Charter Business® Case Study
National Accounts Case Study: Teleworker, YTB International, Inc.
The challenge
YTB International, Inc. (YourTravelBiz.com), a company that provides online booking and support services for a
network of primarily home-based travel agents, had growing pains, but in a good way. From 2006 to 2007 the number
of referring travel agents (RTAs) it served grew from 60,000 to 135,000 plus. As a result, YTB's in-house support
staff was hard-pressed to keep up. Having maxed out its Wood River, Ill., office space and with an influx of new
support staff continuing, the company decided to offer call center agents the option to work out of their homes.
It proved a popular option — the number of at-home agents grew from eight in early 2007 to 90 today.
Each at-home agent needs a broadband connection linking them to YTB's data and voice systems, and in about half
of the cases, it was supplied by Charter's residential cable modem service. At first, the at-home agents simply
billed the company for their Char ter service and were reimbursed. But when help desk technician Alan Riedisser
came to work with the company in September 2007 and star ted managing the at-home agents, he quickly realized
that the rising number of call center agents opting to work from home would make individual billing unwieldy
for everyone involved. "We knew that handling eight bills a month was not a problem, but when we had 90 people
at home, with everyone bringing in a copy of their bill on a different day, accounting would go nuts," he said.
"So it was much easier to have all of those individual bills consolidated into one master bill that goes directly
to the company."
The solution That's when he put in a call to Charter Business® to set up a national teleworker account through
the Char ter Business Teleworker Program, giving YTB control in setting up broadband service for its home-based
agents, as well as a consolidated bill for YTB. The result is a much better method for managing YTB's remote workforce.
"[Charter] made getting service very easy. All I had to do was fill in a spreadsheet with the at-home agent's name,
then Charter's call center would take care of the rest. Charter would send back the installation date and time, and
I would notify the at-home agent."
And that arrangement is only going to expand as time goes on. Because of its rapid growth, YTB has been processing a new class of call center
agents every two weeks or so. Each agent goes through about four weeks of training before starting work, giving Riedisser time to set up their
home broadband account if they choose that option. Still, about 15 of YTB's home-based agents live outside of Charter's service area, and in those
cases the company had to resort to a local telephone company alternative. In that direct comparison, provisioning new agents for Charter service is
easier, Riedisser said.
Efficient activation, rock-solid throughput
DSL providers often will require the new YTB at-home agent to self-provision using a CD disk, which runs afoul of software download policies YTB
builds into its company-owned laptops.
In contrast, with Charter, "When I place an order, the modem goes in, the agent hooks it up, and that is it," Riedisser said. "I know when the
tech leaves, their laptop is plugged in and they are working. That is one big plus — that I never have to worry about getting the services properly installed."
Charter also outshines traditional telephone company DSL services in that it provides a more consistent broadband throughput, Riedisser added.
"DSL can fluctuate a little bit, or maybe the phone network is really busy that day," Riedisser said. "With cable connection, it is there.
If they've got the light on the modem, they're working pretty much full speed all the time. So I like that there is very little variance in
the speeds we order and what we are getting out of those modems day in and day out."
The broadband service itself has proven reliable when it comes to uptime, and that is critical given that YTB's growing community of RTAs rely
on the home office call center agents to deal with any technical snarls in the shared online booking inter faces, commissions databases or billing systems.
"It's very stable. We went with a 5Mbps by 512kbps package because we do a lot of VoIP, and the call quality has been good," Riedisser said.
And when there has been a service issue — such as an ice storm or an accident that temporarily downs lines—Charter has proven quick to get the
service up and running.
"When we've had one or two outages, Charter gets somebody out there right away," Riedisser said. "They promised a 24-hour response for businesses,
and they've beaten that almost every time. So we are happy with the response there, for sure."
Room to grow
That also will hold true going forward, as YTB continues to grow. Company executives have indicated the business could grow to include some 300,000
RTAs, and while it is expanding its Wood River building to house more call center agents, it also is going to continue with the at-home agent program.
The bottom line is that for YTB, Charter Business was a valuable investment, and it will continue to help the company toward its business destination.
"We hear a lot from our referring travel agents all the time about the fantastic job the YTB call center does for them," Riedisser said. So when
it comes to paying for cable modem services for athome agents, "We are getting that back probably in the first three hours of the month that they
work — just from the satisfaction of our referring travel agents. We're happy with that."
"[Charter] made getting service very easy. All I had to do was fill in a spreadsheet with the at-home agent's name, then Charter's call center
would take care of the rest. Charter would send back the installation date and time, and I would notify the at-home agent."
ALAN RIEDISSER, YTB INTERNATIONAL, INC.
Click here to see more Case Studies.