Call Center Application

“...it is slow, causes us to hesitate on the call and the application makes me feel and sound stupid.”

— Rhonda Williams | Call Center Representative

Purpose: The functionality and appearance needed to be redesigned. The application was about 22 years old and had incurred a lot of technical debt that needed to be fixed to decrease operating expense margin (OEM) in the business unit. In addition, to updating the application we also added the functionality of a self interview.

Empathy Map #1

This was one of empathy maps that was created off the expertise of one of our partners.

Empathy Maps #2

This was one of empathy maps that was created off the expertise of one of our partners.

Story Mapping

Since this project was a rework of an existing system I do a basic story map to get the business on the same page.

Process Map

This was a quick process map to make sure every interviewer was on the same page as to their work process.

Desktop Application

This is the inbox and primary screen within an actual desktop application.

Personal Information Page

This design is leveraged in the call center work flow as well as in the self-interview component.

General Information Page

Example of internal page.

Question Sample Page

This was given to the engineers so they could design clear components for repeat usage in the future.

eSignature Implementation

This was the final confirmation page for the user.

Steps to Completion

Worked with our most prominent client to gather information on what the industry was looking for in regards to a self interview product.
Discussed current pain points in the application to update the user experience.
Interviewed the call center representatives that utilize the application in the capacity of an interviewer
Created As-Is and To-Be documentation to help facilitate mindful change in the design.

Challenges Uncovered

Call center staff were changing the color schemes on the screen as the were getting headaches, migraines, and backaches from staring at the screen all day.
The application was hard to train on as there were many parts that would not work in an expected way.
Creating a new venue to get information (self-interview) was leading to some distrusts in states that required a script be filed with them to enable companies to issue life insurance.
Buy in for redesigning a multi-billion dollar application was hesitantly given as it could affect a lot of business partnerships and Service Level Agreements’s (SLA’s) .

Performance Goals

Off load 30% of call volume to the self interview functionality.
Decrease errors for an over the phone call by 6% on an average performing call center representative.
Increase accuracy of interviews via self interview or over the phone by 10%.
Decrease representatives time away from the desk related to headaches or backache by 15%.

How Did we measure up

After a six months of running the call center application and the self interview functionality we have seen a 15% call volume decrease for interviews. The off loading of the call center volume has been stunted slight as we are only sending 4% of our total users the opportunity to take the self interview as opposed to taking the interview over the phone.

We have decreased errors by 5% and we expect this to continue to climb as we alter training to prevent common errors.

The accuracy of the self interviews and by representative reviews have improved 16% which has exceeded expectations.

Lastly, we are seeing a decrease in the time representatives request to be away from their desk based on headaches and back ache issues by 22%. The majority of the representatives are now only taking their scheduled 15 minute breaks and their lunch. This is an improvement of time spent at their desk doing interviews which has added two interviews per representative per day (about 225 more interviews completed).