Call Center Operation

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Chapter 5

Solution

The company used the universal queue model for cross selling financial

products and found that this call management process provided significant

benefits.

Benefits

The benefits achieved include the following:

 Customer and product information now appear as a “screen pop” on

the agent’s screen as the call arrives.

 Call times have decreased by between 12 and 30 seconds per call,

depending on the type of contact.

 Customer satisfaction ratings and profits have increased.

5.4 Government

Company: Toronto Community Housing

Corporation (TCHC)

Profile

Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) is a municipal gov-

ernment organization that manages 57,500 residential rental units in the

city of Toronto. TCHC sees the key to its success as the ability to operate at

the community level to respond to customer issues quickly and effectively.

Inquiries include housing availability, waiting list status, rent payments,

maintenance requests, and safety concerns, among a variety of other tenant-

related issues.

Challenge

After years of striving for a better operational model, TCHC recognized it

required a community-based approach to service more effectively its diver-

sified client base brought about by the amalgamation of two municipal

housing organizations. TCHC faced the challenge of providing personal-

ized, responsive service from multiple locations at a lower cost, which

required an innovative solution to address the infrastructure requirements,

increase the level of customer service, and provide flexibility for future

change while mitigating the associated costs. In addition, TCHC wanted to

eliminate the numerous phone numbers it currently listed for contacting

the company, thus making it easier for customers to get in touch.

180 5.4 Government

The company has 16 community offices throughout metropolitan Tor-

onto supported by one central response/contact center. The challenge was

getting a call to the “right resource the first time” with minimal effort. A

superior enterprisewide call management solution was needed to provide

seamless information flow regardless of physical location and to provide the

capability to track, report, and analyze all customer interactions.

Solution

TCHC needed a long-term, flexible, and expandable system. It selected the

Apropos Interaction Management Solutions (IMS) to meet its challenges.

With its sophisticated call-handling features, IMS enabled the organization

to manage the following business activities:

 Route calls across Toronto to the best resource using just one phone

number, regardless of whether that resource was located at a central

or remote site.

 Facilitate amalgamation and decentralization to community offices

by reducing negative customer service impacts but without reducing

CSR productivity.

 Change the number of locations and size of the community offices/

contact centers in the future without significant infrastructure costs.

 Provide 24-hour service with live CSRs via a virtual contact center

without the need to operate all 16 community units after hours.

 Manage a centralized system by installing a single point of configura-

tion and administration.

 Gain openness and flexibility by integrating with existing infrastruc-

ture and allowing migration to new systems resulting from amalgam-

ation.

 Gain PBX independence by interfacing with existing PBX and Cen-

trex lines.

 Route calls effectively through an integrated, robust ACD.

 Identify the client through calling line identification (CLID) and

route the call to the appropriate community office based on data in

the corporate client database.

 By identifying callers through CLID, find matches over 70% of the

time, saving staff time and providing the added “security” that staff

are speaking with the correct party.

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Chapter 5

 Through the caller preview function, allow agents to preview caller

information, such as caller name, building, and suite number, prior

to answering; agents know at a glance who, why, how many, and how

long customers are waiting in queue.

 Integrate with the corporate database applications to provide an

application-specific screen-pop of the customer’s data on the legacy

system.

 Determine instantly in the visual queue which building is experienc-

ing an emergency and is calling over the special phone line that deals

specifically with elevator emergencies. Since emergency calls are

taken out of queue and dealt with immediately, agents can speak

“live” with persons who may be trapped inside the elevator and keep

them calm until help arrives.

Benefits

The integration of the Apropos solution has greatly improved customer ser-

vice and productivity at TCHC. The solution has had a positive impact on

TCHC’s services in these specific, main areas:

 The volume of calls is down from 17,500 per month to 15,000 over a

12-month period, mostly because of improved client interactions

resulting in reduced repeat calls.

 Busy signals have been eliminated.

 Average hold times have been reduced by 50% over the last 12

months.

 85% of TCHC tenant callers receive automated, personalized service.

 Rapport with customers has improved.

 Flexibility allows menu options designed to meet the characteristics

of each community.

 Clients need to dial just one phone number to get answers to their

inquiries.

 The centralized database makes it easy to track customer issues, thus

constantly improving service and ensuring a consistent and seamless

flow of information.