CALL CENTRE DATA CONSOLIDATION

How many times have you called a company’s customer service line, entered your phone number or ID number, and been asked by the successive staff you deal with to provide the same information all over again? This is a symptom of the situation in which many call centers find themselves: they are operating multiple legacy systems (e.g., one for each of many product lines, another one for warranty repairs, and, in the case of recently merged companies, separate systems by company). Thus, the over-worked customer service representative must manually re-enter data into multiple screens and search through several systems to find the information for the customer on the line (who is waiting, sometimes not very patiently).

Companies would like to consolidate these systems, but fear the cost, delay, and disruption that would ensue. However, there is another solution: integrate the data together and build new functionality on top of the existing systems to simultaneously search through all of them and consolidate the information back onto new screens. VisionMAX has done this for the call centre for a nation-wide retailer.

The customer had an existing system that tracked customer orders, customer comments, and general notes. Information was spread across several screens. This resulted in:

• Long times searching for data when a customer called
• High training costs
• Low productivity
• Frustration
• Customers spending a long time waiting for the customer service representative
• High cost of replacement for the legacy system

VisionMAX used IBM’s WebSphere Host Access Transformation System (HATS) to pick up data from legacy green screens and create new Web browser search and summary result screens.

VisionMAX consolidated information scattered across 60 green screens into four Web browser screens. VisionMAX added several new functions, including the ability to conduct simultaneous searches across various systems (contrast that to the old sequential-search method that was very time-consuming). The work was completed in four months for a fraction of what the cost would have been to replace the legacy systems. It is in use by close to 500 customer service representatives on a 7/24 basis. The measurable cost benefits included:

• Increased productivity
• Reduced training effort
• Increased staff satisfaction
• Increased customer satisfaction