CRM - June 2008 - (Page 44)

of a limited-time offer or a brochure they should have received, email has been a crucial component in developing a personal and ongoing relationship. “We take them along a journey,” he says, which helps to build trust in both the product and the company. Moreover, since heat pumps are relatively new to the general market, a good portion of Ice Energy’s campaigns focus on consumer education. Hutchinson still singlehandedly manages the system. (“I get someone to check my spelling,” he admits.) JangoMail automates list maintenance and sends out the emails. “It’s just a click of a button,” he says. “We don’t worry about anything from that point onwards.”Now, instead of expending time and resources on database and administrative maintenance, he can focus his attention on the creative. Even as the time spent on campaign management has decreased from four days to two, the end products have improved significantly. The result last December was a true testament to JangoMail’s effectiveness, Hutchinson says. During that time,“people are thinking about Christmas presents—not about spending $20,000 on a heating pump.” In addition, Ice Energy closes for 10 days around the holidays. As a result, sales usually take a significant dip; in 2007, the company was projected to fall 50 percent behind its monthly target. A week before closing, executives took a final stab at stimulating sales. A special promotion, sent only through JangoMail, offered a discount in addition to an upsell. Within the next week, Ice Energy scored 110 percent of its target sales goal for that month—the best outperformance ever achieved to that point. Hutchinson says email made the feat possible: “No other medium can give you that immediate action and reaction.” —Jessica Tsai The Risky Risk Business PGAC assures better—and more effective—service with Upstream Works T the payoff WITH JANGOMAIL’S EMAIL MARKETING SOLUTION, ICE ENERGY WAS ABLE TO: $ reduce the time to create more-effective campaigns from four days to two; increase its contact database by 10 percent each month; generate a 20 percent to 30 percent average response rate per campaign; and hit a record-breaking 110 percent of a monthly sales target in just one week. he contact center is all about solving problems—even more so in the autoinsurance industry: No one who’s had an accident wants to wait to know what’s covered and what needs to be paid out of pocket. Enter Permanent General Assurance Corporation (PGAC), a nonstandard specialty autoinsurance company for high-risk drivers. PGAC operates in 18 states and through multiple distribution channels, and makes a point of using the contact center to land sales. This keeps PGAC’s Nashville and Phoenix contact centers very busy—and saddled with 14 desktop applications, says Allison Garretson, vice president overseeing the customer service group. As the clutter led to longer call times and issues with first-call resolution (FCR), PGAC’s growth drove a search for ease of use: computer-telephony integration (CTI) with screen pop to let agents better navigate the applications and reduce average handle time (AHT). Performance-based agent compensation required analytics to measure customer satisfaction. Garretson says that FCR has never been adequately defined, and that many of the statistics used to measure FCR and customer satisfaction are subjective. “What I’ve seen done elsewhere really relied on agents’ perception of how well they resolved the call, which obviously can be very different from the consumers’ perceptions,” she says, adding that some firms measure FCR based on satisfaction surveys that may be no more objective, having been cherry-picked by reps. After narrowing its choices to three vendors, PGAC decided Ontario-based Upstream Works’ offerings were best aligned with its goals, and opted for two of Upstream Works’ solutions, UpStart Agent Operating Environment (AOE) and UpStart Metrics. Garretson says UpStart AOE not only provided CTI and screen “Sometimes you get pop, but also supported multimedia transactions—calls, emails, and Web chat. UpStart Metrics provides objectivity, thanks to better support and a quantitative model that “uses analytics based on data and interest…from a fact.” She adds,“It takes all subjectivity out of that measurement and allows you to really develop a purely objective FCR rate.” smaller vendor.” While Garretson advises caution with any new integration— especially desktop changes for contact center agents—she says this one was “very smooth.” Concerns that agents would be resistant were also alleviated: They were trained and operational after just two-and-a-half hours. “[Agents] are very pleased with the CTI screen pop because it really streamlines their work and eliminates redundancy of having to ask for policy numbers,” she says. The basic return on investment involved reducing AHT between 15 seconds and 20 seconds—a benchmark exceeded within three months, Garretson says. AHT has now decreased by 22 seconds. Each call is now assigned a disposition code, which Garretson says helps PGAC understand “on a global basis what’s driving our calls and where we have a lot of repeat calls.” This should help improve FCR: So far, 4 percent of callers have been found calling four times or more for a single issue—representing 15 percent of total call volume. Garretson says that knowledge would be lost without the metrics and data provided by the UpStart solutions. Upstream Works’ success—and its relatively tiny size—became a badge of honor. “[It’s] WITH UPSTREAM WORKS’ SOFTWARE, a smaller vendor than some of the other PGAC WAS ABLE TO: guys in the market, but I find someget agents trained in just 2.5 hours; times you get better support and interreduce average call handle time by 22 seconds; and est in how the product meets your recognize that 4 percent of its callers— specific needs from a smaller vendor,” representing 15 percent of total call she explains. “I found this to be very volume—were reaching out four times or more for a single issue. true with them.” —Christopher Musico the payoff $ 44 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | JUNE 2008 www.destinationCRM.com http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - June 2008

CRM - June 2008 Contents Front Office Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Making Mashup Masterpieces Trouble in the Air CRM on Twitter Is SaaS Ready for Its Contact Center Close-up? CRM: In the Public Interest Required Reading Lollipop Loyalty Best Practices Series: CRM & eCommerce eGain NetSuite Infor Longwood Software Vovici The Second Coming of 2.0 Believe the Hype About Hosted Contact Centers All Talk So Hot It’s Cool Linksys Gets Shaken, a Community Is Stirred The Risky Risk Business Awana Hears a SaaS Sermon Secret of My Success Re:Tooling Scouting Report Pint of View

CRM - June 2008

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