Customer Service Centre turnaround

The Customer Service Centre for a New Zealand telco found itself in trouble - inadequate resourcing and inconsistent and unacceptable service levels were resulting in frustrated staff and unhappy customers. TeleConsultants’ Health Check helped them find the way out.

Always fire-fighting

A combination of rapid growth, a historically entrepreneurial management style and on-going service issues, meant that fire-fighting had become the normal mode of operation. Priority was given to those tasks that would have an immediate impact. Forward planning, forecasting, resource planning and development were minimal or nonexistent

Finally, management roles and responsibilities were extremely fluid, with many tasks being undertaken by those who COULD, rather than those who SHOULD, resulting in high levels of stress and frustration.

Understand what is and what might be

First we completed a Contact Centre Health Check review to help the management team understand exactly what was happening in the CSC and to prioritise an action plan.

With the review completed, the management team recognised that dealing with the issues raised and the future development of the contact centre would demand too much of their overstretched resources. TeleConsultants stepped in, providing an on-site presence to progress the recommendations until the management team was able to take over.

Benefits

• Assistance with upgrading the technical infrastructure
• Consolidation and rationalisation of queue callflows and quantities - to a third of their original size and complexity
• Review and rationalisation of the management structure, roles and responsibilities
• Review, creation and documentation of formal processes for new and existing tasks
• Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery assessment
• Mentoring and on-call advice on a wide variety of CSC related areas

Improvement is a constant Work in Progress

Changes for the better were seen almost immediately – even outsiders commented on the improved energy and attitude of CSC staff. Within weeks, call abandonment rates had halved, recruitment was up, absenteeism was down and the necessary resources were coming onstream. The management team is confident the improvements will continue; the CSC can now proactively drive its own operation, rather than be driven by outside factors..