Minimizing Communication Challenges Through Strong Levels Of Customer Support At Bon-Ton

Bon-Ton is a regional department store based in York, PA, chiefly operating 275 stores, including 11 furniture galleries, in 23 states throughout the northern U.S. Stores carrying its nameplate serve the Mid-Atlantic and New England, extending to upstate New York and throughout Pennsylvania. Other chains operated by Bon-Ton include Bergner's, Boston Store, Carson Pirie Scott, Elder-Beerman, Herberger's, Parisian and Younkers.

The Challenge

As a major retail department store chain, Bon-Ton has a widespread employee population. Keeping managers and store operators all on the same page is of the upmost importance for success. Regional sales and other events need to be coordinated in a timely fashion, and earnings reports and regular contact from stores to corporate offices are essential to normal operations. In 2005, maintaining this level of communication was becoming an issue for Bon-Ton. Constant conference call service issues and increasing call costs had the company debating the use of internal bridges for conference calls and completely handing off service issues to its own IT department, which was already taxed with additional service requests due to problems with the current provider.

Download this case study below to discover the solution and results.