Maximum quality, 1000 percent sales

Tradition of over 80 years

Northwest Leader

With a more than 80-year-old tradition, first as the store La Zona Libre established in downtown Tijuana, Central Detallista, Supermercados Calimax, is a family company that inaugurated the self-service sales model in Mexico. Its name comes from the concept of Maximum Quality (Calidad Máxima in Spanish).

Its impressive development can be measured today by the 97 stores that make up the three brands that represent the corporation: 78 Calimax supermarkets, 18 Aprecio stores and a semi-wholesale store called El Bodegón, with more than 6,500 employees, strategically located in the cities of Tijuana, Mexicali, Ensenada, Tecate, Rosarito, San Luis Río Colorado, San Quintín, Vicente Guerrero and San Felipe, in Mexico’s northwest. 

“We are leaders in this market segment in Baja California and part of the 10 largest supermarkets in Mexico, thanks to our main strengths, which are the location of our stores, the quality of service and the handling of perishable products,” says Roger Zapata Buenfil, Director of Information Technology at Central Detallista, Supermercados Calimax.

At the transnational level 

Calimax has always distinguished itself as an innovative company and has invested heavily in technology in order to keep up with its transnational competitors. “In 2002 and 2019, we were recognized as one of the 50 most innovative companies in Mexico by NetMedia magazine. In order to remain leaders, we must always be at the forefront of technology,” explains Roger Zapata.

“In 2018, the company experienced very significant growth and our two switches that had worked for more than 20 years and were already obsolete, there were no parts, spare parts, or cards, and we needed better telephone communication equipment,” he adds.

Likewise, through a call center, they had to directly serve more than 80,000 customers who use their food voucher card for balance issues, movements and perform a precarious home delivery service. “We addressed this aspect through very expensive outsourcing, which did not provide us with adequate measurements or reports, and therefore sub-par service was delivered. We estimate that more than 50% of calls were lost,” says Zapata.

“Thinking about the future,” says Sandra Campoy Specht, senior IT manager, “we saw the issue of online sales coming and we began to consider omnichannel retailing. Then the famous pandemic arrives and the need to turn our call center into a real contact center, to integrate the 1800 number with social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and email.”

Unanimous decision

Sandra was appointed project leader to make the decision to acquire a system that will help resolve the chaos generated by the obsolete telephone system in the corporate office and in the distribution center. 

When considering the ideal supplier, the finalists were Avaya and Cisco, which were evaluated under various aspects: projection, medium and long-term outlook of the future, better integration between telephone system and social networks, mobility, efficient Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology and good price. 

“It was very important to me that they had a presence and success stories, and that they led me by the hand from day one, from zero to the end. By unanimous decision, we hired Avaya, through ReyNet,” Campoy points out.

The agreement with Avaya included an on-premise component through Avaya Contact Center Select and the Avaya Social Media Contact Center cloud platform. “We had to incorporate tools to prevent our agents from answering calls to report or analyze balances of our customers’ cards; and instead, with that valuable platform, converting them into multitask agents through omnichannel retailing, because we had them isolated: one answered the email, another WhatsApp, one more Facebook, adds.

Multiplication of income

From night to day

Once the solution was deployed, they went from answering calls only at their desk to answering them also at home, in the car or wherever, with the same extension.

With the previous system, they were not given measurements, and they didn’t know how many calls they received, lost, or got cut off. “With the switch change, the first measurements to come out were impressive. They were very important to me, since I didn’t know what each of my agents did,” says Sandra Campoy.

“From losing 50% of calls, now they are less than 10%; I know how my agents work in the day to day, how long they are active and inactive, including how much time they take for lunch. 

Another of the great advantages is that we can measure the quality of the service and those reports were presented to management every week and based on that we make decisions.” 

They implemented Avaya Social Media Contact Center from the cloud, and at the same time the calls corresponding to balance query and card activity are almost completely addressed through the IVR and everything was integrated into a single rotary switch. Both managers agree that they have the full range of contacts with their clients 100% resolved. “Now the customer can contact us through any of these media – says Sandra – and agents can cover all social media platforms. We can now focus on our customers’ calls for orders.” 

By offering the possibility of contacting Calimax by email, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Facebook, from selling less than 400,000 pesos in a month with telephone calls only, an income of more than 5 million was achieved through that channel. The Avaya solution reports that the largest growth is currently being managed by WhatsApp. “Today, each agent sells what four of them used to sell; productivity increased 1,400%. That is the impact we are having and the level of service we provide. Of course, aided by the pandemic; but if we hadn’t had the right technology, we wouldn’t have been able to sustain that growth,” emphasizes Roger Zapata.

Without leaving home

In this way, they have been able to develop their star project Without leaving home, for online sales and home delivery. “We manage 15 branches with home delivery service, strategically located to cover the most important housing centers in the cities of Mexicali, Ensenada, San Luis Río Colorado, Tecate, Rosarito and Tijuana. From the moment the customer places his/her order and it arrives at his/her house, the average is two to four hours,” explains Roger.

“We are launching our mobile application now in Mexicali, and we must be prepared and with sufficient resources to be able to serve those customers who are always going to be requiring home delivery service,” he says.

Sandra Campoy emphasizes: “We are the first customer to incorporate Avaya Social Media Contact Center in Mexico, and I am very proud to have implemented it together with Avaya and ReyNet. We’ve already gone into history. We are very proud at Calimax.” 

Speaking about ReyNet, Sandra says, “It was the orchestrator for the integration; they definitely have very capable people, and that gave us enough confidence to be able to establish this medium-and long-term relationship. I had to work not only with Avaya Mexico, but they also involved the brand from other countries in implementing the final solution.”

Thus, the current platform allows them to undertake future projects. “I would like to bet on artificial intelligence with Avaya Experience Portal and integrate that robot that is able to take a housewife’s order, without any human intervention, and take the customer experience to the limit,” says Sandra Campoy.

“Avaya definitely has an important portfolio, in which we can explore in collaboration. It is one of the alternatives we have in the future,” concludes Roger Zapata. 

More information

For more information, please call 800 713 80 81 or (55) 52 78 7700 www.avaya.com.

About ReyNet

With a long 20-year history, ReyNet is a company founded in Monterrey. It currently has national coverage from its head office in the Sultana del Norte and four offices in the cities of Mexico, Querétaro, Tijuana and Cancún, for service, sales, marketing, and administration. It has a team of specialists to provide solutions in the area of telecommunications, omnichannel retailing, home office, cloud, unified communications, and contact center. It has a portfolio of more than 900 customers, with which it has become Avaya’s Diamond-category business partner, with a great presence in the following niches: hotel, retail, insurance, construction, finance, and customer service, multi-experiences, and remote agents. 

About Avaya

Companies are based on the experiences they provide, and every day millions of these experiences are created by Avaya. For more than a hundred years, we have enabled organizations all over the world to prosper, by creating intelligent communications experiences for customers and employees. Avaya creates open, convergent, and innovative solutions to improve and simplify communications and collaboration in the cloud, in the facilities or under a hybrid model. To make your business grow, we are committed to innovation, collaboration, and an unwavering focus on what is next. We are the technology company that you trust to help you offer Experiences that Matter. 

Visit us at www.avaya.com.