Telecommunications Company Retail Stores Roll-Out
This international telecommunications giant required an upgrade for a point of sale phone activation system in 2,200 retail stores located nationwide in all 50 states. The new technology incorporated Ingenico intelligent signature capture devices and new symbol scanners. It was called the Five Minute Activation Project (5MA). Successful implementation would result in 5 minute activation for cell phone customers, instead of the much longer time currently needed to hand scan. This project was to give stores the capacity to activate more cell phones in less time, during the company’s busiest time of the year.
The Problem
The customer awarded the contract to another vendor. However, four days before the roll-out was scheduled to begin, the vendor withdrew from the project. The customer had made a substantial capital investment in both product and man hours planning the project. The holiday deadline was fast approaching and the customer was facing a significant loss if the project was not implemented.
The Challenge
HTG was given four days to:
- Plan the configuration, asset tagging, and the distribution of more than 15,000 devices to 2,200 stores.
- Activate and schedule an implementation team.
- Set up a custom call center for project support.
All work was to be performed after hours between 8pm and 3am in each time zone across the US. The entire project was to be completed in 5 weeks.
The Solution
HTG set up the distribution logistics for the hardware at its central configuration center. Within two weeks, all units were configured with the necessary software, asset tagged, re-packaged, and shipped to all 2,200 stores. Communications and coordination with each of the stores was set up so that receiving and installation occurred smoothly and seamlessly. HTG scheduled 1,300 plus technicians to deploy the new technology at each of the retail locations. HTG augmented their custom call center with 10 additional level one, two, and three technicians and engineers to support the massive field effort. The project involved scaling up 105 employees each night to meet the schedule requirements. This robust telephone and online technical support allowed the customer to reduce their project staff from eight engineers to one.
The Results
HTG was able to:
- Plan and implement all project logistics in an unprecedented 4 days.
- Integrate and distribute more than 15,000 products in two weeks with 99% accuracy.
- Complete the installation in 80 stores each night.
- Reduce the support staff on the project from eight people to one.
- Provide online project reporting with updates every two hours.
- Meet the seasonal deadline for implementation.
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