How a brewer reduced customer calls by 93% with web self-service

Australia-based Carlton & United Breweries, best known for its Foster’s Lager, has moved 93% of customer inquiries to its web site since implementing a customer service and support product from RightNow Technologies Inc. nearly a year ago, the company reports.

“Prior to implementing RightNow, our consumer service team was being increasingly flooded with individual telephone requests for information at all our service centers across Australia,” Anne Tobin, Carlton & United’s consumer information center manager, says. “Our response to these requests needed greater national coordination and consistency. RightNow has allowed us to consolidate our consumer service function into one, national center in Melbourne.”

Carlton & United directs customers to web self-service and e-mail, when they have questions. RightNow’s self-learning technology automatically prioritizes information based on the frequency of its use to ensure that the most used and most useful information is most accessible to users. If customers can’t find the information they need, they may send an e-mail question that will receive an automated response almost immediately. “Because most people are helping themselves to information online, the team has more time available for those whose enquiries require the resources of a consumer service representative, ” Tobin says.

Carlton & United is also using RightNow’s eService Center technology to assist customers who call in.

Based in Bozeman, MT, RightNow has more than 1,000 customers worldwide, includiung Air New Zealand, Ben & Jerry`s, Briggs and Stratton, British Airways, Cisco, Dolby Laboratories Inc., Electronic Arts, Pioneer, Raymarine, Remington, Sanyo and Specialized Bicycles.