Contact Center Challenges

The challenges faced by the A.B. May contact center team stemmed from the inability to access (and in some cases drill down into) complete contact center data that they needed to illuminate several areas: 

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According to Shellie O’Dell, the Contact Center Manager, 

“. . . Some of the data we had been reporting on I knew in my gut was not perfect.  I couldn't put my finger on it because our old system was limited and not intuitive.”

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Employee Behavior

This behavior covered many aspects of their agents’ schedules, from taking breaks and clocking in at the appropriate time to wrap codes and potential contributing factors leading to lost sales opportunities.  

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Customer Experience

Native Mitel Connect reporting made for an incomplete depiction of customer behavior. For example, it (inaccurately) reported calls that selected the automated return call option as abandoned.

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Departmental Processes 

During higher call volumes, call overflow was originally routed to a different department. They suspected this was inefficient but could not drill down into the calls to validate this assumption. 

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The Solution

O’Dell decided to implement a trial run of Brightmetrics Core Analytics, ECC Analytics, and Real Time Dashboard modules. She was immediately impressed with the amount of accessible data for her team. 

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“Brightmetrics came along, and all of a sudden it was speaking our language, and I was like, “This is what we need.  It was like getting maple syrup out of ShoreTel, and it was just like Niagara Falls coming out of Brightmetrics. It was just wonderful.” 

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O’Dell was able to provide the leadership with concrete evidence that led to a fact-based, data-driven decision-making process. 

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“There was a shift in how the company viewed the call center because I could easily show the detailed data that validates the summary information and trends we could now easily visualize.”

O’Dell installed two real-time dashboards in the contact center. Employees could then see the current queue in real time. She also had her employees run their own weekly reports to self-assess opportunities for improvement. They leveraged cradle-to-grave reporting and studied wrap codes to find patterns. They later  implemented processes that reduced the wasted opportunities from 20–30 to 2–3 per week. O’Dell’s individual coaching and integration of CRM + outbound call reporting resulted in an additional $30,000 in revenue during the first week of implementation. 

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She says: 

“I don’t know if I could’ve done all that in our previous phone system without Brightmetrics. Brightmetrics was like the window into the [phone] system that allowed us to actually see what we were doing.”

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Another significant benefit is the reporting they were able to access regarding the technical setup of their phone system. Some of the initiatives they tested included messages to customers during high call volumes, automated call return options, and implementing IVR systems into their processes. 

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“Brightmetrics let us see the [impact of the changes] we were implementing; it showed us whether or not they were working, which enabled us to adjust and fine-tune based on these data insights.”

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Brightmetrics enabled O’Dell and her leadership to easily access and review the right metrics, and refocus their time and effort to building a distinct family culture in the workplace, refining resources to empower employees and deliver an exceptional customer experience for A.B. May’s customers. 

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“Brightmetrics took away all of the busy work that I was doing and allowed me to focus on the intentional work that I needed to deliver first-class service to our customers.”

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