Claire Johnston

Contact Centre Domestic and Complaints Executive Telstra

Exchange Day Three: Wednesday 31st Oct 2018

9:20 AM Cutting Cycle Times And Improving First Time Issue Resolution By Structuring Service Teams Into Agile ‘Swarms’

At Telstra, Claire champions a first-of-its-kind service model in the contact centre industry spanning across 700 agents situated in Australia,
India and Philippines.
The Situation: A team structure clubbing resources according to their level of expertise/skillsets.
The Challenge: Low service satisfaction and first-time issue resolution; High call transfers;
The Solution: Inspired by IT team structures, Claire grouped agents into ‘swarms’ i.e. grouping agents with mixed technical and service expertise, and deployed automation to empower them with right tools and capabilities.
The Results: Lower cycle times and call transfers/escalations, rapid issue resolution and improved cross-channel customer experiences.
This case study documents the ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ of this transformation, providing insights into results to date and lessons learned form this journey around:

  • Implementing ‘swarms’ i.e. grouping agents with mixed capability sets for rapid resolution of issues ranging across multiple levels of complexity
  • Adopting agile principles to constantly iterate and implement new ways of working
  • Speeding up agent issue resolution through automated diagnostic support
  • Managing change fatigue to ensure project success

Check out the incredible speaker line-up to see who will be joining Claire.

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