For Ian Cole, chief innovation officer of Give Kids The World Village (GKWV), returns on technology investments are measured in smiles.
GKWV is an 89-acre nonprofit “storybook” resort in Kissimmee, Florida, that gives children with critical illnesses and their families from around the world week-long cost-free vacations.
The goal of GKWV is straightforward and laudable: give families that may have never had a vacation due to challenges an experience that will last a lifetime. Since 1986 GKWV has served more than 200,000 families from all 50 U.S. states and 77 countries, enabling them to laugh, play, and create unforgettable memories away from hospital stays and medical treatments.
“Customer experience is important no matter what you’re doing, but I think it’s especially important if you’re in the nonprofit world and you’re trying to do good for groups of people in despair,” says Cole. “You’ve got to make sure that every one of the people involved has a great experience, whether it’s a volunteer or a donor or the end beneficiary of what you’re doing.”
Cole, who leads the IT team that oversees networks, applications, security, mobile and desktop devices, and interactive experiences, worked with Avaya Customer Experiences Services (ACES) to give technologies to the onsite guest support team for creating guest experiences. His efforts at GKWV made him a CX for Good winner in Avaya’s CX Force Awards.
For Cole, technology projects aim to address current challenges and set up the future. He recently used Avaya to move from analog lines to Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) to boost reliability while cutting costs, implement a system for 911 emergency responders, and upgrade cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) features. GKWV uses Avaya unified-communications-as-a-service (UCaaS) and Avaya contact center solutions.
Related: How Virginie Nowak blended employee and customer experiences at Access Bank
GKWV has unique communications needs, because it is located in Florida’s Lightning Alley and needs to ensure uptime. The communications systems also need to ensure that responders have the necessary information about their clients, who may have unique health issues.
Here’s a look at some of the technology projects planned wit
h ACES to enable the guest services team to personalize visits:
- Machine translation to give guests an experience in their native language. GKWV’s services support teams speak primarily English and Spanish.
- A digital scavenger-hunt bot for guests on the day of arrival. The bot enables parents to explore the village while children engage in an activity. Clues are readable on any smartphone and can be played back with text-to-speech.
- A concierge bot for navigation and guest information in multiple languages.
- A bot that enables volunteers to rapidly get answers and sign up for available slots.
These projects have to run on a tight budget, so GKWV does the best it can with the dollars entrusted to it by donors. “As a nonprofit organization, it’s very important for us to make sure that we pick the tools, technologies, and processes that we can support, both financially and technologically,” says Cole. “It would be very easy to chase the latest and greatest thing, but we’ve got to make sure that we’ve got the partnerships, relationships, and internal team to support those things. If we get that right, we can do amazing things.”
As for returns, Cole’s contributions to GKWV are measured in smiles. Each wish child can personalize a gold star for Stellar the Star Fairy to place on the ceiling of the Castle of Miracles and the Star Tower. The facilities—including pools and rides—are accessible to all children. And GTKW is planning to launch Mayor Clayton’s WonderLab STEAM Education Center this year.
Other 2024 CX Force Winners include:
- CX for Education. Tara Pasalic, systems integration specialist, McMaster University. Pasalic is an early adopter of cloud contact center as a service and a longtime Avaya customer. McMaster University focused on improving experiences for international students leveraging Short Message Service (SMS) messaging and call center resources.
- CX for Employees. Jayne Hogle, director of Unified Communications, American Heart Association. According to Hogle, customer experience at the American Heart Association is really about being heard. The technology plan has focused on everything from automated responses to call-to-ticket workflows and self-service tools made possible with a migration to the cloud.
- CX for Healthcare. Rafael Sousa, chief technology officer, Hospital Nipo-Brasileiro (HNIPO). Sousa led an effort to link customer experience, hospital operations, and patient outcomes. Leveraging Avaya, Sousa has been able to provide faster and more personalized assistance to patients and route them to appropriate departments.
- CX for Growth. Hugh Carr, director of Customer Services, Standard Focus. Carr has been able to leverage Avaya customer experience technologies to improve experiences and boost revenue growth. By focusing on customer journeys, Standard Focus is reducing costs per contact by leveraging bots for easy issues and using humans for complex situations. The result is customer trust and more revenue.
- Rising CX Superstar. Emily Stubbs, director of Customer Experience, Aerflo. Stubbs has focused on funneling customer experience data into business intelligence tools to build views that head off customer issues before they happen. The proactive approach is critical to product launches and the customer experiences associated with them.
- CX for Transformation. Virginie Nowak, group chief customer experience officer, Access Bank PLC. Nowak implemented a broad customer experience transformation that has delivered returns across a bevy of metrics. Now Nowak is looking to future-proof customer experience so the bank can double the number of people it serves.
