Customer Escalation System

How do you roll out a new customer-service process worldwide, without disrupting the delivery of customer service?

Our client was a global service provider, supporting medical device installations in hospitals, clinics and medical offices. Customers calling the HotLine Number reached a regional Call Center, where they were responsible for triaging the problem and dispatching field service representatives.

The Call Center’s internal processes were creating bottlenecks, and customers were complaining. Top Management said, “Fix it! But don’t shut down our Call Center!” 

The “fixes” took the form of a new Call Center process called “Customer Escalation”, supported by a more robust, proprietary software application. “Customer Escalation” represented a significant shift in the way the organization operated, affecting Sales and Service groups as well as the Call Center.

Our client had already created a roll-out strategy for the Customer Escalation process and software. Our mandate was to concentrate on getting training to everyone who needed to touch the Customer Escalation process.

Analysis Phase

We collaborated with our client’s Quality and Software Development Teams during this project. Their analyses were thorough and well documented, so we were able to use their Needs Analysis, Audience Analysis, and Task Analysis data during our analysis phase.

However, one issue they had overlooked was the Change Management/Acceptance piece. We collaborated with the client to conduct some additional analysis around this issue.

Design Phase

Our client had a tight timeframe in which to get their globally-dispersed workforce to:

• Accept the new Customer Escalation process
• Understand the big picture of how it worked and who was going to use it
• Learn how to use the new software to accomplish their job-specific role in the process

We designed a blended strategy to accomplish these goals.

• Series of “Virtual Town Meetings”, featuring regional managers, to explain the need and timetable for the Customer Escalation process
• Assorted management communications to support acceptance
• A “Virtual Classroom Learning Events” series to introduce the new software and work through case studies of how it would be used to support real customers. These include:
  • Small Group classroom sessions, hosted by regional departments, to discuss how the Customer Escalation Process would work for Call Center CSRs, Field Service Reps, and Sales Reps
  • A series of Job Aids and Reference Tools on the Customer Escalation process and software

We also worked with our client to establish a “Problem Loop” for learners who were absent during some presentations, did not remember the content of some presentations, of just did not fully understand certain elements of the presentation.

Development Phase

We created all of the materials to support each of the design elements listed above.
We began by creating a Training Database within the proprietary Customer Escalation software, and populating it with “customer data.”  This became the basis for graphics, software simulations, case studies, job aids and reference tools, etc.

For the Virtual Town Meetings, we created presentation materials, scripted interactive exercises, and detailed the learner feedback methodology.

For Small Group classroom sessions, we created instructor guides and slide presentations that detailed how to present, how to conduct interactive skill building exercises, how to assess if the learners had mastered the material, etc.

We wrote and illustrated the Job Aids and Reference Tools as well.

We created a train-the-trainer track for each element in the program, to make sure that all presenters understood the underlying content as well as how to conduct the presentation.

Special Skills/Software

• Human Performance Improvement
• Organizational Development
• Instructional Design
• Software
  • Lotus: Used to create a “training database” to support the training scenarios
  • Customer Escalation (Lotus-based) software
  • Virtual Meeting/Distance Learning software (NetMeeting)
  • Microsoft Word
  • PowerPoint

Our clients were able to roll out their new process on time and on budget.

The roll-out was successful, with good acceptance in the regions.

Call Center Reps quickly grasped the new system, and were confident in using it to assist customers.

Field Service found that, due to the new system, they could respond to customer calls more quickly, and be better prepared to address the customer’s problem when they arrived.

Sales Reps found that, due to the new system, they were better able to track the kinds of problems their customers were calling about. That allowed them to step in more quickly if they saw a potential customer-relations issue brewing. It also gave them additional insights into the types of upgrades or new equipment to propose to their customers.

 

For more information about this project, please contact us.