Agent Desktop and CRM

   

Piercetech designed, integrated, developed and deployed a custom agent workstation for one of the largest banks in the U.S. 

It features a web-based, CTI enabled desktop, integration with disparate legacy back-end banking systems, an integrated Business Process Management capability and a back-office document processing capability. This automates 160 transaction types, works across two geographically dispersed centers, serves approximately 1,300 agents and completes more than 1,000,000 transactions per month.

The bank’s original transaction processing at the workstation was slow and cumbersome. For example, agents had to toggle between various mainframe green screens and had to manually copy/paste account numbers leading to high error rates, elevated amounts of recalls and extended handle times. Agents were also receiving minimal “screen-pop” information, if any, along with the voice call, forcing customers to repeat themselves. Agent training was extensive, long and complicated due to the many and various systems needed to be accessed by the agent and time to full productivity was nearly four months. Customers were dissatisfied, agents were frustrated, management did not have the information needed to correct processes or improve performance and executives were very concerned about the average cost-per-call.

Also, processes for transactions that flowed from the call center to the back office were manual and paper intensive. This included such transactions as new account openings, change of address, CD renewals, fee refunds and others.  Manual processing resulted in longer-than-acceptable turnaround (SLA) times, high error rates, a disproportionately high percentage of re-work and a significant amount of unnecessary customer call backs. Further, the operation and the employees were difficult to manage and optimize due a lack of historical and real time reporting capabilities. There was no easy audit trail for transaction tracking, call backs, and re-work monitoring. The disproportionate amount of time spent by back office staff to complete contact center initiated transactions manually lead to exceptionally high costs.

The client’s customer information is stored on an IBM Mainframe. Any solution had to update that mainframe with new and/or edited information, as well as interact with several mainframe workflow applications. At the same time, a recent acquisition of another retail banking operation was going to expand the bank’s customer base by 1.3 million customers. This necessitated incorporating the acquired bank’s call center into a network configuration with the existing infrastructure. This alone was a major integration concern and also meant that all agents, newly acquired and existing, needed the capability to process transactions from all customers, newly acquired and existing.

To address the client's needs, Piercetech:


  • Integrated its solution with back-end legacy data systems to enabling agents unified access to customer data without the need to: navigate multiple green screens, cut and paste customer information, access other non-mainframe systems.
  • Developed a web-based workstation solution that presents all required customer information for a given transaction into a single, easily navigated user interface. The customer quickly began to call it the 80/20 screen: 80% of the callers' requirements could be transacted from a single, intuitive screen.
  • Incorporated a third-party workflow engine in the workstation application that automates and tracks transactions sent to the mainframe (while assuring that the mainframe data is updated) and the back office.
  • Built a sister application for the back office that enables electronic, equal distribution of the daily workload to employees and enables the employees to perform their transactions on their computer screens instead of on paper.

The Client Experienced These Benefits:


  • Any customers' transactions can be processed by any agent in any center.
  • Account number, monetary, and other field entries are automatically validated, reducing errors.
  • Process control enforcement is maintained via business rules.                                            
  • Transaction errors are automatically re-routed to the appropriate employee.
  • Back-office processing is substantially automated, with related improvements in error reduction and employee productivity.
  • Historical and real time reporting is available to manage and optimize the solution.
  • Call center processing is tightly integrated to overall banking processes.
  • New Account Opening and other multi-step transactions are automated, including steps that were once handled in the back-office.
  • Over 1.3 million customers were successfully converged into the existing customer population.
  • Customer satisfaction was increased by reduced cycle times and improved accuracy.
  • Reduced call volumes via eliminated call backs due to errors and long turnaround times.
  • Fulfillment processing was reduced from 72 hours to 24 hours.                                                                             
  • An ROI of 6 months attributed to:
      
  • Shorter Average Handle Times                                                  
  • More efficient back office processing                                                  
  • Reduced rework                                                  
  • Faster turnaround times