It may not be the sexiest thing in retailing, but the selling of car and truck radiators is proving to be one of the most recession-proof businesses in the country. “It’s not one of those parts that you can wait to have repaired,” says Mike Carvalho, chief technology officer of Radiator Express. With customer service now a key differentiator in sales and marketing, however, even the best economic conditions and escalating demand won’t make up for a phone system that allows customer orders to fall through the cracks.

This was the scenario facing the Benicia, Calif.-based franchisor, which has been successfully serving the radiator and auto parts market for nearly 25 years. The company’s rapid growth in sales resulted in an expanding network, which now consists of 220 franchisees across the country. But growth also put a severe strain on call data capacity.

“Basically, we distribute products from the manufacturers to our customers, who are made up of automotive body shops, parts stores and dealerships,” Carvalho says. “They are the ones that order through our toll-free numbers, and we can usually deliver to them within two hours.”
While the company has a growing retail component generated through its website and online auctions, the bulk of Radiator Express’s sales come via the telephone. “When calls come into our toll-free lines they are routed to franchisees,” Carvalho says. The territories and boundaries of each franchisee are determined by ZIP code.

This system became one of the company’s biggest challenges as its network continued to expand. As recently as January 2007, “we were doing our own phone systems in house using a product provided to us by MCI,” Carvalho says. But area codes and ZIP codes don’t necessarily correspond neatly to one another. “The result was that in large metro areas like Chicago we had franchisees whose borders came together or overlapped and who sometimes shared area codes,” he says.

Consequently, the number of calls going to the incorrect franchisee was increasing. “The problem was simply a lack of accuracy,” says Brian McNichols, network manager for Radiator Express.

At that point, the company was receiving about 11,000 calls per day through its main toll-free number and about 75 secondary lines (the secondary numbers align with advertisements for ROI tracking purposes).
Identifying incoming calls by area code and prefix “was about as granular as we could get,” McNichols says. “The downside was that the same area code and prefix combination could exist in two different ZIP codes with different franchisees. We basically had to default one way or another.”

Radiator Express then created “exception tables” that would automatically route calls when a specific number came up. “The problem was with our large wholesale customers,” McNichols says. “Every time they added a new telephone number or moved or changed a number, it became an exception. The situation became even more complex with the addition of new franchises.

Routing solution
Qwest, the company’s carrier, suggested that Radiator Express investigate a solution offered by AdGeo, a St. Louis-based company specializing in call routing, tracking and reporting and data mining systems. It did, and the switch to AdGeo was fully integrated in June 2007.

“There were some issues to work through, such as misconfigurations on the initial set-up which impacted routing of some calls,” Carvalho says. “But the AdGeo team did everything they could to make the switchover as painless as possible. It was basically a matter of developing standard operating procedures such as the update process.”

Labor hours and return on investment were not the main reasons for adopting the AdGeo system. “What I’m spending now is probably equal to the manpower I lost,” Carvalho says, “but the level of service I’m getting is much higher. We are getting more calls to the right people.

“Some franchisees still get misrouted calls, but it seldom has to do with the way the system is configured,” he says. “It has to do with local telephone companies, cell phones, blocked calls and caller ID.” Still, “at the very least, even misrouted calls get answered by someone.”

Another advantage is AdGeo’s SmartGlSnet analysis tool, which displays the various call-routing network components, demographic data and plotted call data in addition to ZIP code boundaries. Basically, it is a geospatial reporting system and visualization tool that enables companies to determine who is calling and where the calls are originating.

“The reporting allows us to track call volumes and enables us to do different operational things,” McNichols says. “A lot of people make a lot of blanket statements, but the information AdGeo has given us helps us get down to the real details so we can move past assumptions.”

Radiator Express also is working with AdGeo on other services. “One of the big things they’ve done for us is build a disaster-recovery solution,” McNichols says. “For example, if something happens to our call center in California, they can implement a disaster plan and do a percentage-based call allocation to all our franchises. This means that even if corporate isn’t in the picture, we’re not going to lose any customer calls.”

Border issues
AdGeo also is working with Radiator Express to address the issue of borders between franchises. “Since some of those calls were getting misrouted, they created a five-mile buffer area within which they can implement more stringent routing procedures,” Carvalho says. The closer a call is to a border between franchises, the more scrutiny it receives, with the system “asking” more questions to help route the call.

Radiator Express also has AdGeo working on a partnership program for franchisees, according to McNichols. “It’s a fledgling project that will enable Qwest technology to bounce calls to a neighboring warehouse or franchisee when the first one doesn’t answer.”

Overall, AdGeo’s systems have helped Radiator Express reduce customer problems and complaints by some 90 percent. “These are services that keep our franchisees happy,” McNichols says. “And when they’re happy they give us a good review, and that helps us sell more franchises.”