1to1 Magazine Demo

> CUSTOMER SERVICE Redefining the Contact Center Agent Albridge Solutions maximizes its resources a lbridge Solutions considers its contact center as the backbone of its sales, marketing, and all customer relationships. But the company has no traditional customer service agents, no sophisticated IVR system, and no expert outsource partner. What Albridge does have is a staff of 27 Six Sigma–trained service professionals who manage the daily contact between the company and its client base of financial service advisors. This staff handles north of 50 customer contacts a day, and could easily be called CSRs because of their front-line problem resolution capability. But the difference in what Albridge’s service professionals do, and how they do it, has earned the financial service advisor several awards, including the 2008 Best in Class and Call Center Leader of the Year award from IQPC. “We’re not hiring call center reps,” says Alex Sauickie, vice president of client service and support for the enterprise wealth management solution provider. “We want professionals who will make a career with us.” Albridge provides data and customer management services to its clients on a SaaS, or hosted, basis. As an ASP it competes with some huge companies for this business, and Sauickie believes that its success has been fueled by its commitment to service. The contact center professionals—or, as Albridge calls them, “service professionals”—are the heart of this service commitment. “The calls we get are hardly inquiries about a checking account balance,” Sauickie says. “They are more likely about services that affect the balances of thousands of customers.” Besides the unique name, Albridge service professionals (SPs) are different from traditional service reps in many ways. Among them: Experience: Rather than attract college graduates, the company targets professionals who have been in the business for at least five years, and pays them accordingly. Albridge take new hires so seriously that its senior executives each spend about eight hours per week interviewing prospects. Before a new SP is hired he is interviewed by at least10 executives. Travel: SPs are expected to visit clients if a problem needs personal attention, or if the client is hosting a major meeting. Promotion: SPs are frequently promoted throughout the company. Sauickie says many “We’re not hiring call center reps. We want professionals who will make a career with us.” areas of the company are populated with executives who started as SPs. Organization: SPs are aligned with specific accounts and by expertise. The highest-valued accounts have a personal SP assigned to them. However, SPs who develop skills in a specific area, like data security or wealth management, will be called in wherever possible to deal with a problem within their area of expertise. Recognition and Rewards: Cross-sell and upsell efforts merit bonuses, as is the case at other contact centers. The differentiator at Albridge is that bonuses are based mostly on customer satisfaction. An internal quarterly survey measures client satisfaction and tracks details such as response to a particular crisis and problem resolution. Those client satisfaction numbers rose 10 percent in the second quarter of 2008 alone-—the highest yet, according to Sauickie. Sauickie says for the next phase, the company has developed secure client portals for executives to view SP activity and key customer data. More innovations will come from simply listening to clients. “All these awards are great and we’re honored,” he says. “It tells me we’re on the right path and we’re doing the right things for our clients.” > John Gaffney > PERFORMANCE Introducing Enterprise 2.0 Companies are bringing social media tools in house to take the pulse of their organizations. nterprise social software, or Enterprise 2.0, is growing in popularity as a way for organizations to capture and leverage unstructured information from employees. An increasing number of companies are using blogs, online communities, and wikis within the enterprise to help employees learn about new products and share ideas, and for management to understand e employees’ sentiments about the company. Oliver Young, a Web 2.0 and emerging technologies analyst at Forrester Research, says Enterprise 2.0 is the logical next step after intranets and portals. “They’ve been very clunky in the past—very one size fits all,” Young says. “Web 2.0 tools, by contrast, are really more flexible.” The real benefit, Young explains, is that “It’s a great way to be able to gather some of the creativity and ideas of employees and give them an outlet. ” employees are becoming more productive because the tools are connecting employees with information and with each other. However, organizations have a long way to 14 1to1 magazine www.1to1media.com http://www.1to1media.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of 1to1 Magazine Demo

1to1 Magazine Demo Contents 1to1media.com Editor's Note Feedback Putting Care in Patients' Hands Loyalty at Work Redefining the Contact Center Agent Introducing Enterprise 2.0 Cigna Dental Drills for Loyal Customers On the Beat 19 Ways to Succeed Miami Heat Schools Its Staff on Sales and Service Marketing Lends a Helping Hand More Than Meets the Eye Customer Service by Committiee Textron's Business Soars by Tracking Customer Loyalty Resources Contact Center Agent as Trusted Advisor Mastering Global CRM Face to Face with Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D.

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