Canadian Tire Financial Services
Mark Beyer
Distributed Applications
Business: With locations in Welland and Burlington, Ontario, Canadian Tire Financial Services Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Canadian Tire Corporation, Limited. Canadian Tire Financial Services is primarily engaged in financing and managing the Canadian Tire Options MasterCard to over 2 million cardholders. The Options MasterCard is accepted at over 21 million locations worldwide, and offers Canada’s oldest and most recognized loyalty program, Canadian Tire Money, on the card. It also operates Canadian Tire Auto Club and offers insurance and warranty products to more than 6 million of Canadian Tire’s retail, financial services, and petroleum customers. Canadian Tire Financial Services operates their Nortel call centers to support their Retail Division, Financial Service Division, and the Canadian Tire Auto Club. They received Canadian call center Service Excellence awards in 2000, 2001, and 2002, and were voted the Top Call Center in Canada in 2000.
Environment: In total, five call centers, all based in Welland, Ontario, support 500 agent seats including inbound and inbound/outbound blending. Canadian Tire Financial Services handles approximately 22 million calls per year.
Application: Canadian Tire Financial Services uses inbound CTI to deliver account information, along with queried database information, to support quality customer service. Call data, account information, and call scripting is delivered to the agent’s desktop for credit card-related inquiries.
Perspective: “When we first became involved with Upstream Works, I had questions about the ability of a small vendor to meet the call centre needs of a large call centre such as ours. Upstream was tasked with replacing the existing CTI component for our CRM, a system in which we had invested a lot of effort to bring to a state that we were happy with. Upstream performed the replacement integration in a timely and competent fashion, providing a near seamless transition. Following cutover, we had no support issues to speak of. When we have experienced glitches, Upstream staff have always provided extremely prompt, usually same-day response to our requests.”
“When we performed an upgrade from the previous version of our CRM to the web-based thin client that we now deploy, Upstream Works was able to provide one of their standard controls that basically eliminated most of my CTI integration issues out of the box allowing me to concentrate my time and effort on providing business functionality. I was amazed at how cleanly they were able to solve the telephony-related issues for a web based application, allowing me to create the new desktop without having to worry about the CTI. I can honestly say that we dropped the control into our app and it worked from day one.”
“When Upstream Works provides us with software, I can be confident that it will perform the way it is supposed to. When I call Upstream with a question or service request, I know that I will be provided with expert advice by someone who understands the systems that I deal with. If I need a code change it will arrive quickly and perform as I want it to. In short, I have nothing but good things to say about my experience with Upstream.”
“We consider Upstream as more than simply a vendor that we utilize, they form part of our team providing valuable input. They are our finger on the pulse of telephony technology, allowing us to concentrate our focus on customers, the life blood of our business.”
Upstream Works Software Ltd.
8000 Jane Street
Tower A; Second Floor
Vaughan, Ontario
L4K 5B8
Canada
Phone: 1 (905) 660-0969
Fax: 1 (905) 660-8769
Toll Free: 1 800-808-5220
Sales Inquiries: sales@upstreamworks.com
All other inquiries: info@upstreamworks.com