Support Center, Inc.

Author: Sue Conger University of Dallas

Presented by: Christopher Murphy

Introduction

• Support Center, Inc (SCI)– Call Center– Employs 190

People– CIO – Bob

Wentworth• Lack of Continuity

Planning

History

• Three Call Centers Come Together• Collection Services

– Somerfield Call Center• 1st Party collections

– Customer Service Representative (CSR) acts as employee of Telecomm company and follows script to collect funds

– Charleston & Associates• Collects 90 day and older accounts• 3rd Party collections

– CSR does not follow a script and can use any legal/ethical method to collect funds

– Telecomm Sales, Inc.• 1st Party collections

– Sold products

Call Center

• 2 Shifts– Day Shift – 140 CSRs working 4 to 8

hours/day– Night Shift – 90 CSRs

Davox

• Davox– Auto Dialer System– Handles daily client campaigns

• Lyricall– Serves up dialogue scripts and

customer info

Outtage

• Several outages have affected the company over last year

• Davox suffers 1-2 day outages about twice a year

• Website outages occur about twice a year (last one lasting a week)

Bottom Line

• Lots of failures• Management thinks a programmer

fixed something, but doesn’t know since programmer is no longer with the company

• Aging Davox with no plans to replace

• No documentation and no backup of Davox or Lyricall

• AS/400 used for everything else– CSRs use dumb terminals

Dillema

• No continuity plan• Company experiences 6-10 days per

year of outage and 1 outage that lasts at least a week– SCI loses customers and suffers fines

from broken SLAs• Estimated loss of $1.1 million every

work day lost– $75,000 loss per call center work hour

Perspective

• CSUCI A&IT– Infrastructure

• Up time– Help Desk

• Services to Students– Utilizing Tools

• Peoplsoft• Track-IT!

– Work Order Management– Inventory Management

Fixing SCI

• Bob Wentworth must determine a prioritization for fixing issues based on the key needs and mission of his organization.

• A continuity plan needs to be developed to allow for timely outage recovery.

Questions

1. What role does a 1st party Customer Service Representative play in collecting funds past due?A. Trick people into paying their clients more money than is owedB. Any role necessary to collect fundsC. Read a script and play the role of an employee of their clientD. Scare the customer into paying past due collections

 2. The Davox provides what service to the company?

A. ERP systemB. Auto Dialer SystemC. Serves up dialogue scripts and customer infoD. None of the above

3. What main focus will Bob have to address initially to help SCI?A. Outsource to IndiaB. Hire more Customer Service RepresentativesC. Buy new serversD. Develop continuity plan

References

• Business Continuity Plan (BCP). 2010. n.d. <http://www.callcentercomics.com/Cartoons/Business-Continuity-Plan.htm>.

• Call Center Culture. 2010. n.d. <http://www.callcentercomics.com/Cartoons/Call-Center-Culture.htm>.

• H, Karin. MBNA Doesnt Really Stand For Anything. 02 Oct. 2008. n.d. <http://www.thekissbusiness.co.uk/2008/10/mbna-doesnt-rea.html>.