Contact Solutions showed a revenue growth of almost 50% from 2007 to 2008, and claims to be on target to achieve almost 100% growth in 2009. They are currently running 50 million calls per month and are projecting to be at over a 1 billion annual call rate in the next year. This is in stark contrast to many in the industry that are threading water in the current economic downturn. A key driver of the Contact Solutions’ growth appears to be the priority that they place on continuously improving the performance of the self-service that they are providing. “Sweating-the-small stuff” is what it is all about. Constantly monitoring the performance of the self-service and responding by making improvements that continuously improve the performance of the IVR. It is essentially an on-going closed-loop improvement system. Contact Solutions calls this Continuous Improvement Methodology (CIM). The improvement goals of CIM are:
• Increase IVR containment.
• Decrease agent call length.
• Decrease IVR call length.
The net result is to simultaneously increase customer satisfaction and also save money by increasing the utilization of self-service.
Contact Solutions uses a four-phase approach to setting the CIM goals and then following through to implement and measure the results of changes made to improve performance.
Most importantly, CIM appears to be an integral part of the operating culture at Contact Solutions. Employees are rewarded (financially) on how well they do in meeting their CIM goals. The top management of Contact Solutions has structured a compensation model that motivates employees to focus intensely on improving the performance of the self-service, thereby improving caller satisfaction and saving the call center money. This is a case of “putting-your-money-where-your-mouth-is”. Most outsourcers have similar goals of simultaneously improving caller satisfaction and reducing cost. Contact Solutions appears to be unique in having instituted a corporate culture that truly makes this happen. No excuses for a poor self-service implementation – whatever it takes to make it better.
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