Case Study
Contact Center Assessment for Large Retirement System in the U.S.
Client Background and Overview
A very large public sector retirement system in the Northern U.S. (supporting over 1 million participants) contracted Turnkey Solutions to assess its contact center and identify factors that were negatively impacting performance outcomes and customer service ratings. Not only was the contact center receiving a high number of complaints via all communication channels, but they were also fielding more than 60,000 calls per month with a staff size of only 35. In spite of best efforts from contact center employees, callers were still subject to extremely long wait times, leading to high abandon rates and thousands of forced disconnects daily. By thoroughly assessing several components of the contact center, Turnkey Solutions was able to provide contact center staff and stakeholders with solutions and other tools to address their various challenges.
Challenges
To discover the root cause(s) of the contact center’s different issues, Turnkey staff began by performing a very detailed Current State Analysis. This analysis included facilitating employee focus groups to gather general information and perspectives on the identified issues. Additionally, Turnkey conducted an extensive review of the contact center’s organizational structure, workforce, training program, technological capability, social media and communicative channels, and processes. Additionally, Turnkey developed and deployed a Member Satisfaction Survey to gather data and perspective from members on their service and interactions with the contact center.
After analyzing the data from the Current State Analysis, Turnkey Solutions was able to diagnose the following underlying factors contributing to the client’s various associated problems:
- Talent Shortage: The contact center was understaffed by more than twice the required number of agents needed to adequately cover the phones. This caused high burnout and low morale, which in turn led to high turnover and challenges with recruiting agents.
- System Setbacks: A new, incompatible system implementation created a loss of former system capabilities, caused valuable customer information to be inaccessible to agents, and occasionally triggered the sending of confusing or late correspondence to members. This, therefore, made it challenging for agents to provide precise information to callers and handle cases efficiently, driving up wait times and callbacks from confused and dissatisfied members.
- Communicative Hindrances: For the organization at large, tensions in interdepartmental collaboration and a lack of communication and cohesion from several overwhelmed departments created a significant delay in the contact center’s ability to meet evolving member needs and resolve cases in a thorough and timely manner.
Overall, these three challenges combined and created incredible barriers for the contact center to provide exceptional service to customers and has delayed customer resolutions by multiple years.
Solution
To address these three critical challenges for the contact center, Turnkey’s staff provided the following tailored solutions:
- Best Practices Report: Using the most recent research for public sector contact centers, Turnkey Solutions presented the client with a report of best practices to benchmark their own practices against. This included surveying other retirement systems’ contact centers comparable in size and function on their best practices in all assessed areas and technology for our client to observe the standard within their industry.
- Ideate Workshops: Using Design Thinking methodology, Turkey Solutions developed and facilitated 5 half-day workshops with staff, leadership, and executive leadership to develop trust between the different retirement system units and innovative solutions to address their complex issues.
- Recommendations Report: As a product of the ideate workshops, Turnkey collaborated with stakeholders to develop 90+ customized and implementable recommendations that were separated into quick wins (high impact, short term solutions) and long-term goals (comprehensive solutions requiring more than six months). These recommendations included:
- A plan to reinstate a monthly executive forum for departments and units to communicate better with each other and get on the same page.
- Making adjustments to contact center hours and telecommuting options to attract more agents.
- Restructuring the contact center’s Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system and providing more self-serve options to offload calls.
- Creating a traineeship program that guarantees a certain pay grade for agents upon completion to retain talent.
- Creating a suggested contact center structure to optimize operations.
- Roadmap: The 90+ customized recommendations were developed into a roadmap. This included creating a phased timeline of implementation for the next two years, listing prerequisite actions for each recommendation to ensure smooth implementation.
- Risk Vs. Benefit Analysis Checklist: Turnkey Solutions also developed and provided the client with a Risk vs. Benefit Analysis Checklist for contact center staff to gauge the feasibility of considered future initiatives objectively.
Conclusion
In just four short months, Turnkey Solutions helped develop functional strategies to transform the contact center from a chaotic landscape of frustrated callers and overwhelmed staff, into a model of efficiency and customer satisfaction. By addressing the core issues of understaffing, outdated contact center technology, and interdepartmental barriers, the contact center was empowered to not only resolve backlog and decrease wait times, but also create a positive and sustainable environment for staff to thrive. This revitalized contact center is now equipped to execute the strategies that will cause them to exceed member expectations and build trust within the community.