1. 1
Copyright 2006. Alvarez & Marsal Business Consulting Services, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Making Your Call Center the Heart of Your Strategy
Call Center Demo & Conference Dallas 2007

2. 22What We Will Review Today
• Aligning Your Call Center With the Brand
• My Personal Journey
• What About SMB Call Centers?
• Wrap Up

3. 3
Copyright 2006. Alvarez & Marsal Business Consulting Services, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Aligning Your Call Center With the Brand

4. 44Is the Inherent Value in Your Call Center Being Harvested?
• Many senior executives still do not view the call center as central
to strategy
– Customers are not viewed as scarce resources so the focus remains
on bottom-line performance or shareholder value
– Pre-conceived (often negative) ideas about call centers in general –
this is a result of lack of information
– Lack of funding/investment
– Call Center managers struggle with properly articulating the
importance of the call center in terms that senior execs understand
• There is a present need for “organizational transparency”
– Opening up the call center to the rest of the organization to provide
visibility

5. 55The Evolution of Call Centers
1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005
1980s
Strategy: Automate service
Tactic: Automated issue tracking
2000-2003
Strategy: Cut costs
Tactic: Call deflection and migration to non-
phone channels (e.g., IVR, online self-service)
1990s
Strategy: Increase agent productivity
Tactic: Knowledge-based tools
2005 and beyond
Strategy: Generate revenue
Tactic: Blending marketing and service
with inbound marketing
Source: Forrester Research

6. 66
Aligning the Call Center With the Brand
“The Call Center’s Impact on Company Brand and Image” by Dr. Jon Anton and Anita Rockwell

7. 77The Impact of Negative Service Delivery
• Shareholder Value
– Anecdotal evidence suggest there is linkage between bad
customer service/call center experience and declining stock price
• Customer Value
– Customers are “literally” sick of poor service experiences
• Brand Equity
– Significantly diluted; unmet customer expectations
• Call Center Profitability
– It costs more to run the center

8. 88The Impact of Repeat Calls on Call Center Profitability
# Calls to
Resolve
% Overall
Calls
# Problems # Calls Offered
1 60% 60,000 60,000
2 20% 20,000 40,000
3 15% 15,000 45,000
4 5% 5,000 20,000
40% 100,000 105,000
Excess Calls/Month 5,000
Cost per Call $5.00
Profitability Impact (per
quarter/per annum)
$525,000/quarter or
$2.1M/annum

9. 99Designing Your Ideal Caller Experience
• To make your call center the “heart” of your strategy infers:
– Creating institutional memory at the point of contact
– Making an emotional connection
– Leveraging each call as a relationship
– Augmenting traditional volume metrics with value metrics
• Defining and mapping the caller experience is central to begin this
journey

10. Develop tactics to close the
expected-vs.-actual gap
(incorporate VOC and
benchmarking)
1a. Review SLAs with hosting vendor
1b. Minimize size of graphics to speed page loads
Determine actual
customer experience
Determine critical customer
touch points
(aka, “Moments of Truth”)
from customer’s viewpoint
“Interest Me”“Interest Me” “Meet My Initial Need”“Meet My Initial Need” “Keep Meeting
My Needs”
“Keep Meeting
My Needs”
Develop reward & recognition
for achieving or exceeding
expected customer experience
Develop appropriate set of rewards and recognition5
4
3
2
1
1a. Website available = x%
1b. Website satisfaction = y
2. Recognition factor = z
1a. Website available
> 99.99%
1b. Website satisfaction
> 4.5
2. Recognition factor > x
1. Marketing web site
2. Advertisements
Customer Experience Design
Document Expected Customer
experience (incorporate VOC
and benchmarking)
Sales Fulfillment Service
Process
1. Apply by phone
2. Apply by website
3. Get notification of decision
4. Close financial transaction
1. Account issue raise by phone
or email
2. Complain by web mail
3. Receive solution to complaint
4. Hear about other products
5. Take part in surveys
1a. Average hold time < 2 min
1b. Application time < 10 min
2a. Website available > 99.99%
2b. Application time < 15 min
1a. Average hold time < 2 min
1b. 1st
time resolution > 95%

11. 11
Copyright 2006. Alvarez & Marsal Business Consulting Services, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
My Personal Journey

12. 1212My Personal Journey
• Responsible for early Balanced Scorecard adaptation
– Not very Balanced Scorecard-like at all
– Gone through several iterations
• A lot of attention was focused on our retail call centers by senior
executives but there was a lot of level setting to do
• Outsource call center provider was not aligned to our objectives or
priorities
• Corporate incentive plans and metrics was driving me to drink!
– Line of Business goals/metrics made no friggin’ sense!
– Wanted to choke a bunch of people!

13. 1313My Personal Journey
• Spent significant time setting the right expectations by establishing a
cross-functional team (including the outsourcer) to develop strategy
and the right set of metrics
• Re-worked outsource contract to include pay-for-performance so
that the new priorities would get the right attention
• Opportunities
– Needed the message pushed down to the agent level so that they
started to treat each customer interaction as a “value interaction”
– The change management component was tough on ALL levels

14. 1414What Did the Framework Look Like?
• Practical
– What’s the organization’s competitive strategy? Cost leadership, quality
leadership?
– Invariably, the call center should deliver on the strategic focus so that
the brand is protected/reinforced with callers
• How did the following partners define value in the call center?
– Finance
– Marketing
– Call Center Operations
– Human Resources & Training
• The answers to those questions produced the following……..

15. Strategic
Objectives
• Contact Center ROI
• Cost per Call
• New Products Sold/100
calls
Market
Differentiators
Drivers
Financial Customer Process OrganizationKey
Performance
Indicators
(KPIs)
• CSAT Index (Top 2 Box
• Customer Churn Rate
• # of Net New Customers
• Response Time
• Forecasting Accuracy
• Service Level
• Abandon Call Rate
• Average Handle Time
• Sales per Hour
• Agent Peak Performance
Index
• Employee Satisfaction
Index
• New Hire Speed to
Competency
• Generate revenue
• Manage budget
• Lower cost per call
Financial Customer Process Organization
• Cross-selling/
Solution selling
• Partnering
• Grow targeted customer
segments
• Responsive
• Eliminate bureaucracy
• Reduce errors
• Effective training
• Foster a win-win
environment
• Attract and retain best
associates
Contact Center
Mission
Statement
Vision Core Values
Customer
Service
Brand
Ease of Doing
Business
Quality
Attract/Retain
Best Employees
Strategy Articulation Map

16. 1616What Were the Results?
• My violent streak ended….
• Realized capabilities that our outsourcer could not deliver on
– Internalized email channel
– Internalized chat channel
– Internalized risk mitigation
– Reduced operating expense by 40% in 60 days!
• The organization was more appreciative of voice of the customer
feedback
– Able to capture Call Center profitability and tie back to agent
– Introduced lead generation and marketing programs

17. 17
Copyright 2006. Alvarez & Marsal Business Consulting Services, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
What About SMB Call Centers?

18. 1818Small-to-Medium (SMB) Size Call Centers
• Time, resource constraints and capital are always an issue
• Suffers from similar problems as mid-market and enterprise call
centers
• The Answer – figure out how to do things differently within the
context of your control
– Training & Agent Job Aides
– Review the value of each customer interaction
– Hold monthly cross-functional meetings to review monthly/quarterly
performance
– Work closely with senior execs to define competitive differentiation

19. 19
Copyright 2006. Alvarez & Marsal Business Consulting Services, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Wrap Up

20. 2020Final Thoughts
• Today’s call centers are mission critical assets to organizations
• Aligning the call center with the brand in a cross-functional framework helps
to bring clarity around the call centers focus and starts to reinforce the brand
promise with callers
• Defining and articulating the call center strategy provides a road map that
everyone in the call center organization can rally around
• Open up the call center to the rest of the organization by sharing meaningful
& fact base data on caller perception, product/service issues, and other
relevant issues in order to gain a seat at the executive table

21. 2121Let’s Keep In Touch (I Promise I Won’t Choke You)
Art Hall
Alvarez & Marsal Business Consulting
3399 Peachtree Road, Suite 1900
Atlanta, Georgia 30326
ahall@alvarezandmarsal.com
Direct: 404-260-4152
Mobile: 404-759-9158

22. 22
Copyright 2006. Alvarez & Marsal Business Consulting Services, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Making Your Call Center the Heart of Your Strategy
Call Center Demo & Conference Dallas 2007