Property business

Designing an operating model to consolidate three contact centres and reduce costs by over 50%

Our client was implementing a new housing and CRM solution. Its three call centres were operating on different processes, different cost structures, while delivering variable quality in customer experience. There was a clear case to deliver cost and customer experience benefits from consolidation into a single centre of excellence.The team provided advice to help move the client from concept to delivery

Specialist support was provided in three tranches

• A current state assessment to assess benefits, provide a high level design and inform location decisions
• Customer and end-to-end process mapping in the three regions to inform To Be design and assess change impact
• Implementation strategy and planning

Using Our Contact Centre Diagnostic, our team visited each centre, interviewing staff and management, undertook side-by-side call monitoring and obtained data for later analysis. From assessment of the qualitative and quantitative data we made recommendation on target operating model and location.

Next we assessed the degree of change required to harmonize processes across the tree regions. Over three weeks, our team captured the As Is contact processes in executed in each centre. This identified the changes required. As these changes impacted other functions, such as arrears, a second set of workshops was held on the end-to-end processes, with key process owners and stakeholders. This landed decisions on the full set of changes required, both within and outside the contact centres, determining the future operating model, business rule changes at a detailed level.

Following completion of design, the challenge was to develop an implementation strategy and plan that allowed execution at acceptable risk, dealing with concerns on how morale would impact performance at the “donating” centres. We provided decision making support, crystallizing and assessing key strategic options across “big bang”, “natural wastage and other options.

• Our work enabled our client to reduce costs by c 40% and deliver a single, consistent customer experience from rationalized operations.
• We provided a best practice design for consolidated contact centre operation, and helped a diverse group of stakeholders coalesce around detailed designs and implementation plans.