Making the Customer Experience Better: How Tucows Domains achieved 95% forecasting accuracy with Dialpad Support

Tucows, a technology pioneer in domain management and email services that serves millions of users globally and collaborates with thousands of resellers, believes in “making the internet better.” They have a mission to offer seamless customer experiences that simplify managing domains and emails across their three brands—domain management, fibre-based internet services, and telecom solutions.

With a customer care team of 100 agents providing support in over 30 languages, Tucows Domains handles approximately 36,000 monthly interactions through an omnichannel approach spanning phone, chat, web forms, email, and social media. But when Tucows Domains needed to streamline its contact centre operations, they found that their previous platform, AWS Connect, presented barriers to real-time visibility and efficient call management.

Fernan Kalaw, VP of Customer Care at Tucows Domains and seasoned leader with a deep understanding of customer support technology (some people even call him the Mary Poppins of customer care), was quick to recommend Dialpad—having experienced its transformative impact at a previous organisation. Implementing Dialpad Support would allow Tucows to integrate real-time data access, Ai-powered analytics, and flexibility that would enhance the entire customer support experience.

The challenge: Limited visibility and inefficiencies with their previous provider

As a company operating on a global scale, Tucows faced increasing pressure to ensure a smooth, efficient, and scalable customer support system. The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent shift to remote work only amplified the need for a solution that allowed Tucows to manage their widely dispersed team with ease. “It's important for us to be able to manage a fully remote, globally dispersed team as effectively as we can,” Fernan emphasises.

However, their previous provider, AWS Connect, limited their ability to adapt to real-time situations, making it difficult to address issues promptly and monitor essential metrics like average speed to answer and SLA adherence.

Fernan recalls his surprise upon discovering that AWS Connect did not offer live dashboards, heat maps, or straightforward reporting tools. “Back then, I was essentially managing my team in the dark,” remarks Fernan.

“The biggest challenge was the lack of real-time dashboards—how can you manage a contact centre without seeing those numbers?”

Managing customer service without immediate insights into agent performance, queues, and call durations was leading to bottlenecks in service and missed opportunities for proactive queue management. Metrics could only be analysed post-call, which made SLA consistency difficult to achieve.

Additionally, AWS Connect required a developer to make even minor changes to Interactive Voice Response (IVR) settings, slowing down operational flexibility. Fernan remarks: “In this day and age, configuring an IVR tree is something you should be able to manage yourself, easily.”

This setup was costly and time-consuming, particularly for a company like Tucows that values a quick response and adaptability. Fernan knew that a more agile platform like Dialpad could address these obstacles.

Choosing Dialpad Support for an agile, Ai-powered solution

Having successfully implemented Dialpad Support in his previous role, Fernan was confident in the platform’s ability to meet Tucows Domains’ needs for real-time visibility, operational flexibility, and quality assurance. This familiarity made the decision to switch an easy one, as Fernan knew Dialpad could handle Tucows' high standards and specific requirements, while also saving on costs associated with AWS Connect’s limitations. “Making the switch to Dialpad was an easy decision,” Fernan notes.

“As a repeat customer, I knew we were choosing a solution that would meet our team’s needs for data visibility, operational control, and flexibility. Dialpad Support addressed every key issue we faced with our previous provider.”

Dialpad offered Fernan and his team instant access to real-time contact centre analytics and alerts that enabled them to track essential metrics, manage SLAs proactively, and monitor call quality closely.

The platform’s user-friendly interface also empowered the Tucows team to manage IVR configurations and queue adjustments without developer assistance, greatly increasing their agility. Fernan himself was able to set up IVR trees, configure call routing, and update hold messages as needed, ensuring his team could adjust settings on the fly to address shifting demands.

Transforming customer support with real-time data

With Dialpad, Tucows gained critical tools that enhanced their ability to monitor, triage, and adjust their operations in real time. Fernan and his team could now access live dashboards displaying metrics such as average speed to answer (ASA), abandonment rate, and current queue status—essential insights for maintaining service-level consistency.

This real-time data, combined with alerts integrated into the team’s Slack channels, allowed Tucows to respond to fluctuations in queue volume instantly. If SLAs were at risk or call volume spiked, supervisors and managers received immediate notifications, enabling them to take quick action.

These proactive notifications, coupled with customisable dashboards, improved SLA adherence by 10%—ensuring the team could respond quickly to high wait times or potential breaches.

Meanwhile, Dialpad’s heat map feature offered Tucows a historical view of call patterns, making it easy to forecast demand and plan staffing accordingly. By visualising when peak call volumes typically occurred, the team could optimise schedules, reduce wait times, and enhance overall efficiency.

With this visibility, Tucows was able to align staffing more effectively with operational demands, which helped them achieve 95-100% forecasting accuracy. This resulted in reduced wait times and significant support cost savings.

Dialpad’s tools also made it easier for managers to assess performance and identify coaching opportunities. The result was a system where Tucows could balance resource allocation more effectively, creating a more stable service level for their customers while reducing agent burnout.

Enhancing quality assurance and coaching capabilities

Quality assurance (QA) was another area where Tucows experienced significant improvements with Dialpad. Previously, they had relied on cumbersome Excel spreadsheets to manually score calls, which limited their ability to provide actionable feedback at scale.

Dialpad’s built-in scorecards transformed the QA process, making it possible to evaluate calls quickly, efficiently, and at a higher frequency.

Now, Fernan’s team could view call transcriptions, identify key moments, and grade interactions without needing to listen to entire recordings. The ability to search for keywords and filter by specific criteria, like mentions of refunds or compliance disclosures, enabled Tucows to focus on the most critical aspects of each call.

The improvements in Tucows’ coaching practices, supported by Dialpad’s QA features, enabled the team to effectively track performance metrics such as average handling time, ring time, and missed calls. This eventually led to a 5% increase in customer satisfaction and a 10% boost in team efficiency.

And when an agent needs help during a live call, Fernan or any other manager or supervisor is able to use Dialpad’s call whisper functionality to guide them through it, without having to intrude or take over the call. “That’s a really cool feature that’s available to all of us,” says Fernan.

The Coaching Hub further supported Tucows’ QA goals by centralising agent performance metrics and facilitating more consistent coaching practices.

Dialpad’s Ai CSAT feature also gave the team valuable insights into customer sentiment, aligning quality evaluations with customer experience goals.

The outcome was a more streamlined, effective, and scalable QA process that promoted accountability and self-awareness among agents.

Looking ahead with Dialpad

Since implementing Dialpad Support, Tucows has achieved substantial gains in efficiency, customer satisfaction, and agent productivity. Service levels have stabilised, enabling the team to provide consistently responsive and high-quality support.

For Fernan, Dialpad’s comprehensive data access has been invaluable in maintaining a proactive, data-driven approach to customer support management. By offering real-time access to queue performance, SLA adherence, and customer satisfaction trends, Dialpad has enabled Fernan to stay ahead of potential issues and manage his team with confidence. “CX Leadership means staying aware of everything around you. It may include harnessing fear and embracing a healthy dose of paranoia,” says Fernan.

“Dialpad helps me conquer my fears and calm my paranoia by giving me access to real time and historical contact data at my fingertips.”

Looking ahead, Tucows plans to leverage more of Dialpad’s advanced features, such as Custom Moments and Real-Time Assist Cards, to further enhance support operations. These tools will enable agents to access relevant information on-demand during calls, a valuable asset for new hires or when launching new products.

With Dialpad’s flexibility and scalability, Fernan and his team feel well-equipped to tackle future challenges, ensuring that Tucows can continue delivering world-class customer support to their diverse, global clientele. Dialpad has become more than a solution—it’s a cornerstone of Tucows’ commitment to customer service excellence.