How Wells Fargo Leverages Technology to Deliver A+ Service

Learn More About Wells Fargo Treasury Management Client Delivery, Winner of the 2017 ICMI Global Contact Center Award for Best Use of Technology

“Solid planning, project management, quality assurance, and release processes resulted in intended and unintended improvements in the call center and the departments that depend on it.” 

      - 2017 ICMI Global Contact Center Awards Judges

Implementing new contact center technology requires careful planning and strategic thinking. No matter the size of your center, any new rollout will impact both customers and agents. For Wells Fargo Treasury Management Client Delivery, the process was extraordinarily complex. With 39 lines of business and 17 internal sources-of-record, they were on a mission to overhaul their case management, company management, and contact management tool. Their path to transformation began in 2013 when they launched the “ServiceView 2.0 Project” after finding out their vendor would longer support their legacy CRM. The Treasury Management Client Delivery (TMCD) group took this opportunity to reassess needs and evolve to a tool that would ensure a holistic 360-degree view of the customer while supporting a multi-channel strategy, on-site and remote working, dashboards, and analytics.

What challenges did they face along the way, and how did the new implementation benefit customers? Read on to learn more about their award-winning approach to contact center technology.

The Path to Implementation

Based on a strategic roadmap set by Treasury Management Client Delivery (TMCD) leadership, the project team first worked to identify a scope simple enough to implement critical foundational capabilities and also onboarded a small pilot group of actual users to ensure immediate results. The Check Verification team was chosen for this foundational phase, required to build the baseline of the application while defining enough functionality to support this call center’s end-to-end process requirements. The project team selected an Agile project management methodology to allow for fluid adjustments as the internal TMCD technology team, and the vendor began requirements definition.

Although multiple chairside sessions with the users had been held to gather the initial requirements, the Technical and Business Analysts on the team worked in conjunction with a group of cross-functional super users to align and update requirements to the new, streamlined processes. The requirements were translated into workable user stories and loaded into an online tracking system as the technical design continued and development began.

The development effort was parsed into five separate iterations, with a period built in after each to evaluate and adjust the upcoming phases. The first three iterations focused on implementing the base functionality of the CRM and internal interfaces, while the latter two concentrated on specific configurations to match the pilot team’s processes. In the course of the development effort, the selected group of pilot users (Stagecoach Drivers) took on new procedures as part of an organizational change and the impact of incorporating the changes into the build needed to be evaluated. To remain within the planned scope and keep the project on track, the new processes that could be addressed through “out of the box” functionality were included, and additional evaluation and design were deferred to Phase 2. The team tracked development through both the project schedule and VersionOne to ensure all tasks were completed on time. Projects with interface dependencies were also monitored through the schedule and regular status check-ins.

As each stage was completed, the Quality Assurance Team conducted testing to ensure the results were consistent with the corresponding user story. Once all five iterations were complete, the Business Analysts and Stagecoach Drivers also tested the system using scenarios to confirm the process flow could be performed correctly. Performance and load testing were also completed to ensure users did not experience any issues with the new application. The code was then released to the production environment a week before onboarding for final validation and readiness checks.

Throughout the effort, the project team and vendor worked closely with the end user community and trainers to keep them informed. The project team held regular demos as essential features became available for viewing. The vendor team and the Wells Fargo training teams coordinated to provide both a lab setting and videos to increase the user comfort level with the new application. Users received multiple communications, which built excitement for the rollout, while  the team updated online procedures help documents in preparation for the release. Support teams were engaged and trained in case the contact center need additional help in the early stages of the rollout.

“The initial user onboarding took place on a Saturday to capitalize on lower call volumes and a smaller user group, with the remaining users on-boarded the following business day,” says James Able, Business Systems Consulting Manager.” It was an exciting launch day, and the whole team shared breakfast in celebration.”

Business Analysts were onsite to provide hands-on help with the initial calls that came in. Support and technical staff were on standby with regular check-in calls to monitor progress and troubleshoot any issues that arose. The initial week closed successfully with no major issues or concerns.

The primary benchmark for success was the goal of retiring the legacy platform once all users migrated to the new system. Phase 1 confirmed success by demonstrating that all of the pilot users no longer needed the old platform to perform their key check verification process function. Monthly reports showed a decline in call and hold times associated with the new and more efficient process.

Another success? The lack of disruption in services for customers. Furthermore, there were no interruptions for team members while onboarding. During all “go-live” weeks of 2016, there were no red flag alerts, there were no situations that caused internal stress, and not a single Service Level Agreement was missed. The project continues to be on track to have all users off of the legacy platform by the end of 2017.

Challenges Faced, Lessons Learned

This project was highly complex due to the 39 lines of business and 17 internal sources-of-record with which the system needed to interface. This required a multi-year phased effort to prioritize the work required to ensure all lines of business migrated smoothly. There had to be minimal impact to the user and no disruption in customer engagement, so Wells Fargo supported  both the legacy and new application simultaneously throughout the phases. Communications, training and other change management activities had to be managed across all phases to provide prompt and thorough information to all groups impacted by the change.

One particular challenge was the geographical hurdle of having rove 800 users in different physical locations and time zones coast to coast. With the rollout of Phase 2, the goal was that the onboarding experience would be the same for team members in California as it was for team members in Florida. The TMCD Tools team was instrumental in keeping training and implementation cohesive across sites, ensuring that trainers and support representatives were spread evenly through the process. After the large-scale rollouts of the initial phase, Phase 2 releases were completed in smaller user batches over the course of several months. While the paring down of release group size improved retention for team members and overall workload for the implementation teams, leaders agree that even smaller versions could have been helpful if it were possible.

Results to-Date

One day after ServiceView 2.0 went live, the Check Verification team answered 100% of calls in the queue within the Service Level Agreement (SLA), because the application was easy to use and comprehensive training had been provided.

The time required to ramp up the affected employees was minimal. Additionally, the case creation process time was reduced by 30% and the overall processing time by 5 - 10%. The number of steps in the system was reduced by more than 50%. There was a 26% reduction in answer time, as well as 4% reduction in resolution time to get an answer to a customer at a branch (i.e., talk time).

Reduction in “talk time” and “handling time” was not a goal of ServiceView 2.0, as the intention of the program is to assist in deepening relationships with customers, not to shorten our time with them. With these changes, however, the use of talk time has been much more efficient.

“While service officers previously spent the first crucial minutes of a call pulling up a customer’s account information, team members can now focus on the customer and the problem itself right away,” says Able. “Conversations are now centered more around the details as opposed to data, a change our customers have noticed and thanked us for time and time again.”

Paving the Way for Future Success

What’s next for the TMCD team at Wells Fargo?

“The work completed to date is the foundation of an integrated desktop to achieve A+ Service and Support by expanding channels offered to our customers, improving service efficiencies, and supporting TMCD’s engagement center transformation,” says Able. “The roadmap for ServiceView 2.0 includes advanced features such as multi-channel (phone, email, chat) communications with the customer, telephony improvements, Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) technology, mobile access, and integration with other MS products (e.g. Outlook, Word, Excel, Skype for Business).”

In December of 2016, the TMCD team released the ServiceView 2.5 update to the entire team. The update provides even more enhancements and improvements. In total, there were 42 enhancements implemented in the ServiceView 2.5 release, 12 of which were the direct result of feedback from team members who use the tool on a regular basis. Team members continue to be overwhelmingly positive about the program, claiming it makes their days run more smoothly, allows them to complete tasks more effectively, and enables deeper, richer conversations with customers and partners.

The ServiceView project has improved the contact center experience for both employees and customers and has brought a new way of thinking and implementing change to the bank.

Does your team have a success story to share? We’re now accepting applications for the 2018 ICMI Global Contact Center Awards. Find all the details here.