Leading Full-Service Brokerage FirmBusiness ChallengeA leading global full-service brokerage firm requested assistance with architecting, designing, and transitioning its call centers using Acumen Solutions’ expertise to help achieve “world class” customer support. The client had noticed that it was losing customers to competitors due to their superior support and wanted to start the initial phase of upgrading. Our client’s support centers had issues with limited capabilities and inefficiencies that needed to be addressed including:
To make matters more complex the firm was transitioning two call centers, in Ohio and Utah, into new premises to consolidate the support centers of the organization. This required the transition to a new Avaya ACD + IVR infrastructure to remain compatible with the other call centers. These newly consolidated call centers needed to be able to support the additional 3.5 million accounts and 2 million calls a year that were previously being handled by the Ohio and Utah centers. SolutionAcumen Solutions was engaged to evaluate a number of potential projects aimed at raising the standard of service centers. We also aided with budget and timeline planning for the initiative, addressed project priority, and created the roadmap for the client to achieve their service goal. The IT Roadmap that Acumen Solutions delivered provided the client with a concrete plan to achieve their goals step by step, while taking into account the organizational and technical complexities created by the move to a new CRM system and the geographic consolidation of the previous call centers. We identified processes that would maximize client support effectiveness and save money by eliminating or upgrading inefficient systems that were in place. Acumen Solutions delivered the end-state architecture that would integrate critical call center systems and applications including; ACD, IVR, agent desktop, CRM, and backend applications. We developed detailed design specifications for:
Return on InvestmentAcumen Solutions identified over $20,000,000 in potential savings for the client in addition to the upgrade in customer service and increase in customer retention that would take place from the implementation of our recommendations. We estimate that the IVR improvements, combined with reductions in talk-time due to CTI and Agent Toolset improvements would remove 6.6 Million minutes of talk time per year from the service center workload. Two million minutes removed by moving manual work to the IVR and 4.6 million minutes of reduction in average call handling time. Research shows that firms with world class service centers experience customer retention rates exceeding 80%. In addition to customer retention, the decrease in talk time enables the agents to spend time more productively growing and cross-selling their existing accounts. The sponsors can use the Roadmap for internal stakeholder management and communications with the regions and corporate management. As a result, the IT group can be involved from the start, advising upon interdependencies with other IT initiatives throughout the project. Cost-efficiency improvements are estimated to provide full payback of the projected investment within the first year after completion. |
Practice Highlights
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