IT Success!: Towards a New Model for Information Technology

10.11. Results

All of the business objectives were either met or exceeded. In the resulting two-tier organisation, non-specialist customer service reps at the first point of contact ran at a first-call resolution rate of around 90% (vs the original target of 80%), with the remaining 10% transferred to specialists.

FAQs which previously took up to a week or more to be answered (when they were answered at all) were now being handled in less than 30 seconds, with the full enquiry wrapped up in a minute. Customer satisfaction measured from an independent outside company was 99% within the first month.

Most pharmaceutical companies would already consider it a remarkable achievement to be able to know how many questions were asked each month, regardless of which ones and for which products or therapeutic class. Here we had a company which was able to operate down to the most detailed level, i.e. able to identify how many times a particular question was asked about a particular product in a particular therapeutic class – and by which physician or pharmacist in the company-wide customer database. There was even a screen called the 'Top Ten', which showed over any period of time (day, week, month), the top ten questions asked.

Close-the-loop, weekly cross-functional meetings were held between the contact centre and other departments to review the top questions asked, and identify any trends which would require corrective action from a particular department to eliminate or reduce the occurrence ...