Nexidia

Multiple Call Centers, One Customer Experience

By: Jeremy Nedelka
1to1 Weekly
Jun. 08, 2009

http://www.1to1media.com/view.aspx?DocID=31648&m=n&utm_source=1to1%20Weekly&utm_medium=H&utm_campaign=06-08-2009-2718

Considering that all Internet service providers give their customers access to the Internet, rarely is the product the differentiator. Instead, some ISPs focus on price, while others focus on the customer experience. EarthLink, for example, focuses on retaining customers through positive customer service instead of by offering gimmicks to replace customers who churn.

"We believe giving customers world-class support is our competitive differentiator in this marketplace," says Elizabeth Orth, EarthLink's director of customer impact. "If we can exceed expectations, we'll stand out in this commoditized industry."

Until recently EarthLink didn't have a centralized method for tracking and measuring customer satisfaction because it outsources call center operations to multiple partners around the world. Orth says her team had to work within the confines of each partner's quality management system, which is why the company sought a centralized feedback system.

Last year EarthLink implemented technology from Nexidia in all of its partner call centers, which gives Orth a centralized view of the customer experience and real-time feedback from speech analytics. Originally, EarthLink's goals were to reduce handle time while increasing customer satisfaction and first-call resolution. Orth says she also closely monitors escalations, transfers, and any other point in the service process that can negatively impact customers.

"By learning what causes these performance gaps using speech analytics, we've taken the focus off handle time because we realize if customers' issues can be handled on first contact that's more valuable," Orth says.

Along with the reduced costs from streamlining quality assurance, EarthLink can now identify common customer problems and correct how they're handled to improve the customer experience. "In a traditional call center operation, we have to listen to an entire call end-to-end to find a certain type of issue," Orth says. "With speech analytics, I can type in queries like 'credit not received' or 'needs new software' and the system will ID calls with those specific experiences." As a result, Orth increased the amount of calls monitored five-fold.

She uses the same approach to identify training gaps, tracking whether agents are transferring a high number of calls or not resolving enough issues, for example. Since all of EarthLink's partners use the same tool, she can walk through queries with someone in, say, India to find out why a certain gap exists. Call center managers also include portions of calls into agents' training so they can experience real-life scenarios and know what to expect before they get on the phone. "Before when we trained our representatives on a product, like upselling Norton Antivirus software, we wouldn't be able to show them what that sounded like," Orth says. "Now they're much better prepared." Rather than spending months shadowing colleagues, newly hired agents can help customers right away.

In today's economy, any improvement in first-call resolution and other satisfaction drivers is important, especially as EarthLink's market has matured and customer acquisitions have leveled off. "Our number one KPI is customer satisfaction, and we want to exceed customer expectations on every telephone and chat contact," Orth says. "We're focused more than ever on protecting our current subscriber base."

 

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