s M&S boosts countrywide customer communication

M&S boosts countrywide customer communication

Marks & Spencer is turning to a new cloud-based system for communicating with its customers

The retailer has selected Twilio technology to handle all calls 640 stores and 13 contact centre hubs throughout the UK.
Marks & Spencer's legacy switchboard operation took less than six months from concept to launch and will allow Marks & Spencer to analyse customer intent in real time for more than 12 million customer interactions annually. 
Today, when a customer calls any Marks & Spencer store, the company's intelligent system immediately establishes what the customer is calling about and then routes it to the correct destination via Twilio. 
Delivery status
Marks & Spencer is also extending the services from Twilio and will be rolling out delivery status updates via text message for its ecommerce customers, powered by Twilio Programmable SMS.
"Twilio's flexible cloud communications platform has enabled Marks & Spencer to experiment like a start-up, while executing like an enterprise," said Chris McGrath, IT programme manager at Marks & Spencer. "We were able to prototype a solution in just four weeks and put it to the test during our busiest retail days of the year. The new solution has given Marks & Spencer an improved ability to have more direct and meaningful conversations with our customers, which also helps us reallocate valuable staff time.”
Prior to partnering with Twilio, Marks & Spencer's infrastructure was built on a mixture of legacy phone systems that could not support its digital strategy going forward. 
In just four weeks, Marks & Spencer designed a Twilio-powered prototype that would automate the company's existing switchboard and then put Twilio to test during a trial run on Marks & Spencer's two busiest days of the year, Valentine's Day and Mother's Day, where it handled more than 20,000 customer calls.