The challenge

The complexities of its business left one of the world’s largest manufacturers of computer accessories and hardware struggling to rein in ballooning overhead costs and grappling with a growing backlog of customer inquiries.

It had become increasingly difficult and costly for the business to offer support in multiple time zones, multiple languages, and at various levels. Each product had a different identity and required a unique sales approach, and in some cases a single line of business included various sub-brands and hundreds of products. Too many people were making siloed decisions about various business lines, without a holistic view of how those decisions impacted the brand overall.

In addition, seasonality greatly impacted the business, increasing customer inquiries and causing a backlog during peak seasons. Contact centers couldn’t keep up with demand, resulting in long time-to-resolution and inconsistent customer experiences. The brand wanted to elevate its customer experience and sought an experienced partner to help.

Our solution

TTEC started by performing a comprehensive assessment of the client’s business practices, including diving deeply into customer data. It became clear the company needed to shift from a generalist customer service approach to providing more specialized support.

Our data analysis allowed the client to identify and focus on key problem areas, such as its warranty process, and gain insights into how customers interact with the brand. We learned, for instance, that it took customers who wanted to order replacement parts under warranties at least four interactions to resolve their request.

We created a journey map to better understand what customers were experiencing. TTEC then managed the process and implemented improvements, including:

• Consolidating warranty validation steps
• Updating outdated warranty processes
• Restructuring back-office organizational hierarchy
• Automating certain tasks to increase efficiencies
• Developing robust analytics and reporting for each stage of the process to control and evaluate results

This helped the brand reduce product replacement cost, future product failures, wait times, and backlogs – improving experiences for customers and associates alike. TTEC offered the lowest cost per contact, as well as value add when it came to the brand and products to proactively influence future products.

The results

Our work helped to decrease unnecessary product replacements and warranty-related fraud, which resulted in major savings for the company. The number of replacement products sent to customers dropped, saving the company $3.5 million a year. More importantly, our product defect root cause analysis helped the brand enhance future products and failure rates.

Customer and associate experience also improved. Initiating a more streamlined approach to customer support reduced the company’s backlog of customer inquiries, and issues are now resolved within an average of just two interactions (a 50% drop). Hold times also decreased with a mix of automation and an easier customer journey.

Escalations decreased 62%, from an average of 26 per month to 10. Said the company’s CEO: “I thought my email was broken because I wasn’t getting escalations,” thanks to TTEC’s work.