Curiosity: The Starting Point for Better Processes
You can’t improve a process until you deeply understand what needs to change. That’s why we’ve spent the past several months asking more — and better — questions of our teams. One such question was highlighted in this article from March.
From a management perspective, we were most curious about one critical challenge: How can we reduce call volume without sacrificing service?
Year after year, call volume kept growing. While we take pride in our high service levels and low average speed to answer, we knew we needed to help people get answers without needing to talk to an agent.
So, we got curious about the questions our callers ask most often.
Listening to Customers Through Their Questions
We analyzed repeat calls coming into our lines. Depending on the season, the same questions surfaced repeatedly:
“Where is my statement?”
“Where is my tax form?”
“Will the fund be paying a distribution this year?”
Once we had our list of common inquiries, the next question naturally followed:
How can we answer these questions before callers reach an agent?
We knew the IVR would be the ideal place to deliver this information, but our professionally recorded messages made updates slow, expensive and inflexible. Not exactly ideal when client needs can change quickly.
Curiosity Leads to Innovation: Enter Text-to-Speech
This roadblock sparked a new question:
Could we use text-to-speech (TTS) instead of recorded voice talent to make our IVR more agile?
Our technology manager began testing options and quickly found a high-quality voice that aligned with our standards. Suddenly, the door opened.
Next, we learned to program messages using TTS — something that, to our pleasant surprise, was far simpler than we expected. We then refined our messaging and built a structure to help us decide when to add a new message.
And that’s when the results started to show.
The Impact: Real, Measurable Improvements
Despite an increase in the number of clients we serve, our call volume decreased by nearly 3.5% in January 2026 compared to January 2025 — primarily due to a single, well-timed IVR message explaining tax form mailing timelines.
Even better:
- Service levels increased by nearly 5%
- Average speed to answer improved by almost 27%
- Call quality rose by more than 3%
All from one pain point…one idea…and a team willing to get curious.
And we’re not done. We’re continuing to explore ways to enhance self-service options, reduce friction for callers and free up our teams to focus on the more complex work that truly requires a human touch.
Your Turn: Start With One Question
Process improvement isn’t optional for us. Chances are, it isn’t optional for you, either.
The good news? You don’t need a massive initiative to start making progress. You just need curiosity!
Start asking questions.
Listen closely to the pain points.
Follow the thread wherever it leads.
You never know which question will open the door to your next breakthrough.