WellPet Vets

For any business, undergoing an IT infrastructure refresh can be an overwhelming experience, especially when this includes the additional focus on network, security, and unified communications simultaneously. Finding the right solution to meet these requirements while ensuring collaboration tools are not overlooked is imperative. During an IT infrastructure refresh, businesses need to ensure that traditional platforms of information and communication technology (ICT) are constantly evolving, in order to keep pace with the digitally advanced world and ensuring they are not opening themselves up to the risk of a cyber-attack. Advanced collaboration tools, and enhanced security solutions are essential to meet IT infrastructure upgrades that improve security posture, unified communications, and for continued business growth.

By deploying Cisco’s industry-leading security and network products, we enable organisations to meet their unique business and IT requirements, providing them with customisable solutions that meet and exceed their expectations of an IT infrastructure upgrade.

Background

Veterinary practice, WellPet Vets operates three veterinary hospitals, spread over four locations in New South Wales. In addition to these hospitals, the veterinary practice also has a Western Sydney Veterinary Emergency Services, located at one of the three hospitals, which has its own veterinary team onsite, 24/7 every day of the year. The WellPet Vet team, who focuses on excellence and compassion in their duties, consists of over 15 veterinarians and 25 veterinary nurses who are committed to providing the highest level of veterinary care to domestic animals.

Problem

The veterinary practice, which operates 365 days, required an update to their existing IT infrastructure, with the purpose of refreshing and modernising their network, security, and unified communications.

WellPet Vets work in a fast-paced environment with a large volume of foot traffic, often receiving hundreds of calls daily. Clients would frequently state that they were unaware of costs of procedures as these were not discussed on their phone call with the practice. This led WellPet Vets to realise that they needed a better call recording system as they were battling with their outdated system. Their original call recording system, while reliable, had limited functionality which meant that staff had difficulties finding and matching the recordings to the right calls, often losing recordings. Frequently, the search for recordings would take hours and involve IT support who would step in to help find the right call recording in a painstaking search. In many cases, the inability to find the right call recording would lead to billing disputes as WellPet Vets could not corroborate what was said during a call with a client nor whether they were informed about the costs of tests or procedures beforehand.

The veterinary practice required a solution to not only resolve these disputes but also help improve their customer service and staff performance at the same time. When looking for alternate systems, WellPet Vets found that having the ability to record all calls could be very costly. They were desperately looking for a viable solution while also looking to upgrade their network and security solutions at the same time.

Solution

Outcomex deployed an upgraded unified communications system across the veterinary practice’s four locations in New South Wales. Replacing their current call centre system with Cisco Webex Calling, a cloud-based phone system optimised for agile businesses, we were able to eliminate the additional expense and complexity of managing and securing an on-site phone system. We also integrated this with Cisco Webex Meetings, which gave staff the ability to join a meeting anywhere from any device.

We also implemented Dubber, one of the world’s leading provider of cloud-based call recordings, which fully integrates with Cisco Webex Calling and could be used immediately. Dubber provides the ability to record all calls on the Cisco Webex Calling service, has an easy-to-use dashboard and can review recorded calls. Since Dubber has a user-friendly interface, staff are able to search for and retrieve the correct calls speedily, resulting in a quick resolution of disputed calls and increase customer satisfaction with the quick turnaround in communication.

After minimal training on how to use the software, the veterinary team was now able to find relevant call recordings fast. Lucy Chapman, WellPet senior manager, says: “We can immediately clarify what was said in the call and listen to the context.” She explains that because of the ability to find the right recordings, the veterinary practice can now fight disputes as they have the evidence as backup, and it also provides the opportunity to upskill their team to improve the service they offer to their clients. Through this implementation and system integration, call disputes are now almost immediately resolved as staff can easily find a call recording. The veterinary practice was also able to use these recordings for training of staff who are client facing, teaching them how to handle calls better.

To align their communications, we implemented Cisco Webex Contact Centre in all WellPet Vets locations. This provides the most flexible method of interacting with customers as the experience is unified across all channels. With cognitive collaboration, the agent is capable of providing an even greater experience for customers as AI is able to pre-emptively deliver information to the agent to provide to the customer. The WellPet Vet team also has the option of making use of Cisco Webex Contact Centre’s AI-powered agent assistance, which aids in creating faster support, along with a user-optimised agent desktop to enhance staff experience and increase productivity. With Cisco Webex Contact Centre, the veterinary practice management will be able to have more control of their call centre – being able to see inbound and outbound calls, the times these were made along with the recordings of each call. Through its collaboration tools, WellPet Vets will be able to improve customer experience and interaction on every call.

We further refreshed the Cisco ASA 5506 firewalls with FTD 1010 appliances which can process up to 650mbps of traffic, future-proofing the network for SD-WAN, and configured with Cisco’s new Firepower Threat Defence operating system. With the refresh of the firewalls, the veterinary practice will have advanced security measures in place. This includes superior multi-layered protection, unified security services and task automation, which increases speed and agility in remediation, against any cyberthreats.

Focusing on enhancing the veterinary practice’s web security, we used Cisco Umbrella DNS solution which blocks malicious websites and Internet resources on the DNS-request level, making their surfing as secure as possible. We also moved them over to Cisco Advanced Malware Protection (AMP), which combines antivirus functionality with endpoint detection and response. This monitors and provides an advanced level of protection, helping to contain and remove threats speedily, ensuring a strong security posture across all locations.

Lastly, we offered Managed Services to WellPet Vets for their security solutions, which will allow us to manage and monitor these solutions in real-time. As a result, the veterinary practice will benefit from a high performing and secure platform that will enable reliable and secure services for their thriving practice.

More than happy with the outcome, WellPet Vets IT manager, Anthony Karolis says that Outcomex worked to get the right solution in place specific to the veterinary practice’s requirements. “The experience working with Outcomex is fantastic,” says Anthony. “When issues arise, they work with you to get the solution in place. It was an absolute pleasure to work with them. Being a one-man band, I see their technical guys as an extension of my team, and they make me feel like I’m also part of their team and not just a customer.”

Conclusion and outcome

Outcomex deployed an upgraded IT infrastructure, including network, security, and unified communications at all of WellPet Vets’ locations, namely in Nepean, Regentville, Blaxland and St Clair areas. With this successful upgrade, solutions have been put in place to provide a secure and reliable network, and to solve their problem of not being able to retrieve call recordings and resolve disputes timeously, and to improve staff performance and customer communications.

WellPet Vets will continue to receive support and managed services from Outcomex. This will ensure that their network and infrastructure remain up to date and secure.

Outcomex has a long-established and valued relationship with WellPet Vets, previously assisting them with an end-to-end Cisco solution, including cloud storage and a high-speed network, for a project implemented in 2016.