<![CDATA[Off Center - contact centerfolds]]>Fri, 11 May 2012 09:06:34 -0800Weebly<![CDATA[Contact Centerfold of the Month (May 2012): CaLLogix ]]>Mon, 07 May 2012 10:26:06 -0800http://www.offcenterinsight.com/2/post/2012/05/contact-centerfold-of-the-month-may-2012-callogix.html Note from Greg Levin of Off Center:  This month’s “Contact Centerfold” feature comes courtesy of guest writer Sherry Leonard, President of contact center outsourcer CaLLogix. Sherry shares how her organization has greatly enhanced agent engagement and performance via a comprehensive wellness program that’s focused on much more than just employee health.
   
If I hadn’t experienced it, I wouldn’t have believed our wellness program could reduce attrition by 50% and absenteeism by 80% while cutting our insurance premium increase and improving our overall company performance.

These fantastic results are exactly what we experienced over a recent nine-month period. As President of CaLLogix, a lean contact center company headquartered in New Hampshire (an expensive geographic area for a contact center), my focus is on being highly responsive to our clients’ changing requirements, delivering exceptional service and managing a profitable company.

Attrition, absenteeism and rising health care costs negatively impact our service and bottom line. Our ability to provide superior service depends on our staff being ready to take the important calls coming into our center.

When 15 people are absent on a single day in a 200 person contact center, we have to scramble to cover the calls those 15 people would have taken. Prior to implementing our Consciousness @ CaLLogix wellness program, we averaged 15 absences each day. Today we average two. As you can imagine, that’s much easier to manage.

 
A More Conscious Contact Center

We initially designed the Consciousness @ CaLLogix program to address a few big challenges for our agents: Smoking cessation, weight loss, and stress reduction. Our goal was to enable our agents to be healthier and happier by helping them to quit smoking, to eat healthier, and to better manage the stress they face in their personal and professional lives. Healthier and happier agents are better able to serve our customers. Not only has our wellness program increased the health of our employees, it has solved some of our key management issues.

Following are some of the key components (and partners) of the program:

Smoking Cessation. We offer this course twice a year through Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. More than half of the program participants stopped smoking initially, and many are still smoke free one year later.

Stress Reduction. This program, provided by Conscious Success LLC,  teaches agents how to quickly reduce stress through easy-to-use mindfulness techniques, which can be used at any time to immediately calm the nervous system and increase effectiveness in the present moment.

Monday Minute. A weekly newsletter featuring monthly stress management themes and providing techniques to reduce stress – posted on our internal site. Examples of past monthly themes include: Managing Holiday Stress, Focusing Your Attention, 4 Keys to Easily Accomplishing More and Enjoying Yourself, and Navigating Change.

Success Matters Webcasts. Conscious Success offers a monthly webcast in which the monthly Monday Minute theme and stress reduction techniques are discussed and questions are answered.

Meditations. We hold brief stress reduction meditations a few times a week using recordings provided by Harvard Pilgrim and Conscious Success.

Program for Leaders. We used Conscious Success’ Emotional Intelligence for Leaders program, which focuses on reducing negative thought patterns and stress that effect leadership and management abilities. We conducted a 360° assessment of each supervisor’s emotional and social intelligence. The supervisors receive comprehensive coaching on the results to help them further develop their emotional and social intelligence competencies.

Healthy Eating. We run this program internally with the aim of making lasting improvements to agents’ eating habits and energy levels. Examples of program features include:
    ·      Healthy Recipes.In celebration of National Nutrition Month, we researched and posted a week’s
           worth of healthy recipes and healthy dietary guidelines and tips on our internal website.
    ·      Healthy Start.To encourage a healthy start to the day each morning during Customer Service
           Week, we offered a snack of apples and peanut butter, granola bars, yogurt or orange juice.
    ·      Happy Healthy Day. On Valentine’s Day, we introduced agents to the delicious health benefits of
           oranges and dark chocolate.

Awaken Your Inner Radiance book. We bought this book for our supervisors and administrative staff to help them learn how to reduce negative thought patterns and live a more healthy life.

Summer BBQ. This is a fun and relaxing outdoor lunch that helps to foster a sense of camaraderie and team among agents.

Theme Days. For additional fun and motivation, we hold frequent themed events in the contact center. Recent example include: 50’s Day; Red Sox Day; Ugly Sweater Day; Hat Day and Super Hero Day.

Customer Service Week. Many of the aforementioned programs are offered during National Customer Service Week (the first week of October each year). Our most recent Customer Service Week theme was “Refresh. Recharge. Reconnect.” During this week we offered such things as a Healthy Start “Souper Heroes” soup and sandwich lunch, fun and educational puzzles each morning, blood pressure screenings, smoking cessation programs, flu shots and office yoga classes. In addition, supervisors wrote agent compliments on paper leaves that we then hung from big paper trees on the walls.

+500 STEP CHALLENGE. A few times a year we give pedometers to all agents and encourage them to log the number of steps they take each day. Each time we offer this challenge we get greater participation. In addition, many agents participate in our walking club, which meets three days a week during lunch. Our agents are now aware of the number of steps they take each day and have become more active. During Customer Service Week, we have a 24-hour step challenge which gets the whole office moving.

Snowfly Program. Agents who consistently meet or exceed goals in key areas – such as attendance, call quality and up-selling – receive Snowfly tokens that they can redeem for cash and other terrific rewards. Agents can also earn Snowfly tokens for active participation in key programs and initiatives. Examples include the center’s walking program, peer mentoring program and the wellness program’s kick-off survey. 

We fully believe in walking our talk. Our management team participates in the Consciousness @ CaLLogix wellness program, dresses up for theme days and creates much of the content for our employees. We also celebrate our achievements with our staff. For instance, in honor of our sixth anniversary as a company, we gave each employee a chocolate dipped strawberry, a glass of sparkling cider and a note thanking them for their commitment and outstanding support in fulfilling our promise to our clients and their customers.


Wellness Improves Reps, Revenues and Customer Experience

The wellness program has brought the following notable results:

·      Employees are more likely to quit smoking for good and eat healthier once they’ve participated in the Conscious Success program.

·      Each time we offer the +500 Step Challenge participation has grown and the group has become very competitive. Now, during 10-minute breaks on rainy days, we see groups of employees walking the halls rather than sitting in the break room.

·      The number of employees asking for meditation breaks has grown and attendance keeps rising in these sessions.

But the most notable result is that the company saved $380,000 during the first year of the program – that equates to $2,000 per employee! Further, we haven't had to conduct our usual monthly new hire training in the past 8 months due to big reductions in turnover.

The wellness program has greatly improved our bottom line, our employee health and engagement, and not least of all, the customer experience.

]]><![CDATA[Contact Centerfold of the Month (April 2012): First Second National Bank ]]>Fri, 30 Mar 2012 21:25:32 -0800http://www.offcenterinsight.com/2/post/2012/03/contact-centerfold-of-the-month-april-2012-first-second-national-bank.html FIRST SECOND NATIONAL BANK
 
Tons of financial service organizations claim to be highly customer-centric. Only one, however, has ever proven it by firing all of its agents and replacing them with frustrated customers.

Since its revolutionary staffing change in 2010, First Second National Bank (FSNB) has seen a 40% increase in its Customer Satisfaction rate.

“Our Customer Sat scores used to always be in the toilet,” explains Robert Abernathy, CEO of FSNB. “Then, when the recession hit hard in 2008, we noticed many of our customers were losing their jobs. We saw a big opportunity. The very people who for years had been telling us how crummy our service was and what we needed to do differently were now in the market for a job. So we thought, ‘Why not bring them in and see what they can do?’ Of course, we, too, were hard hit by the recession, so we had to let all our existing staff go to make room for the new blood.”

Abernathy acknowledges it took a while for many of the new agents to get up to speed, as most of them had never worked in customer care in their life. “We took a real risk in bringing in out-of-work engineers and software developers and writers and butchers to provide customer service to our valued banking customers, but once we told them to just treat callers the way they would like to be treated, things really took off. That said, most still haven’t come even close to learning all the acronyms on their daily performance reports, thus they aren’t really sure what they need to work on.”

As much as service has improved since the bold move, FSNB agents know they can’t afford to become complacent. To keep them focused on the customer and continuously improving, the company has a unique policy in place that allows highly dissatisfied callers to fire agents with whom they interact. The customer who does the firing then has the option of applying for the opening they have created. “Our customer creed is, ‘If you think you can do the job better than us, prove it.’”   


Giving Social Customer Care a Starring Role 

Hiring customers isn’t the only innovative initiative FSNB has undertaken of late. The contact center recently implemented a one-of-a-kind social customer care strategy, outsourcing all social media monitoring and interactions to famed television/film star and Twitter junkie Ashton Kutcher.

“Our regular agents just don’t have the skills and experience to truly captivate social customers,” Abernathy explains. “We figured, who better to engage people who have nothing better to do than tweet all day than a really famous guy who has nothing better to do than tweet all day. It’s a win-win-win: FSNB is able to sustain a strong social presence, customers get to interact with a celebrity, and Mr. Kutcher is kept busy enough to keep him from making any more movies.”


Two Very Different Types of Agent Recognition

FSNB management understands the direct correlation between agent engagement and the customer experience. That’s why the bank doesn’t fool around when it comes to employee rewards and recognition. Agents who consistently meet or exceed key performance objectives – or who at least don’t smash anything at their workstation – receive occasional plaques, “thank you” notes and gift certificates. Those who truly excel contend for the center's “Agent of the Month” and “Agent of the Year” awards – each of which comes with a cash prize, a premier parking spot for a limited time, a dinner for two, and free Valium during the peak season.

That’s not to say that only those who perform well receive recognition. Agents who demonstrate incompetence or who simply don’t give a damn receive plenty of recognition, as well – just not the kind one should be proud of. For example, an FSNB agent named Bob, who is routinely tardy and out of adherence, recently showed up to work and discovered the message “Bob is the reason we missed our service level objective for the month and why our customers despise us” flitting across the center’s readerboard. Another agent, who continually struggles to resolve customer issues and to identify up-selling opportunities, found his picture on a poster with the caption “Wanted for Sucking” hanging in the breakroom.        

“It’s all part of our ‘You Get What You Deserve’ initiative,” explains Abernathy. “If you work hard and achieve, you’ll be duly rewarded. If you don’t, you’ll likely face a beating.” 

Abernathy adds that, while he’s proud of FSNB’s unique programs and bold approaches, this entire article has been one giant APRIL FOOLS gag! 


FSNB – the Big Picture:
Location: Cannot be disclosed (the entire contact center is in the National Witness Protection Program) 
Hours of operation: Open 24 hours – just not in a row.
Number of agents: Between 50 and 100 – depending on their mood
Products/services provided/supported: Customer service and sales for the bank’s entire line of products. In addition, the center handles overflow calls for cast members of Jersey Shore.
What’s so great about them? Don’t be so lazy – read the freaking article. 


HAPPY APRIL FOOLS!
]]><![CDATA[Contact Centerfold of the Month (March 2012): Allianz Global Assistance]]>Wed, 29 Feb 2012 11:49:23 -0800http://www.offcenterinsight.com/2/post/2012/02/contact-centerfold-of-the-month-march-2012-allianz-global-assistance.html ALLIANZ GLOBAL ASSISTANCE

Back in 2008, Allianz Global Assistance (formerly Mondial Assistance) won ICMI’s Global Call Center of the Year Award (large category). I chaired the selection committee during that year’s competition, and was thoroughly impressed by how good Allianz was at customer care and contact center management.

I saw first-hand how the company backed its claims of customer-centricity by focusing intently on things like C-Sat data/feedback and contact quality; how they nailed an ambitious service level goal and other accessibility objectives without hammering agents over the head about Average Handle Time; how they created high levels of agent engagement and retention via an impressive array of rewards & recognition programs; and how they sustained such levels of engagement and retention by empowering staff to participate on teams and task forces aimed at continuous process improvement.

As a contact center, you can’t really do much better than that.

Leave it to Allianz to prove me wrong.

I recently touched base with the good folks at Allianz and discovered they have hardly become complacent since winning the aforementioned coveted award. With a new state-of-the art facility being built as we speak, a burgeoning home agent initiative in place, and a proud culture of corporate social responsibility, Allianz is redefining what it means to be a world-class customer care organization. 


Moving on Up

When I heard Allianz had recently outgrown its contact center in Richmond, Va. – with its spacious workstations, ergonomic furniture, stylistic meeting rooms and ample natural light – and was planning to move at the end of this year, I felt bad for the hundreds of employees who will have to say goodbye to the impressive facility.

Until I heard about the new one.

“We have hired a team of leading designers and architects to ensure that this will be the most associate-friendly building of its kind in the area,” says Daniel Durazo, Director of Communications (USA) for Allianz. “The build-out has just begun, but we expect to have an expanded cafeteria, a state of the art fitness facility, a coffee bar, video conference-ready meeting rooms, and much more.”

Employees needn’t worry about any major changes to their commute – the new site is just a hop, skip and a jump from where they work now. “We’ll be moving into the former Circuit City headquarters,” Durazo says, “located a couple of miles from our current location. We can’t wait to move in!”


Remote Agent Program Bringing Home Results

As excited as the Allianz crew is about the new digs, not everyone will be making the move. A team of 75 agents – roughly 15% of the center’s frontline – currently handles customer contacts from home, and are more than happy to be staying right where they are.

That’s a pretty significant number of remote staff, especially considering how new Allianz is to the work-at-home model. “The Remote Agent Program was piloted in December of 2010, and then graduated to an ongoing program in July of 2011,” explains Durazo. He points out the initiative was a direct response to the company’s annual agent survey, which revealed that agents were looking for more job flexibility. “Fortunately, the initiative turned into a win-win situation by ensuring we were meeting the needs of our associates while providing for our growing workspace needs.”

Allianz will likely add more remote agents in the near future, which should come as no surprise considering the positive impact the program has had on engagement and retention throughout the contact center. 

“The feedback we have received has been very positive. This role has been received as a privilege and associates look forward to being able to join this team,” says Durazo. "The home agent program is a very attractive benefit in the eyes of our new hires. It is one of the most frequently asked questions in new-hire training.”

Many agents may ask about home-based work, but only a relatively small number qualify for such popular positions. To do so, an agent must first work at least six months on site, consistently meet or exceed all performance objectives, demonstrate the ability to work independently, and be highly customer focused. Each candidate must also have a home office that is free of noise and interruptions, and that is equipped with high-speed Internet and a hard-wired phone line.

Having such comprehensive selection criteria has paid off thus far, not only in terms of engagement and retention but performance as well. As Durazo explains, “We’ve been able to achieve both a slight increase in quality as well as a reduction in unplanned absenteeism for associates working remotely.”


Not Your Typical “CSR”

More than its new facility and remote agent program, Allianz prides itself on the memorable service it provides. Not just to customers, but to the local community and beyond. Where in most organizations CSR stands for “Customer Service Rep”, the acronym stands for something different at Allianz.

“We have a comprehensive Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program that provides opportunities for all associates to become involved,” Durazo says.

Among the CSR initiatives and activities that agents, supervisors and managers participate in include assembling food-kits to be sent to hungry families in developing nations, volunteering at Ronald McDonald house, painting houses for Elder Homes, and more. In addition, whenever an employee gives a donation to their favorite charity or non-profit organization, Allianz matches it.

Durazo doesn’t like to toot the company’s own horn when it comes to social responsibility, but with a program as popular outside the organization as it is inside, it’s hard not to.

“Our CSR program is well liked [by agents], and the community recognizes us as a responsible corporate citizen.”


Allianz Global Assistance – the Big Picture:
Location: Richmond, Va.
Hours of operation: 24/7/365
Number of agents: Approximately 500
Products/services provided/supported: Provide support for a number of products/services, such as travel insurance, event ticket protector, concierge and third party administrator services.
Channels handled: Phone, email, web self-service
What’s so great about them? Their focus on contact center facility design, a burgeoning home agent program, and a culture of social responsibility keep staff inspired and performing at optimal levels.    

]]><![CDATA[Contact Centerfold of the Month (February 2012): Lenovo ]]>Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:14:18 -0800http://www.offcenterinsight.com/2/post/2012/02/contact-centerfold-of-the-month-february-2012-lenovo.html LENOVO 

Everybody is talking about “social customer care”, but few companies are able to provide specific examples of how they’ve embraced social media to improve customer service and sentiment.

Don’t lump Lenovo in with those merely talking the talk. When it comes to social customer care, the personal technology giant is most certainly walking the walk.

I recently interviewed Lenovo’s Community Manager, Mark Hopkins, and posed a host of questions regarding the company’s social customer care strategies and practices. Read on to see his comprehensive and insightful responses.


Does Lenovo monitor conversations about the brand on social sites across the web?

Yes, we monitor broadly across the web, and consider multiple types of social content – whether on Twitter, blogs, discussion forums or our Facebook pages. Content matters regardless of venue, however customer behavior and participation dynamics can and do vary by channel.


How does Lenovo track the hottest discussion topics and use that info to make product/service improvements?

Tracking and trending hot topics broadly helps us guide our focus on the issues that matter most. Discussion forums are particularly valuable in bringing multiple customers together to share information, opinions and experiences related common issues.

The Lenovo discussion forums – available in English, Spanish and German – are strategic in this regard. Through them we are able to recognize important issues and better understand those issues to help us improve our products and services. Many of these interactions lead to updates delivered via software downloads, such as updated drivers, basic input/output system (BIOS) and software features. Some lead to changes in PC hardware, or changes to design and test specifications for future products.  

For example, we heard from the community how important our automated update application – ThinkVantage System Update – is to our customers. Knowing that, we made a strategic course change to continue it. Most recently, we entered the tablet market with several new products and discussions of these Android based devices have been particularly helpful in understanding the customer experience and improvements via over the air updates.


In what ways does Lenovo interact/engage with individual social customers to answer their questions and address their issues and complaints?

We’re focused primarily on enabling peer-to-peer support by encouraging our most knowledgeable, helpful and prolific contributors to build knowledge that can be shared with other social networks. Since we deployed the knowledgebase feature in 2010, the community has built nearly 2,000 articles and more than 12,000 discussions have been identified with a proven solution. We also receive feedback from individual customers, and we prioritize our efforts to address these opportunities.

 
Please discuss Lenovo’s use of blogs, tutorials and other useful content on social sites to keep customers informed and to proactively address common issues. 

Lenovo blogs feature commentary on upcoming technologies, design innovation, event news and highlight new products and services that are available. Through the blogs, and increasingly our Facebook Wall, we solicit customer feedback. Sometimes it is in general terms about which features customers love, or love to hate, and sometimes it is in structured ways that collect results that we incorporate into products. Some examples include putting stripes back on the ThinkPad trackpoint buttons and introducing a BIOS feature to allow Function (FN) and Control (Ctrl) keys to be swapped. 


How long has your online user community been in place, and how active is it?

The community launched in December 2007 as a worldwide English site. We added German and Spanish communities in 2010 along with the integrated knowledgebase and integrations with Facebook and Twitter. 

The community has grown quickly with more than 120,000 users registered. It’s important to note that interactions from those just browsing can often be 100 times that of those who log in to post, so considering this, the effective audience is likely above one million users. We believe good content and a rewarding experience attracts the best members, and we recognize and empower some of our most trusted members to help us manage the community by serving as volunteer moderators. As with most communities, content contribution is often highly disproportionate to the user base. We’ve found that over the past three years, slightly more than 40% of the proven solutions have come from a highly engaged core group of approximately 30 members. 

We’ve recently started to run special events in the community. These are short duration (a week or less) events where a panel of experts lead a discussion and answer customer questions about new technologies, our products or common customer needs. In November we brought together a panel of experts to talk about malware and security and to field questions on everything from smart phone vulnerability to whether it’s beneficial to have more than one anti-virus package on a PC. 


What impact, if any, has the online community had on call volumes and the bottom line in your contact center?

The community, along with other online support initiatives, provides an alternate source of solutions instead of calling a contact center. The volumes of calls we’ve received relative to our rapidly growing market share have been declining by about 20% the first year after the community launched. While this metric flattens out, the overall trends are encouraging.

Communities allow a company to move beyond one-to-one support delivery mechanisms like chat and phone and shift to “many-to-many” support formats by drawing upon community experts as well as company support resources to provide answers that have a long shelf life in the community and pay dividends through the power of Internet search. 

While this is considered call deflection, people have an opportunity to preempt the need to call Lenovo entirely by leveraging the community to identify and escalate issues faster than they would otherwise bubble up from the contact center or the field as a coherent and actionable issue. Over the past year, we’ve dedicated resources to this effort and have reduced the cycle time to resolve issues escalated from the forums by an average of 60%. 


How involved is your contact center with Lenovo’s social customer care strategy? Do they “own” it, or is social customer care more the responsibility of your Marketing or other dept.?

Today, social support and our community teams reside within our service organization, however they aren’t owned by the contact centers. Our social marketing teams are an important resource in growing our engaged audience with a clear focus on our brand.  Opportunities for social support scale along with this. 

As for our traditional contact centers, we see a natural convergence over time. It’s an opportunity to involve senior support agents working collaboratively with our customers to arrive at a solution and have that become a part of the community rather than hidden in an internal database. We want to make this a resource for all support agents along with the formal knowledge available through support site. We also see synergy with agents becoming more active in the social space as customers begin to shift their own preference from voice to electronic interactions. Consider how many people use their smartphone for voice alone versus other interactions like texting or tweeting. 


What special social media management solutions/tools does Lenovo have in place? (For monitoring, interacting, posting, etc.)

Over the years we’ve used multiple paid tools and many free tools. None seem to do everything perfectly, which is probably why there is a marketplace of perhaps 200+ competing tools. Today our marketing and services social media teams use several monitoring tools as well as others that help co-ordinate responses on Twitter and Facebook. We continue to evaluate the capability of multiple tools/platforms and look for opportunities to coordinate our support efforts across multiple teams, business functions, social networks and languages. 


What would you say are the biggest challenges involved in implementing and managing a solid social customer care strategy? What has Lenovo done to overcome/minimize such challenges? 

There are several challenges as social support becomes increasingly mainstream. As the volume of customer requests grows, companies need a scalable strategy. A community platform, especially with Twitter and other networks integrated, helps in enabling many to many support collaboration and in providing persistence of content and accessibility to the big search engines. This allows every successful support engagement to build knowledge equity that can potentially offset future requests.   

Another challenge is language – providing social support in the languages that support your customers. For example, monthly community traffic from Germany has grown 250% since the German community launched. Certainly, many Germans were already interacting in English, but providing native language support accelerated use in a dramatic manner. 

Customer expectations of social support have changed dramatically over the past five years. In 2006 or 2007, customers were pleasantly surprised if a company replied to a post on their personal blog and offered support. The mainstream adoption of Twitter, Facebook and smartphones have enabled customers to post about their experiences in real time. This presents a growing challenge to not only engage, but to manage these to a successful outcome.  Back end processes, resources and logistics all must accelerate to support the new speed of social – this is a transformation in progress.
 

What are the biggest benefits of social customer care?

Immediate visibility to emerging concerns – especially those shared by multiple customers – provides an opportunity to address issues earlier, thus reducing total support costs and providing a better customer experience. Demonstrating the brand in action – how a company responds to support issues – is important and when done well, can be a differentiator. 


How do you see social customer care evolving?

Social support is becoming increasingly mainstream and a community-centric strategy scales better than one based solely on dedicated direct engagement by contact center resources, especially for companies with complex consumer product portfolios. Facebook and Twitter are dominant today, but other social networks may be more relevant for certain customer segments or geographical regions. Social tools that allow collaboration and preserve content and reputation equity will be the long term winners. There can be opportunities for support collaboration across business relationships where there is a mutual customer. Likely scenarios could be complex consumer goods companies and big box store / online distributors, or points where multiple companies are working together to deliver a solution – hardware and software vendors or phone handset-makers and wireless carriers.  A current example of this collaborative intersection is Microsoft outreach teams and MVPs engaging in PC manufacturer communities as well as Microsoft hosted communities to provide support for mutual customers who have operating system questions.  

]]><![CDATA[Contact Centerfold of the Month (January 2012): informedRx (an SXC company)]]>Mon, 02 Jan 2012 09:30:43 -0800http://www.offcenterinsight.com/2/post/2012/01/contact-centerfold-of-the-month-january-2012-informedrx-an-sxc-company.htmlinformedRx (an SXC company)

If somebody were to hand you a copy of informedRx’s organizational chart, you might think that you were holding it upside-down. After all, who ever heard of a contact center organization positioning its agents at the top?

Well, informedRx, for one.

“Without them, there is no us,” says Kelli Barabasz, Senior Manager of Customer Care for informedRx, a leading provider of pharmacy benefit management (PBM) solutions. “[Agents] are the frontline for our members, pharmacies, doctors, and clients. Imagine having two call centers, a director, senior managers, managers, supervisors, team leads, an escalation team… and no agents. How successful would the call center be? The easy answer is there would not be a call center any longer.”

Placing agents at the top of the org chart is much more than just a symbolic move or a publicity play. InformedRx backs its org chart model up with employee-centric action – implementing programs and practices that foster a true culture of agent empowerment and engagement.

The payoff for such employee-centricity? How about an agent turnover rate that’s been slashed in half – dropping from 54% in 2008 to 27% today. 
 

A Finned Philosophy Has Agents Hooked

You might say there’s something fishy about how informedRx keeps its agents inspired and in place.

The agents wouldn’t have it any other way.

The contact center firmly embraces the famed Fish! philosophy, which comprises four simple, interconnected concepts and practices:

·      Be There – being emotionally present to improve communication and strengthen relationships.
·      Play – bringing a spirit of creativity, enthusiasm and fun to everything you do.
·      Make Their Day – serving or delighting people in meaningful and memorable ways.
·      Choose Your Attitude – taking responsibility for how you respond to challenges and how that
          impacts everyone around you.

Of course, a company can’t just command employees to embody the Fish! philosophy; managers have to live it and let employees see its powerful effects. At informedRx, it’s incorporated into everything from agent selection and development to incentives and facility design.

“To our company, the Fish! Philosophy is not just an engagement tool – it’s a way of life,” says Barabasz. “The philosophy can be embraced in many aspects in and out of work.”

So how exactly does Fish! fit into the contact center? According to Barabasz, it starts with hiring candidates who not only have the skills and knowledge for the job, but who also have the right attitude and personality to thrive in a highly team-oriented and customer-centric environment. “We make sure they are a great fit for the work they will be doing and the people they will be working with.”

There’s plenty of Fish! in agent training, too, says Barabasz. “We create a playful business atmosphere right off the bat with our training classes.” In both initial and continuous training, agents acquire key skills and knowledge via a variety of compelling learning tactics such as role-plays, games and shadowing. Agents also see early on that leadership is “there” for them. “Within the first two days of each training class, it is required for all leadership to introduce themselves to the new team,” Barabasz explains. Throughout training, they are encouraged to stop in when they walk by even if they only have time to say hi. This shows the new team members that we are here, and here for them. It relaxes them and gives them the family feel that we promote within the call center.”

The “Make Their Day” aspect of the Fish! philosophy is highly evident in informedRx’s rewards and recognition programs. Agents who exceed objectives or show notable improvement in key areas (like Quality, Hold Time and Attendance), or who go “above and beyond” with a customer or colleague, receive plenty of public praise as well as prizes likes Fish! trophies, award certificates, gift cards and tokens that can be redeemed for merchandise in the SXC store. Some top-performers have even been rewarded with a TV or an iPod.

Fish! may seem simple on paper, but as Barabasz points out, it requires a lot of effort from management for notable increases in agent engagement and commitment to occur.

“Anyone can read Fish!, show the videos and wait for results, but the philosophy has to be embraced and change has to take place in order to have success. Our leadership team spent months behind closed doors reading and talking about Fish! in order to have a clear understanding of it. If you do not truly believe in something, then how can you expect others to?”


Agent Engagement Begets Customer Sat

With leadership working so hard to “be there” for agents and “make their day”, it’s no surprise that informedRx’s agents aim to do the same for customers. And judging by the contact center’s average C-Sat rate of 88%, the agents have succeeded.    

“The impact [on customer satisfaction] is huge!” says Barabasz. “In order to have happy customers, you have to have engaged and happy employees on the other end of the phone.”

Despite it’s consistently high C-Sat results, the center hasn’t become complacent. Managers continue to carefully analyze scores and comments from customer surveys to help identify training gaps and ensure that a high level of service is provided.

“It’s easy to lose focus on the positive things you are doing and let them slip away, and then you see your C-Sat scores fall. We look at the results to formulate a game plan to improve on the lower scores while continuing to focus [on the things that drive] the higher ones.”


informedRx – the Big Picture:
Location: Lisle, Ill, & Scottsdale, Ariz
Hours of operation: 24/7/365
Number of agents: 200-300 (depending on time of year)
Products/services provided/supported: Pharmacy benefit management (PBM) support for members, pharmacies, and doctors.
Channels handled: Live phone, IVR, email, web self-service
What’s so great about them? The contact center strongly embraces the famed Fish! Philosophy to drive agent engagement sky high and deliver stellar customer experiences.

]]><![CDATA[Contact Centerfold of the Month (December 2011): The North Texas Tollway Authority]]>Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:48:20 -0800http://www.offcenterinsight.com/2/post/2011/12/contact-centerfold-of-the-month-december-2011-the-north-texas-tollway-authority.html_ THE NORTH TEXAS TOLLWAY AUTHORITY

Many companies fill their mission statement with “customer-centricity”. The North Texas Tollway Authority (NTTA) fills their actual contact channels with it.

A few years ago, the NTTA made a strategic decision to put its money where its mission statement was – implementing a dynamic “Voice of the Customer” (VOC) initiative that has since had a Texas-sized impact on agent performance, customer satisfaction and the company’s bottom line.

“[We wanted to] synchronize with customers and measure performance through their eyes,” says John Bannerman, Assistant Director of the NTTA’s Contact Center. “Our goal was to transform our culture to fully embrace our mission statement in becoming a truly customer-centric organization. It has become more than a mission statement to us – it is the way we treat our customers and each other.” 


Turning Customers into Coaches

The key component driving the NTTA’s VOC initiative is a unique and potent customer experience/performance management solution called Customer Driven Management (CDM), developed by Tamer Partners Corporation (www.tamerpartners.com). Using this new tool, the contact center is able to cleanly capture and analyze detailed customer feedback across all contact channels right after an interaction, thus arming the NTTA with timely employee-specific scores and commentary that can be used to continuously improve performance.

Here’s how it works: Following an interaction with one of the NTTA’s agents, the customer receives an email asking them to provide “advice” to the agent about service they provided. The customer clicks on a link to access the survey, which features questions about things like the agent’s skills/knowledge, courtesy/professionalism and ability to efficiently resolve the issue at hand. But this is not your everyday generic customer satisfaction survey application. What sets CDM apart is its customization; the NTTA is able to create “Individual Action Surveys” that ask for customer feedback on particular areas that each agent is working on.

In essence, CDM has turned the NTTA’s customers into coaches, says Bannerman.

“CDM not only provides feedback directly to the service representative from the customer; it also adapts to the unique skills of each representative and seeks feedback from each customer to directly guide the employee on their specific opportunities for improvement. Our customers are now directly coaching employees on all areas of improvement including listening skills, empathy, call control and energy, to name a few.”

The NTTA has programmed the CDM system to provide alerts whenever a customer scores an agent either very high or very low, thus enabling supervisors to identify issues as they arise as well as to praise/recognize agents whenever they receive accolades.

CDM stores all customer responses including scores/ratings, yes/no responses, and text comments. The NTTA’s supervisors and managers can view and report on all surveys and responses for their team. Each of the center’s agents has access to their personal feedback in the CDM system, as well.

 
Lower Headcount, Higher Performance on the Frontline

The NTTA hasn’t handed its entire QA function over to its customers. The contact center’s internal quality monitoring staff still evaluate recorded calls to ensure that agents are providing accurate information and complying with established policies and procedures.

Still and all, Bannerman says that efficacy of the CDM solution has eliminated the need to hire four additional frontline managers. He adds that the supervisor-to-agent ratio has increased from 1:12 to 1:17 without sacrificing the level of coaching/support.

Of course, the VOC initiative isn’t all about managerial headcount reduction; it’s about providing a forever better level of service. Since implementing the initiative, the NTTA has seen agents’ quality and productivity results improve significantly. “We’ve found that the best opportunity for frontline change was putting our customers in charge,” says Bannerman. He points out that CDM scores and feedback are used not only during quality monitoring coaching sessions but also in annual agent evaluations and action plans. As much as 50% of the feedback during an agent’s annual review comes directly from customers. “Customers are effectively managing the quality of their future service experience by coaching and developing employees to meet their needs and expectations.”

And that’s just fine by the employees, Bannerman says.

“Agents love the VOC initiative, particularly CDM. They get far more [positive] feedback from customers than a supervisor would have time to provide for their entire team on a daily basis. This provides encouragement and motivation [for agents] to continue doing things well, and makes them more willing to accept suggestions for improvement.”

It also apparently makes them want to stick around longer.

“As a result of consistent positive feedback from customers, our attrition rate is 12% annually, which by contact center standards, is very low.”

 
NTTA – the Big Picture:
Location: Plano, TX
Hours of operation: Mon-Fri 7am-7pm; Sat 9am-5:30pm
Number of agents: 152
Products/services provided/supported: Account maintenance, toll tag acquisition and general customer service
Channels handled: Phone, IVR, email, web self-service, and store front
What’s so great about them? They’ve vastly improved agent performance, the customer experience and the bottom line via a highly dynamic “Voice of the Customer” initiative.

]]><![CDATA[Contact Centerfold of the Month (November 2011): Active Network]]>Mon, 31 Oct 2011 12:54:22 -0800http://www.offcenterinsight.com/2/post/2011/10/contact-centerfold-of-the-month-november-2011-active-network.html ACTIVE NETWORK

Almost as challenging as handling all the customer contacts that Active Network’s contact center receives is managing the slew of job applications and resumes that arrive daily. Once you hear about how much Active Network values and empowers its staff, it’s easy to understand applicants’ attraction.

The San Diego-based company’s heavy emphasis on agent wellness, development and empowerment – as well as its popular work-at-home initiative – are among the key reasons why the resumes keep flowing in and existing employees keep sticking around. In fact, San Diego Business Journal named Active Network among San Diego’s Best Places to Work in 2011 and listed it among the finalists for the magazine’s “Healthiest Employers Award” in 2010. 

“The leaders of Active Network believe in our mission of connecting people with the things they love, want, and need to do,” says Dennis Triplett, Senior Vice President of Operations at Active Network. “This extends to, if not begins with, our employees. From the first day of training, our call center agents feel empowered to provide high-level customer service to our clients.”

Active Network is the largest network of activities, organizations and people linked by world-class technology. The company’s flagship media property, Active.com®, is the leading online community for people who want to discover and participate in activities about which they are passionate.


A Healthy Approach to Contact Center Management

Agents at Active Network don’t merely feel empowered; they feel powerful –thanks to the company’s passionate commitment to employee health and well-being.

Agents at each contact center location participate in a comprehensive employee participation and wellness initiative called “Active X”, which includes such offerings as daily exercise programs, walking/running groups, nutritional behavior workshops, smoking cessation courses, yoga classes, nutritional seminars, and community volunteer opportunities.

“ActiveX is the internal manifestation of our company mission, and one of the reasons why we are frequently listed as a best place to work,” says Triplett. "Our wellness beliefs are rooted in participation and the intrinsic outcomes of being part of something healthy. And our [wellness programs] are filled with success stories – in just a short period of time, they have made significant changes in our employees’ lives. These lives have touched others, infecting active participation across our company, spreading to their families and into their communities.”


Ensuring Agent Success

Having physically and emotionally fit agents on the frontline is a big benefit, but wellness programs alone don’t drive lasting agent engagement and performance improvement. That’s why Active Network invests a lot of time and effort in agent development and recognition, too.

After a careful applicant selection process, new-hires are immersed in a rigorous and engaging training program featuring a healthy mix of traditional classroom training and role-playing as well as e-learning via the center’s Learn.com web-based training/testing application.

Active Network’s agents continue to receive ample training and coaching throughout their tenure. Those committed to serious careers in customer care can take part in the contact center’s Leadership Development program, which grooms staff for more advance positions within the division. “Agents are able to apply for open positions not only in the call center,” explains Triplett, “but also in other departments in our division – particularly with the Customer Service and Help Desk departments. The majority of our call center Support staff, Supervisors, Team Leaders, and Call Center Senior Management began their career as call center agents."

There’s still plenty of opportunity and allure for agents who don’t go the Leadership Development route. For instance, all frontline staff are encouraged to participate on teams and task forces committed to enhancing performance and employee engagement. Direct agent involvement on such projects has led to numerous new programs and initiatives, including a couple of rewards & recognition programs (“Kudos” and “Shining Star”) and improved system workflows (e.g., scripting for sales calls).

Driving additional agent engagement and performance is the extra cash that agents can earn by learning advanced new skills, and by achieving goals set around such key metrics as quality, attendance and sales productivity. Says Triplett, “We foster a ‘The more you know, the more you can earn’ philosophy.”  

Not all incentives in the contact center are monetary; agents enjoy plenty of public praise and recognition whenever they exceed key performance objectives, show notable improvement and effort, or receive positive comments from customers.    
 

Work-at-Home Works Well

Many agents get to enjoy Active Network’s enticing culture without ever even having to show up to the contact center. That’s thanks to the company’s progressive and thriving work-at-home initiative, which features up to 170 home agents during the peak season.

Unlike home agents at many other organizations, Active Network’s virtual crew members are truly untethered – they can live pretty much anywhere in the U.S. Having such a non-restrictive geographical policy is a big boon to the contact center’s recruiting efforts and ability to handle an ever-fluctuating workload, says Triplett.

“We have the ability to hire high quality customer service agents in a seasonal environment without expanding the operational hours of our ‘brick & mortar’ locations.”

The only people happier than him and his management team are the home agents themselves.

“We have seen an increase in our [overall] Employee Engagement results," Triplett says, "specifically with the work-at-home team.”

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Active Network – the Big Picture:
Location: 7 brick & mortar centers (+ numerous home agents) located throughout the U.S.  
Hours of operation: Most centers are 8 am-10 pm ET. One center is 24 x 7.
Products/services provided/supported: Inbound sales and inbound/outbound service for Active Network’s technology solutions (for online registration, transaction processing, and marketing services)
Channels handled: Phone, IVR, email , web self-service, and social media
What’s so great about them? Their heavy emphasis on agent wellness, empowerment and development drives a highly engaged frontline to deliver exceptional customer service.

]]><![CDATA[Contact Centerfold of the Month (October 2011): FirstEnergy]]>Mon, 03 Oct 2011 16:33:52 -0800http://www.offcenterinsight.com/2/post/2011/10/contact-centerfold-of-the-month-october-2011-firstenergy.htmlFirstEnergy

 While waiting for a live agent, callers on hold can become easily frustrated.  At FirstEnergy, callers on hold simply get on with their lives. 

Thanks to its strategic use of “virtual queuing”, which enables customers to request a callback without losing their place in the phone queue during the call center’s busy periods, FirstEnergy has managed to  enhance service levels and the customer experience while lowering operational costs and improving agent morale.

“We implemented Virtual Hold in our multiple locations back in mid-2008,” says John Falvy, FirstEnergy’s Director of Contact Center Operations. “We just felt that at times, especially during peak periods like Monday mornings, some of our customers were waiting in queue way too long. Increasing customer satisfaction was our primary goal.” 

Soon after implementing the virtual queuing solution, FirstEnergy followed up with customers to gauge their opinion of the new service option. A sampling of the results included:

·      The vast majority of customers surveyed believed that FirstEnergy should continue to offer the virtual queuing solution. Moreover, 75% of customers who used it had a more favorable opinion of FirstEnergy because of the  virtual queuing.

·      Customers who used the virtual queuing option were more satisfied with their contact experience than those who waited on hold.

·      The median wait time virtual queuing users found “unacceptable” was 20 minutes, compared to just 10 minutes for those staying on hold.


Virtual Queuing Success Driven by Solid Planning & Processes

FirstEnergy’s success with the Virtual Hold solution required careful planning, proper implementation, daily testing/monitoring of the system, and a solid understanding of the art and science of call center workforce management, says Falvy.

“It’s just one tool among many in the call management toolkit. It’s a vital tool, but you also have to have  good forecasting and scheduling systems [and processes] in place, as well as some other enabling technologies in order to augment what Virtual Hold offers.”   

In other words, call centers that invest in virtual queuing expecting it to automatically solve all their call-handling and on-hold headaches are going to be disappointed – as will their customers.

But for companies like FirstEnergy that already do an impressive job of calculating call volume and staffing accordingly to ensure that service level objectives are met, virtual queuing can be a helpful solution.

One of the keys, according to Falvy, is to not become overly reliant on the system. “Generally speaking, we offer Virtual Hold if the wait time for the customer is greater than 120 seconds. It doesn’t make sense to offer [callbacks] if you are already achieving a 30-second average speed of answer.”

Falvy adds that it doesn’t make sense to use virtual queuing at all in the midst of a particularly dramatic spike in call volume, such as during a widespread power outage. “We don’t offer it on outage- or emergency-related calls. During a very large outage, we can get 30,000 calls in a half hour. We just don’t have the port capacity for that.” Instead, the center provides information about power outages (including areas affected, estimated time to recovery, etc.) via its IVR system. Such proactive messaging keeps affected customers in the loop and virtually eliminates their need to speak to a live rep. 

On average, a little over 50% of FirstEnergy callers who are offered the option of being called back rather than waiting on hold accept the offer. “We’re generally in the 52%-54% range, and we’re seeing it get more accepted,” says Falvy.


Enamored Agents and a Bolstered Bottom Line

Because of its ability to reduce the number of customer complaints, the call center agents have grown to appreciate virtual queuing.

“Customers can become irate if they have to hold for a significant amount of time,” Falvy explains. “The agent must then diffuse the customer right off the bat.”

That can take a big toll on agent motivation and morale. But now that far fewer FirstEnergy customers enter a call feeling like they’ve just had precious minutes taken from their lives, agents receive far fewer verbal complaints. 

“Customers [who opt for a callback] are not nearly as annoyed or angry,” says Erin Badger, an agent at FirstEnergy’s call center in Akron, Ohio. “They have had time to focus on something other than waiting.”

Of course, cutting down on customer rants also helps to reduce call handle times. That’s not a bad combination – higher customer satisfaction AND lower costs.

"We used to hear complaints on how long people had to wait on hold,” says Megan Engleman, Senior Customer Service Associate at FirstEnergy’s call center in, Reading, Pa. “Now we hear compliments on how nice it is to have the service."

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FirstEnergy – the Big Picture:
Location: Akron, Ohio; Toledo, Ohio; Reading, Pennsylvania; Fairmont, West Virginia
Hours of operation: 24/7 for emergency and 911; 8 am to 6 pm for all other customer service contacts
Number of agents: Over 600
Products/services provided/supported: Start/end electric service, outage reports/questions, emergency/911, billing/payments, credit, and new construction
Channels handled: Phone, IVR, email, web self-service  
What’s so great about them? The call center has greatly enhanced the customer (and agent) experience while reducing operational costs via virtual queuing. 

]]><![CDATA[Contact Centerfold of the Month (September 2011): Comerica Bank]]>Mon, 05 Sep 2011 05:59:39 -0800http://www.offcenterinsight.com/2/post/2011/09/contact-centerfold-of-the-month-september-2011-comerica-bank.html COMERICA BANK

When the economy went south a few years back, many organizations started focusing on employee layoffs. At Comerica Bank’s call center, the focus was more on employee engagement and empowerment.

Comerica realized that great customer service is never as important as it is during volatile times, and that such service isn’t possible unless the call center’s agents feel respected and valued. Today the folks on the frontline at Comerica’s centers in Dallas and Detroit are viewed less as customer service agents and more as customer service consultants.

“We wanted to get agents more involved and concerned with the day-to-day operations of our company,” explains Patrick O’Shea, Senior VP of Comerica’s Customer Contact Center. “Agents are the workhorses and the engine that keep every contact center running, yet they are often viewed as expendable. We did not want that culture in our center, so we partnered with the very people who could tell us best how to achieve more – our own agents.”

The overall result? A lot of Comerica customers and employees who have no plans of leaving the company anytime soon.

“Once we started working with our agents as consultants, we moved more quickly toward customer satisfaction and engagement,” O’Shea says. “This metamorphosis has led to agents becoming more engaged, as they’re now empowered to advise us on how to better operate.”


Giving Agents the Gavel

One way Comerica empowers the frontline is via the use of an “Agent Council.” The council is made up of one peer-elected delegate from each team in the call center. These delegates meet with one another and O’Shea once a month to discuss issues of interest or concern and come up with solutions that are good for agents and the business.

“The Agent Council is our ‘congress’, if you will,” O’Shea explains. “We review whatever is important to the agents, and then what is important to leadership. For instance, we may spend 25 minutes discussing dress code for the agents, followed by a 25-minute discussion on goal attainment. The benefit of the council is that we collaborate together as we forge what is best for the company, the customer and our culture.”

The council isn’t the only way that Comerica actively involves agents in continuously improving processes and the customer experience. Agent also participate in focus groups, where they are asked to provide comprehensive and candid feedback on key topics presented by management. “The focus groups are specific agenda-lead meetings for the sole purpose of information-gathering on a particular topic,” says O’Shea. “Often, results of a focus group are brought to an Agent Council meeting for review and to determine next steps.”

The council and focus groups aren’t in place just to make agents feel like they have a say; rather, real results are achieved – and the call center’s culture is strengthened, says O’Shea.

“I think we – leadership and the frontline – now have a much better understanding and appreciation for each others' duties and workload due to the council and groups. We have re-written such things as attendance policies, dress codes and escalation processes.  Each rewritten policy and procedure not only serves the company and the culture better, it always results in improved customer engagement.”

And agents certainly don’t seem to mind the extra responsibility.

“I love the Agent Council,” says one Comerica agent, Michelle. “I’ve never worked somewhere where I actually create the rules and have the ability to vote on how we run the call center.”


An Ever-Expanding Library of Service Excellence
 
Adding to Comerica’s culture of empowerment and continuous improvement is an innovative “exemplary call” initiative that is driven by the center’s agents. Any time an agent completes what they feel was an excellent call in which they provided great service and truly connected with the customer, the agent can send an email containing the call time and date to their supervisor. The supervisor locates the recording of the call in question, listens to it and, in many cases, “adds it to the ‘superstar great call’ library, which can be accessed by the entire contact center,” O’Shea explains. He points out that such calls have helped to enhance agent training and development throughout the center. “These calls can be played during training as well as team meetings and town hall events.”

The calls also lead to rewards and accolades for the agents who “star” in them. “Agents can receive prizes as well as recognition in the form of certificates to be placed on their cubicles,” says O’Shea.

The recognition that agents receive for their top calls doesn’t come only from their supervisors. Occasionally, members of senior management who have listened to an exemplary call will send a praise-filled email to the agent involved.

While the emails sent by senior management are highly coveted by recipients in the call center, the folks on the frontline are hardly blown away by such personal attention from Comerica execs. Agents are, after all, pretty used to a high level of senior management support and involvement.

“A great culture starts at the top,” say O’Shea. “Our senior management team visits our contact centers, they meet our people and they celebrate victories with them. Contact centers are a full engagement sport.”


Comerica – the Big Picture:

Location: Dallas, TX; Detroit, MI
Hours of operation: 8 am-10 pm CT
Number of agents:  285
Products/services provided/supported: The sales and servicing of all Comerica financial products.
Channels handled: Phone, IVR, email, online banking (web self-service)  
What’s so great about them? Their dedication to agent engagement and empowerment has led to notable increases in employee retention and performance, not to mention customer loyalty. 

]]><![CDATA[Contact Centerfold of the Month (August 2011): RDI ]]>Mon, 01 Aug 2011 12:13:07 -0800http://www.offcenterinsight.com/2/post/2011/08/contact-centerfold-of-the-month-august-2011-rdi.html RDI

While many call centers struggle to adapt to new contact channels, RDI has taken customer support to the text level.

Chat is where it’s at with RDI, a leading provider of call center outsourcing services. The company added web chat to the mix a few years ago to provide customers with a more dynamic and real-time e-support option than email. Since then, RDI has helped a broad range of corporate clients greatly enhance customer loyalty and reduce costs. 

Jim Borum, Senior Vice President at RDI, feels chat is quickly transforming from a “nice-to-have” to a “need-to-have” service option in today’s customer care environment.

“As the younger population – prolific at text messaging – has entered the business age, chat has become more and more important,” says Borum. “It’s not a ‘stand-alone’ interaction channel – it’s all a part of giving customers the opportunity to contact you any way they want, whenever they want.”

RDI’s seven contact centers collectively handle between 3,000-5,000 chat sessions with customers daily. Most of the sessions are handled by dedicated chat agents, though several agents serve a more “universal” role, handling chat in addition to phone and email contacts.


Finding Agents Who Have the Write Stuff

Much of RDI’s success with chat can be attributed to the company’s comprehensive hiring program, which is designed to ensure that the center is forever staffed with agents possessing solid writing skills and plenty of web savvy.

“Hiring and training changed significantly after we introduced email years ago, and it changed even more when we added chat,” Borum says.

While RDI still embraces such key traditional applicant assessment methods as phone screening, personal interviews and reference checks, the hiring process these days also includes tests for grammar, spelling and computer/online proficiency.

Borum points out that all agent candidates at RDI undergo such assessment tests – not just applicants gunning to be e-support specialists. Why? Because chat at RDI serves not only as a customer contact medium but also as a powerful internal communication method. “Agents are expected to be able to use text chat as a workplace tool – whether that’s to access a supervisor, a team lead, a subject matter expert or somebody in management,” Borum explains. 


Practical Chat Apps, Impressive Performance

Even with high-caliber agents ready to tackle customer’s text-based transactions, chat will fall flat without efficient and effective chat routing, tracking and reporting in place. To help with all that, RDI uses a potent chat management solution by Interactive Intelligence. The system is equipped with such features as:

·      Skills-based routing – ensures each customer chat request is handled by the most qualified agent available, thus helping to increase issue resolution rates.
·      Response templates – help agents provide quick and consistent answers to common inquiries. (Though RDI agents still customize each response to avoid creating impersonal “canned” answers.)
·      Web collaboration tools – enable agents to assist customers with filling out online forms, finding pertinent web pages/information, etc.
·      Multichannel integration – lets the call center integrate chat with self-service, phone, email and other methods of customer interaction.

In addition, RDI’s chat management solution features comprehensive reports providing detailed data on contact volume and chat-handling performance.

And oh what performance it is. RDI consistently achieves an ambitious chat service level objective of 80/15, meaning that agents provide a first response to 80% of all chat inquiries within 15 seconds. Naturally, such a high service level means a low abandon rate (customers abandoning the chat interaction before an agent’s first response). According to Borum, RDI maintains a very enviable chat abandon rate of under 2%.


Ensuring Chat Quality Inside and Out

Of course, getting to customers’ chat inquiries quickly means little if the service provided is poor, which is why RDI carefully monitors chat transactions internally. QA personnel not only regularly observe agents handling chat sessions live, they also evaluate a random sample of transcripts for each agent to ensure accuracy, professionalism and good grammar. Soon after a QA evaluation, the agent’s supervisor meets with the agent for a coaching session. During these sessions, agents get a chance to self-evaluate their performance in addition to receiving timely feedback.

As Borum explains, “The transcript audit allows us to sit down with the rep and show them in black and white, ‘Here’s the interaction – what do you think you could have done better? What tools are you missing? Did you give accurate information?’ They get scorecards just like they do for phone interactions.”

Quality assurance goes beyond mere internal monitoring of chat transactions. To get a more “customer’s eye view” of the chat experience, RDI selects a random sample of customers who’ve recently interacted with an agent via chat and emails them a concise survey. In addition, customers can request to complete a survey immediately following their chat session.
 
To further ensure high quality and positive customer experiences, RDI doesn’t push agents to handle multiple chat sessions concurrently. The average is about one and a half chats at a time per agent. On occasion, an experienced chat agent will handle up to three sessions simultaneously, but only when each customers’ inquiry/issue is of a basic nature.

“Productivity can never be gained at the expense of quality,” says Borum. “When you have agents handling four and five chats simultaneously, it’s easy to get sloppy, and all you do is create more inquiries via some other channel. Customers handled poorly via chat will just contact you via phone or email.”

And won’t hesitate to do so, Borum adds, pointing out that patience runs a bit thin with chat. “A chat customer, if they become frustrated, will abandon the interaction more quickly than will somebody on the phone or in another medium. They’ll click off the chat session and either try to text chat with a different rep, or, in most cases, they’ll contact the center via a different medium. So we work really hard to have that not happen.”
----------------------------------------------------

Start Smart with Chat
Jim Borum of RDI provides the following “start-up” tips for call center professionals who are considering implementing chat as a customer contact channel:
·       Implement with a select group of agents trained on your chat tools and practices
·       Limit hours for text chat
·       Consider limiting the roll-out to premium customers only
·       Overstaff for chat the first 30 days
·       Emphasize quality over quantity.
·       Set metric goals realistically
·       Survey customers on chat experience
·       Actively promote chat option (via IVR, agents, website)
Source: RDI (http://www.rdioutsourcing.com)


RDI – the Big Picture:

Location: Four centers in Ohio and one each in Arizona (bilingual), Nevada and Mexico
Hours of operation: 24/7
Number of agents: 1,200 
Products/services provided/supported: Customer service and support for customers of corporate clients in a wide variety of industries, namely Utilities, Financial Services, Telecom, Pharmaceuticals and Retail.
Channels handled: Phone, IVR, email, chat, web self-service  
What’s so great about them? Have mastered web chat to provide cost-effective and dynamic e-support with a high level of quality and customer satisfaction. 

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