The Rightshore model adopted for this client consisted of inbound customer service calls directed to Belfast, UK, with email responses and back office adminstration located in Mumbai, India. Firstsource identified the following areas for initial improvement

• Reduction of AHT (Average Handle Time) as a means to achieve service level efficencies, improving customer satisfaction and reducing churn
• Improvements in sales through service (cross-selling and up-selling across a range of the client’s products and services) to improve ARPU

As part of Firstsource’s process excellence culture, new projects are continually being implemented to identify and improve the client’s processes. Other processes currently under review include escalation tracking and reducing the amount of discounts and other customer giveaways (leakage)

Average Handle Time (AHT)

The AHT reduction project was carried out by Firstsource’s Process Excellence team, using Six Sigma methodology. The team undertook a detailed review of AHT to map out the call life cycle - with the aim of reducing AHT to a target of 450 seconds. They broke down the various components of Handle Time and developed the following solution areas:

• Streamlined and reconfigured the call management system to ensure calls are directed to the appropriate agents with the right skills
• A web-based ‘Canned Interaction Page’ allowing agents to use templated information relating to standard customer calls instead of typing notes from scratch. This freed up agents from making time consuming notes, dramatically reducing the After Call Work (ACW) element of Handling Time, which was taking up more than a quarter of total handling time
• Optimised the technology platform to ensure agent availability to take the next incoming call
• A new front-end application was developed to enable agents to search the client’s knowledge management system faster end more efficiently

ARPU - Innovations in Real-Time Marketing

The client’s sales through service platform is called Real-Time Marketing (RTM), which upsells & cross sells across a range of the client’s products & services, emphasising customer service rather than sales. The client’s other customer service providers were achieving 3-4% conversion rates from inbound calls. Based on experience in sales through service gained with other clients, Firstsource was confident that it could improve on the established conversion figure and therefore set itself an ambitious target of 12% for RTM and implemented Six Sigma process improvements which included:

• Creating a dedicated RTM coach to drive performance and initiating RTM training workshops
• Creating a RTM dashboard for performance tracking and identifying trends and opportunities and establishing a governance model
• Proposing an SMS follow up option to drive fulfillment
• Implementing an incentive plan to encourage agent behavior