The call came in early Sunday morning: “Our systems are down after a cyber-incident, and we need to get our contact centre back up immediately. Our customers cannot phone us, which is a major problem as all our other systems are down, so we are completely cut off.”
This was the desperate plea from a major, global healthcare solutions company – and one of our customers here at Sabio – after a devastating ransomware attack had crippled their internal IT infrastructure. This attack took down their on-premise contact centre, resulting in them having no access to critical customer data and communications. It was a nightmare scenario.
Our customer took immediate action – shutting down certain systems and seeking assistance from external cybersecurity and forensic IT experts. But what about the contact centre solution that is vital to its operations?
This is where Sabio comes into the picture. And we had a plan…
Within hours of that distress call, our team spun up a 100-seat cloud-based contact centre solution ready to support multiple European countries powered by the Twilio Flex platform.
By the start of business Monday morning, our client’s customers throughout Europe could once again reach service agents, thanks to Sabio’s quick action, extensive contact centre knowledge and the flexibility of the cloud.
The Sabio Advantage
Our preparedness was no accident. We maintain detailed playbooks for these exact crisis scenarios and recently helped a multinational home emergency repairs and improvement specialist following a similar cyber incident earlier in 2023.
On that occasion, Sabio launched new Contact Centre Platforms in the UK and US within 24 hours after a cyber-attack hit the Home Emergency Specialist’s outsourced contact centre platform provider. The speed and agility shown by Sabio meant customer service was maintained, and policyholders continued to receive the support they needed.
Whether due to ransomware, natural disasters or simple human error, we know that system outages, even in public cloud solutions can occur. But with the right cloud-based tools and experience, we can get customers back online by providing replacement contact centre and automation solutions in a matter of hours, not days or weeks.
In this most recent case, we provided a complete and modern cloud contact centre platform, including identity management provision (including Multi-Factor Authentication), within 8 hours. This enabled secure agent access from anywhere (i.e. the agent’s homes) without reliance on existing potentially compromised credentials. It was the fastest and most resilient way to restore customer service capabilities.
A Cautionary Tale
The attack on our customer, a Fortune 500 company and S&P 500 member, shows that no organisation is immune to the growing threat of cyber-attacks.
Between January and March 2023, Sophos – a cybersecurity software specialist – commissioned an independent survey of 3,000 IT/cybersecurity leaders employed by organisations operating across 14 countries. It found that it cost companies on average $1.82 million to recover from a ransomware attack — and that doesn’t even include paying a ransom. For companies with annual revenue of less than $10 million, the average cost of recovery was $165,520. For companies with annual revenue greater than $5 billion, the average cost of recovery approached $5 million. On top of all this, 84% of private sector organisations hit by ransomware said the attack had caused them to lose revenue as a result of lost business opportunities.
So, whether for large enterprises or small businesses, the need for preparedness and business continuity planning has never been greater. Events that seemed unthinkable years ago are now lurking around every corner.
At Sabio, we make it our business to implement contact centre technology and truly understand your business and customer journeys. We’ll work with you to identify and create contingency plans should the worst-case scenario happen, and your customers need peace of mind you’re on top of it.
And if the worst does indeed happen – and it can happen to anyone – you can trust us to bring calm, confident and rapid support when needed. That’s the Sabio way.
Don’t wait until you’re pleading for urgent help on a Sunday morning.
Reach out today, and let’s build cyber resilience and contact centre business continuity plans together. Your customers are counting on it…
In the meantime, read in full how we helped another customer, a multinational home emergency repairs and improvement specialist, recover after a cyber-attack rendered their contact centre platform inactive in the UK and US.
About the Author
Rob Scutchings is Chief Technology Officer at Sabio Group.
Sabio Group is a global digital customer experience (CX) transformation specialist with major operations in the UK (England and Scotland), Spain, France, Netherlands, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa and India.
The Group, which includes ‘makepositive’, delivers solutions and services that seamlessly combine digital and human interactions to support exceptional customer experiences.
Through its own technology, and that of world-class technology leaders such as Avaya, Genesys, Verint, Twilio, Google, Amazon and Salesforce, Sabio helps organisations optimise their customer journeys by making better decisions across their multiple contact channels.
The Group works with major brands worldwide, including Aegon, AXA Assistance, Bankia, BBVA, BGL, Caixabank, DHL, loveholidays, Marks & Spencer, Rentokil, Essent, GovTech, HomeServe, Sainsbury’s Argos, Telefónica, Think Money and Transcom Worldwide.
