Customer Operations Excellence Limited

Telecoms, Media and
Technology

Energy
Utilities

Financial Services
& PE

Retail &
Leisure

Public advice serviceMore

Nationwide - Integration planning for two building societies, covering actions required to integrate retail and contact centres and deliver related merger benefits, while insulating customers from impacts
Retail bank - Reviewed a cost reduction plan impacting head offce and customer service, assessing rationale, ambition of cost saving quantum and risks to revenue line due to changes in customer services. Recommended mitigations
Barclaycard - Reduced cost by designing and delivering a virtual call centre needed to support a 15% headcount reduction, leading a mixed consultant/ client delivery team, and managing issues with stakeholders
Barclays/GHL - Completed integration of Woolwich & Barclays mortgage customer operations, reducing cost. Led team to deliver data conversion, improved processes and new servicing, direct debit and other applications
Clientwise - Delivery of a £2M custom development of opportunity management processes using an agile method and Business Process Management software
Product insurer - Identified alternatives to costly premises move to resolve capacity issue, Reviewed operations to identify major opportunities to improve sales and reduce cost. Presented strategy to board and mobilised management to deliver it
Scottish Equitable - Prepared a potent case for change for board member and advice on creating a ?customer front offce?, enabling investment in replacement of poor customer care operations
Innovation - Acquisition planning for a publicly quoted client to enable it to acquire, under Class 1 procedures, a loss making business and plan delivery of synergies required to turn it around
Public advice service - Review of contact centre operations to identify customer experience and cost improvementopportunities
Major UK bank - De-risking IT design and implementation project delivering mission critical contact centre infrastructure
Macquarie - Diligence for Arqiva refinance ? Assessed execution risk on a massive contract with large failure penalties and assumptions underlying a ?1b Capexplan
Financial Trading Business - Advice on people, transaction and valuation issues created in carving out and moving a business within a complex corporate structure, including General Partnership, LLP and PLC entities
Acquisition of market researcher - Assessed cost reduction plans to leverage increased offshoring and better contact centre processes in data collection and processing operations
Private equity - Validated forecasts for a debt collection business, advising and challenging benefit estimates from the use of outbound telephony calls to ensure they were reasonable
Project Mozart - Take private - deal - Provided advice on commission claw back, FSA mis-selling and other risks within a financial services business, reviewing cost saving opportunities
Mach - Synergy planning to support financing of acquisition and integration of a mobile billing intermediary business
European Cable TV Altnet - Synergy planning across sales, marketing and networks in preparation for final binding offer for other competing Altnet delivering Pay TV, MVNO and fixed telecoms services.
Key player in the music industry - Reviewed previous restructuring actions and a plan to reduce costs, analysing cost base, identifying major risks to base case plan and some upsides
PE House, owner of media service business - Advice and challenge on ?low-balled? synergies. Helped PE House obtain commitment from top management to higher and more reasonable synergy projections
Macquarie - Assessed vendor preparations for the separation of Airwave from O2, assessing issues, e.g. impact on contracts, and standalone costs, and developed separation roadmap for acquiring PE house
Major bank - Market advice to lenders with exposure to network integrator with a cash flow crisis following disastrous implementation of strategy
Major bank - Market advice, lender exposed to insolvent specialist call centre solution provider, following loss of key sales people and market downturn
PE House/Pay TV - Assessed R&D and other cost reduction opportunities within a High Tech solutions provider that developed key solutions for satellite Pay TV companies
Car insurer – Assessment of customer contact operations and management in a “post start-up” telematics insurance company to determine opportunities to increase sales and reduce costs
Japanese Insurance business – Assessment of client plans and provision of advice on how to maximize synergies from customer data between insurance and motoring repair businesses

Contact centre current state assessment

Public advice service

Review of contact centre operations to identify customer experience and cost improvementopportunities

Our client was seeking to identify how to 'digitize' more of its operations to improve customer experience, reduce lead times and improve customer cost performance. As part of input to programme design, our client wanted to understand the 'size of the prize' from addressing customer contact operations

David conducted a short review of customer contact operations, covering process, technology and organization.
Our team.

interviewed staff and management
Undertook side-by-side monitoring of customer service staff
Analysed operational performance and cost data
Assessed and benchmarked unit costs

Our team found three areas for high impact improvement

Control of staff utilization and handling times did not align to leading practice, creating an opportunity for quick wins
The operating model design was high cost, with low spans of control, excess layers of management, premium London labour costs and generous working hours and holidays. This created a transformation opportunity
Limited options for digital self-service, creating opportunities to use automation rather than human resources

Our findings were used to inform decisions in designing a transformation programme

Defined three independent areas for improvement
Operational quick wins - c. 20% cost reduction
Strategic transformational change - c. 40% reduction
Digital self-service - 5-10% reduction