24/7 Customer.com: The COPC Advantage

24/7 Customer is a new-generation professionals-backed contact center service
providing company, with corporate headquarters in Los Gatos, California, US and
operations in Bangalore. It is the first and the only Customer Operations
Performance Center (COPC) 2000(R) certified contact center so far in India. The
company had achieved the ISO-9002 certification earlier.

24/7 Customer’s client base is spread across domains such as
telecommunications, financial services, PC manufacturing, hospitality, and
technology. It provides multiple services such as inbound customer service,
outbound telemarketing and e-mail/Web based support. 24/7 Customer runs 12 live
programs, with over 4 million live phone contacts handled in 2001. The company
took less than six months to complete 1,000,000 voice calls in December. The
company’s e-relationship officers (eROs) work in teams dedicated to a single
customer’s business.

The
most crucial success factor for any CRM services organization is to consistently
achieve higher levels of quality in customer interactions. 24/7 Customer says
that the COPC-2000 standard has provided it an excellent framework to understand
and improve business performance for its contact center operations. 24/7
Customer has been COPC certified for its inbound e-mail, inbound voice services
and outbound telemarketing services.

Step-by-step Quality

24/7 Customer had been quick to realize that the only way to grow in the
contact center business in the long run is to constantly improve processes and
keep on achieving higher levels of quality. And the COPC certification–the
best quality recognition in the contact center industry–has been a significant
milestone for 24/7.

The company had embarked upon the quality journey quite early. The first
milestone came by achieving the ISP 9000 certification in as early as December
2000, when a large part of the industry was still trying to figure out the
dynamics of this business.

The next logical step was to go for the COPC certification. COPC 2000 is the
only standard recognized as specific to the contact center industry and measures
not just processes but the end results in terms of user satisfaction as well. In
December 2001, about a year after 24/7 Customer got its first quality stamp, it
was awarded the COPC certification, again a first in the industry. It is worth
mentioning that the company secured the highest rating achieved by any company
in the world in Baseline Assessment under Release 3.1 of the COPC-2000 standard.

24/7 Customer is now implementing Six Sigma and aims at getting the
prestigious Malcom Balridge Award, the ultimate in quality across all industries
by December 2003.

Operations and Performance

One of the programs initiated at 24/7 Customer to ensure quality in service
delivery is based on the PDCA approach created by Dr Deming.

If at any point of time a variance is observed between the expected and
delivered levels of performance, the process is put under scrutiny and causes
are identified.

Once
a cause is identified, a plan is developed, appropriate quality tools are
identified, and the process is then observed in isolation to check the
effectiveness of the plan.

If the results observed are in line with the expectations the processes is
then standardized, and if any variance is noticed the plan is then revisited.

The same process is repeated until the process deliverables are in line with
the expectations. The process is then standardized.

All performance matrices are revisited on an ongoing basis and new
performance levels are identified.

24/7 Customer uses the following approach to formally audit all key
customer-related processes (KCRP):

• Fortnightly review of COPC progress with the quality team

• Quarterly audit by ISO internal auditors of the key
  customer-related processes (KCRPs)

• Annual audit by ISO external auditors of the KCRP

• Six-monthly audit by COPC registered coordinators

• Annual audit by the COPC team

The deficiencies are recorded as non-conformance during the
audit and the mandate is to close all the actionable of the audit report to
overcome all non-conformances within seven days time in case of an internal
audit and in the time frame mentioned by the authority in case of an external
audit.

Importance
of COPC

COPC is user driven and practitioner based–it is very responsive to the needs
of the industry as the COPC Standard was created for customer contact centers

The standard is primarily focused on ensuring that customer
contact centers have the processes, methods, and approaches in place to achieve
high levels of performance. Performance means:

• Service–Ability to consistently achieve service levels
  for phone calls and on-time for non-phone transactions

• Quality–Doing things correctly e.g., giving the correct
  answers

• Cost–Doing things efficiently

COPC has industry experts to do in-depth audits–COPC has
done more operational audits of CSPs in more countries than any other company in
the world

• COPC provides the best industry benchmark data

• COPC focuses more on getting better than getting
  certified

Implement COPC to...

• Enhance quality

• Improve service

• Reduce costs

• Heighten customer satisfaction

•  Increase profitability

The COPC standard demands each and every employee in the
organization to be involved in the implementation of the standard. From the top
management to the lowest level, all are involved and focused on incorporating
the COPC framework in each of their responsibilities.

Hariharan TS, vice-president, (quality and operations), 24/7
Customer.com