Case Study: Telecom

Continuously innovating to transform the telecom CX

Often outperforming the client’s own teams, HGS brings significant value to a blue-chip Canadian client through a number of unique, strategic programs

Overview

Over a decade ago, this Canadian telecommunications and media giant turned its focus to transforming its customer experience (CX) and was looking for a partner that was philosophically aligned and could operate as a nimble extension of its overarching customer service strategy. In addition to improving the CX for its bundle of products (cable TV, internet, wireless), this client sought to expand services reach, drive future growth, and increase sales revenue.

Before suggesting any kind of solution, HGS gained a clear understanding of the objectives and translated those objectives into real-time, front-line focus and activities. The objectives were mapped to the agents’ scorecards so that even the newest agents conduct daily transactions with business priorities in mind.

45%improvement in sales per contact revenue protection

105%of target in care CX rates (YTD)

105%of target in care resolution rates (YTD)

Services provided by HGS include:

Cable

Cable activation support and fulfillment
80% of cable customer service
Event-based cable customer service—cable moves and transfers

High speed internet

Customer service
Tier 1 high-speed internet technical support

Wireless

Retail support
Post-paid customer service
Back office support
Consumer technical support
Business technical support

Client background

A telecommunications and media giant with over $15B in revenue strives to provide the best in wireless, residential, and media communication for its customers. Serving as their solutions partner for over 15 years, HGS handles customer support for the client, whose majority of sales and operations is based out of Toronto, Ontario. Today, HGS handles 10 million customer contacts per year for this client.

Business challenge

HGS partnered with this household name to:

Strengthen the CX
Improve productivity and cost structure
Drive future growth opportunities
Maintain industry leading networks
Expand services reach
Deliver end-to-end, differentiated CXs

The client needed a partner that could operate as a nimble extension of its overarching customer service strategy. The requirement was to satisfy inbound and outbound customer inquiries and concerns throughout the customer lifecycle across a broad range of products and services more cost effectively, while improving the CX and driving sales revenue.

The solution

While this client initially engaged with HGS to deliver only a few hundred agents, they grew their business with us thanks to our proven ability to evolve and proactively deliver the customer experience they were envisioning. Often outperforming their captive sites, HGS was able to bring significant value to this client through a number of unique programs such as the following.

Using an Emotional Bank Account

We created Customer Experience Blueprints designed to identify, model, and document best practices when handling inbound customer service calls. The Customer Experience Blueprint uses the concept of the emotional bank account (EBA) from Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People book. This principle requires giving a little before we can ask of someone. The Customer Experience Blueprint addresses the “top of the call” by immediately transferring control from the agent to the customer and requires that our agents make a deposit in the EBA at the very beginning of the interaction.

Prioritizing agent coaching—LEADing the Way

Like most businesses, we found our team leaders and managers had many competing priorities, making constructive coaching a “nice-to-do,” not a “need-to-do” activity. Everything else was more urgent and the existing coaching methodology was inconsistent and ineffective. Our supervisors were struggling with the transition from manager to leader and coach and needed guidance to become effective coaches. We understood that at the foundation of the Customer Experience Blueprint, our leaders needed to be able to coach the agents to deliver to the next level of excellence.

In response, we implemented LEAD (Leadership Enhancement and Development). LEAD focuses on helping the most influential roles in the contact center such as team leaders, operations managers, and lead associates. We help improve the skills of team leaders to help them cultivate more highly skilled agents.

Increasing retention at vulnerable points in the lifecycle

Leveraging HGS’s whole-home service experience, we partnered with the client on a “Moves Concierge” initiative designed to provide customers a dedicated point of contact. The customer’s personal “concierge” would proactively reach out to ensure a smooth transition of all applicable services to the new address. During this highly sensitive point in the customer lifecycle, our client had to give customers reasons not to switch providers, and the Moves Concierge program did just that.

Creating Service Heroes

As a true extension of our client’s brand, HGS executes a Service Heroes program. This program, based on a number of foundational best practices, looks to connect emotionally right from the start of the call. Establishing an emotional connection helps us understand the customer’s needs and accordingly find the best services. Continuing the call, our service heroes strive to take ownership of the customer relationship and resolve all concerns to inspire confidence in our client and their services. We then walk the customer through the value of their existing packages and complementary offerings to evolve the relationship. Using proven techniques and phrases to shape the call, this program has positively affected retention, satisfaction, and revenues.

Helping the client “own” the home

Customer churn decreases with multiple services. Recognizing the client’s interest to “own” the home, HGS devised and piloted a more effective approach in offering smart home monitoring as a natural sales-through-service upsell opportunity.

Results

Since the inception of the program, HGS evolved from pure transaction handling, in which the client directed the business, to acting as a consultative, strategic partner, piloting and incubating new solutions.

The HGS value proposition is demonstrated by the phenomenal growth of this business (over 1000% revenue growth and 650% FTE growth over eight years). The business began with two HGS locations in Canada, but has since grown to eight Canadian locations, plus work at home. Highlights HGS delivers for this program include:

Outperforming the client’s internal centers on repeat call reduction by > 20%
Multiple industry recognitions in the areas of CSAT and first-call resolution (FCR)
Moves Concierge pilot resulted in a reduction of repeat calls from 4 to 1.2, decreased customer churn during customer moves by > 50% and improved SPC from 6% to 10%
Client confidence has led us to become the single outsource provider on a large and critical line of business
HGS’s Customer Experience Blueprint won Gold in the Stevie International Business Awards for Customer Service Department of the Year (2014)

Global locations

USA • UK • Canada • UAE • India • Philippines • Jamaica