Resolve to Make Your Contact Center More Effective and Efficient in 2014

It’s that time of year again.  You hear about reflection, planning, goals, and resolutions more often than usual.

Gym parking lots are overcrowded, treadmills are a hot commodity, and Facebook timelines are flooded with pictures and statuses about goals and plans for the year ahead.

You’ve probably already thought about your personal resolutions for 2014, but what about resolutions for your contact center?  Perhaps you’re hoping to add new channels, increase CSAT, or improve FCR.

Whatever your goals, ICMI is here to help!  We have big plans this year that include a weekly tweet chat, 250+ articles from industry experts, 16 webinars, and 4 research projects.  We want to equip your contact center with all the resources it needs to succeed, and we want to help take your contact center to the next level. One way to make that happen in 2014: ICMI contact center site certification.

The ICMI Site Certification Program is a comprehensive management approach that employs a mix of specialized tools, cross-industry best practices, assessments, and proven systems that deliver sustained contact center efficiency and effectiveness. This helps participating organizations deliver sustained contact center efficiency and effectiveness over the long term, including real fiscal impact on both top and bottom lines. Comprised of a four-step process, participants first take part in a formal assessment, followed by an improvement and implementation period, then a subsequent audit which finally prepares them for certification.

Through ICMI Site Certification, participating organizations are able to focus on meeting core business objectives, including:

• Improving the financial performance of the contact center
  
• Building and maintaining customer loyalty and lifetime customer value
  
• Standardizing processes and best practice collaboration
  
• Increasing employee engagement and satisfaction
  
• Improving business intelligence and analytics

Last year, CGS completed ICMI’s Site Certification Program and passed with flying colors. CGS provides quality, cost-effective services and technical solutions to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).  They passed ICMI’s initial assessment and were able to be audited and certified immediately. Their accelerated advancement through the rigorous certification program is extremely rare, and validates CGS’s best-in-class contact center and effective customer management strategy.

How have they been so successful?

Kenyon Floyd, CGS Director, Provider Customer Service says they’ve excelled at exceeding customer expectations—in terms of timeliness, quality, and speed of answer. And they’ve also managed to overcome one of the biggest challenges facing many contact centers.

“One of our biggest challenges has been ensuring that we staff the appropriate number of telephone agents to meet the inbound volume without having too many staff on production. One goal is to ensure that the CSA base meets a specific call per hour goal. If there are too many in production, it hinders this metric,” said Floyd.

“Utilizing IEX as our workforce management tool, we are beginning to proactively review the forecast volumes at the half hour interval,” he said. “Doing so daily, has allowed us better insight on pulling staff from production for coaching and training opportunities, while keeping the right number of people in production.”

CGS at a glance

Website: www.cgsmedicare.com

Location(s): Nashville, TN; High Point, NC; Columbia, SC; Des Moines, IA

Hours of operation: DME - 7:00am – 5:00pm Central Standard Time; J15 HH&H 8:00am – 4:00pm (CT),   J15 Part A & B 8:00am – 5:00pm (ET)

Number of agents: 42 DME; 72 J15

Services CGS provides:  CGS Supports both the DME & J15 Provider community for claim denials, provider enrollment applications and assists with education regarding billing of durable medical equipment claims (DME).

Channels center handles:
Telephone, mail, internet, IVR

Contacts handled per day/week/month/or year:
DME - 55,000 monthly CSA calls & 200,000 monthly IVR calls
J15 – 48,000 monthly CSA calls & 45,000 monthly IVR calls.

Interested in joining the ranks of CGS this year?  Learn more about ICMI’s professional and site certification programs and other training offerings.

Here’s to a successful, effective, and efficient 2014!

More Resources

• New ICMI Symposium Course: Managing Customer Contacts with Quality
• Virtual On-Demand Course: Contact Center Agent Training: Connecting with Customers Through Email
• Webinar: Building the Right Customer Experience Team
• Research Report: 
  Customer Experience Management in Action! Insight to Differentiate YOUR Company & Contact Center