Wix supports 70M users with WebRTC

When you’re in the business of helping more than 70 million small business owners across the globe create and manage their online presence, the ability to scale and continually improve customer service is crucial. That’s why the team at Wix turned to Twilio to help them expand and customize its call center platform.

“We knew that we needed a call center, but we didn’t want to build the phone system ourselves,” said Rob Rush, product manager for the Wix call center. “There were a couple of other providers in the market, but Twilio provides a great tool kit and in the hands of a great developer, you can do whatever you want. We knew that that’s the tool we needed to use.”

Building a customized call center: Part phone system, part logging system

Wix was founded on the promise that small business owners should be able to control their own online destiny. It disrupted an entire industry with its “no code required,” do-it-yourself web platform that lets individuals create beautiful websites quickly and easily. Wix answered the need for small businesses trying to get their foot in the door, handling everything from hosting to design tools, domain management, and CRM and email tools. Launched in 2006, the company grew quickly, reaching 20 million users by 2012.

As the company grew, it also outgrew its initial call center platform. The first call center was built using an out-of-the-box solution, but the team at Wix soon realized they needed more control and customization to track and manage customer feedback—a critical component of business innovation. It needed to be able to answer user questions quickly, while at the same time leverage incoming information to improve its products and solutions. Part phone system and part logging system, the platform also needed to scale easily to support increasing call volumes going from 500 a day to upwards of 2,000 or more, with each call categorized and linked to various support articles.

“On each one of those calls we’re gathering information, finding out what the user needs help with,” said Rush. “And then we distill that information, and get the bugs to the people fixing bugs, send a feature request to the people making those decisions, and so on. We try to take every interaction with our users and turn it into a way to improve our products and improve our customers’ experience.“

Real-time caller recognition helps drive fast resolution and customer insights

The development team at Wix integrated Twilio Voice and Twilio Client into the Wix call center in just 6 weeks, complete with computer-telephony integration and an interactive voice response (IVR) system. “Twilio allowed us to build what we wanted, as opposed to trying to fit into what someone else designed for us,” said Rush.

The Twilio Client makes it possible for agents to make and receive phone calls directly from their browsers. In addition to logging and categorizing all calls, Wix’s IVR technology enables them to pre-associate their users to immediately know who’s calling, and feed that information to their agents with no delay.

Twilio also helps Wix to connect with its customers in lots of different ways. They can call inbound to the 800 number, or they can schedule a call online if they live outside the US. The call centers currently support 3 languages, with plans to add more, and customers from 190 countries. As Wix expands into more international regions, it can provide localized option for accessing the call center.

“Twilio made it really easy to implement different queues, priorities, and deliveries to our agents so we can manage our resources effectively. For instance, we built an online scheduler since we’re not open 24 hours, and during the times we’re closed, the phone lines are still working for us,” said Rush.

Expansion on the horizon

Today, Wix’s two US-based call centers are the nerve center of the company, where 120 agents answer user questions and gather feedback to share with product and marketing teams. With a user base well over 80 million and growing, the Wix call center serves as an educational environment for users seeking answers to their problems, as well as a channel for the company to get a handle on ways to improve their products, solutions, and services. “We want to educate people and give them the resources they need, but at the same time we’re tracking that data to see what kind of improvements we can make to our products,” said Rush.

When Wix first implemented the Twilio client, it was taking around 500 calls a day. Today, agents each field and log about 40-50 calls each, for up to 2,000 calls per day. Said Rush, “As our call volume increased, it was never even a question about the phone system working. We know it’s going to work. That peace of mind lets us focus on other issues, and have a partner that we can rely on.”