Connecting faster, working smarter: Business Network International (BNI) cuts Average Handling Time (AHT) by 23%

Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, Business Network International (BNI) is the world’s leading business referral organization, with a presence in over 75 countries. With a network of more than 328,000 members and 11,000 Chapters worldwide, BNI is literally “Changing the Way the World Does Business” (their fitting slogan). Their mission is to help BNI members increase their business through a structured, positive, and professional referral marketing program that enables them to develop long-term, meaningful relationships with quality business professionals.

As BNI expanded its reach into new markets around the world, they encountered significant challenges that their previous telephony provider couldn’t address—notably in terms of scalability, global support, and advanced analytics for their growing sales and support teams.

To gain insights into how BNI overcame these challenges, we sat down with Brooks McClary, Senior Director of Sales Performance at BNI. He shared with us how Dialpad’s Ai-powered solutions—particularly Dialpad Support and Dialpad Sell—helped them do it.

Compliant global expansion with Dialpad

Brooks and his team play a vital role in guiding prospective members through their journey to joining BNI Chapters, ensuring a smooth and personalized experience from start to finish. With their team’s expansion beyond the United States, Brooks sought a solution that could support BNI’s needs for global communication. Unfortunately, their previous provider couldn’t guarantee solid service outside the USA, so they had to find a new one.

“My goal was to find a feature-rich service provider at a reasonable price. We’re not the largest company, but we take our mission very seriously and want to ensure we're good stewards of our customers’ money,” Brooks explained.

In addition to global support, BNI also needed advanced analytics and real-time insights to improve their sales and support processes. They evaluated several vendors, including Vonage and Velvatech, but ultimately chose Dialpad for its robust feature set and ability to operate globally while ensuring compliance with data privacy regulations.

Dialpad Support boosts efficiency and call volume

BNI needed a scalable and efficient contact center solution to manage their high volume of customer interactions. Dialpad Support became a crucial part of their strategy, enabling BNI to manage both inbound and outbound calls while maintaining high service standards.

“We are 90% outbound and 10% inbound, and Dialpad helps us manage both effectively,” Brooks shared. This flexibility allowed BNI’s support team to turn customer inquiries into new sales opportunities seamlessly. “We have a lean organization, so our sales team also provides support. Support often turns into sales opportunities, so having a mix of sales and support with the same people makes sense. Dialpad offers tools for both, so it's easy to switch between the two.”

Two features that stood out when the team at BNI first switched over to Dialpad were the real-time transcripts and Ai-generated call summaries. “We don't have to create notes ourselves, which saves time and effort,” shares Brooks. “But the other thing that’s really cool is that the Ai gives suggested next steps.”

Another “life-changing” feature, as Brooks coined it, for BNI’s team was voicemail drop, which allowed their agents to leave pre-recorded messages with a single click. This feature significantly reduced the time spent leaving repetitive voicemails, leading to a 23% reduction in average handle time in just one day.

The time saved allowed agents to focus more on live customer interactions, resulting in a 24% increase in the number of calls made during that same period.

And with Dialpad’s intelligent analytics, Brooks and his team can monitor call volumes, identify key moments, and track sentiment in real-time, allowing them to quickly adapt to changes in customer needs and agent performance.

Brooks also uses the call dispositions feature to help better understand the agent experience:

And Ai CSAT for insights into every customer interaction—not just the ones that fill out a survey:

Dialpad Sell increases coaching efficiency by 50% and productivity by 12%

While Dialpad Support addressed customer support needs, BNI also relied on Dialpad Sell to streamline their global sales operations, particularly in the coaching department. “I love the speech analytics and automation that come with Dialpad,” says Brooks. “We get a much more robust picture of our sales team's performance while still having a lean management team.”

Brooks recalls what coaching at BNI looked like before Dialpad: “It was highly manual. We either had to randomly listen to calls or have our associates escalate calls to us to listen to.” In other words, BNI’s former process was time-consuming and made it difficult to ensure consistent coaching across a growing team. ​

With Real-Time Assist Cards offering in-call guidance and custom Ai Playbooks providing consistent talking points, BNI’s team now has the tools they need to ensure best practices are followed during every conversation.

Additionally, Ai Scorecards automatically evaluate each call, allowing managers to focus their attention on the interactions that matter most.

“We’re able to coach more effectively now because we’re not just randomly listening to calls. The scorecards give us a complete picture of each interaction, and the coaches can focus on the behaviors that matter,” Brooks explains.

BNI’s team also benefits from leaderboards within the Ai Coaching Hub, giving them visibility into individual and team performance. This feature has created a culture of friendly competition and transparency, motivating associates to improve and track their progress over time.

Meanwhile, the Ai Coaching Hub as a whole provides a centralized dashboard where BNI can track scorecard grades, CSAT scores, and coaching opportunities in real-time. “It allows us to customize what's important to our organization. I like that we can look at the entire conversion funnel,” says Brooks. “This allows us to be data-driven in our activities and coaching, which makes us more impactful.”

Since implementing Dialpad, BNI’s sales team increased their goal achievement from 113% pre-Dialpad to 115%, marking a 2% increase in just six months.

In addition, the team now averages 5 to 7 interactions per sale, and call summaries ensure that no details are missed in follow-up conversations. It’s clear to see this newfound efficiency translated into measurable success.

Dialpad's speech analytics offer powerful insights without the need for a dedicated team, making it ideal for businesses of any size. “Dialpad allows us to compete with much larger companies. I used to work for a large BPO, and we had top-of-the-line speech analytics technology, but it required a whole department to manage it. We had to hire technical staff, analysts, and people to make the data usable. It was expensive and not feasible for smaller organizations,” recalls Brooks. “In contrast, Dialpad's speech analytics are far better and require zero staff. I can learn how to use it without making it my full-time job. I can set it up and let it run, which is fantastic.”

Continuing the momentum

Looking ahead, BNI plans to integrate Dialpad with its CRM, allowing all interactions to be automatically logged and tracked. This will provide even deeper insights into customer journeys and streamline the follow-up process for their sales and support teams.

By integrating Dialpad’s Support and Sell solutions, BNI has not only improved its global operations but has also enhanced its coaching and customer experience processes. The ability to track and analyze conversations in real time has led to significant gains in productivity and efficiency. As BNI continues to grow, Dialpad remains a crucial partner in their journey to change the way the world does business.

Disclaimer - The results and outcomes referenced or demonstrated in this case study represent the experiences of specific individuals. These results are not guaranteed and may vary significantly based on individual circumstances, effort, and other factors beyond our control.

While Dilalpad strives to provide the best possible tools and support, we cannot promise or ensure that the results achieved by one customer will be replicated by others. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future outcomes.

By engaging with Dialpad customer stories, you acknowledge and accept that your results may differ and that no specific results are promised or implied.