hours, ensuring no downtime

London – 06 July, 2006 – Sabio, the innovative contact centre services and solutions company, has announced that Starwood Hotels, one of the world’s largest hotel and leisure companies, has deployed the Avaya IP telephony platform for its new Cork-based contact centre. The new solution will route calls from around the world to 400 multi-lingual, multi-skilled agents on the basis of their skills level and the call’s origin. This will enhance the call handling capabilities of the agents, ensuring Starwood Hotels delivers excellent and consistent customer service in line with its brand.

Agents at the new contact centre provide bookings services, customer information and advice on the frequent guest programme for Starwood Hotels’ 850+ hotels in over 80 countries around the world, including the St Regis, Sheraton and Westin brands. The company’s move to new offices was fully supported throughout and after deployment by Sabio’s team of contact centre consultancy and systems experts.

“We wanted to move offices to expand and improve our office environment and technology,” commented Cathy Mason, IT Manager, Starwood Hotels. “We turned to Sabio and they worked with us to design and implement an IP telephony platform to manage calls being routed through our global network. Sabio ensured we were able to achieve a smooth transition within a window of only 16 hours. The Sabio team ensured that the system was fully operational before our planned moving time – which was done during our downtime because we could not afford to have our operation shut down even for a single day.”

“The deployment by Sabio of the new Avaya IP telephony platform was seamless,” added Martine Willems, Telecoms Manager, Starwood Hotels. “Following the implementation, Sabio has been extremely reliable in providing us with consultancy and systems support when we have needed it, and this has ensured that we can maximise the benefits that we get out of the new platform.”

“Starwood Hotels’ move to new offices provided an opportunity to provide a better environment for their agents both aesthetically and technically. Sabio upgraded its systems to the latest Avaya IP telephony platform and moved 400 agents at the same time, all within a 16-hour window,” commented Adam Faulkner, Founding Director, Sabio. “We have helped Starwood make a significant step towards the global routing of call traffic through their network infrastructure, and locally to significantly improve the working environment of their agents with no impact on the customer base.”

The new IP telephony system for Starwood Hotels comprises: Avaya Communication Manager IP telephony software; Avaya S8700 Media Server.

About Starwood Hotels
Starwood is one of the world’s largest hotel and leisure companies. It conducts its hotel and leisure business both directly and through its subsidiaries. Its brand names include St Regis, The Luxury Collection, Le Meridien, Sheraton, Westin, W and Four Points by Sheraton. Through these brands it is well represented in most major markets around the world. Its operations re grouped into two business segments, hotel and vacation ownership operations.