The Need: Our affiliate provides the means to receive and respond to taxpayer telephone requests for all printed IRS forms and publications used by the public to comply with tax filing requirements and obligations.

The Project and Results: The project plan for starting up call-taking activities by our affiliate required that 100% of the incoming call volume be completed by June 1, 2005.  This was a transition of calls from a government work force to our affiliate’s workforce. Our affiliate developed its staffing plan through ramp-up at a rate equal to the anticipated call volume provided by the IRS.  The Program Manager maintained daily communication with the IRS to ensure that the assumed needs for customer service representatives’ coverage were consistent with the actual needs as they developed. Our affiliate uses a customized Inventory Distribution System used by both the call takers for inventory status and ordering of products and the IRS for order fulfillment.

By utilizing a virtual agent workforce/call center versus a brick and mortar facility, the IRS has achieved monumental improvements in customer service, appropriate staffing against actual volumes, and contingency resources in the event of unexpected surges resulting from emergencies and or emerging policies that impact the volume of calls into the Forms and Publications toll free line. This contract has received recognition for the innovative approach for employing individuals with disabilities that need or strongly prefer home-based work and received a federal award for Innovative Business Model.

The transitioning of this work to our affiliate allowed for the IRS to better utilize existing internal resources focused on meeting more complex inquiries for the public as it relates to tax concerns.

Today, this Virtual Call Center employs 75 year round and 300 seasonal customer services representatives, during peak volume period of January through April.  These customer services representatives are scattered across the Country working from home in 42 States.

The Need: All incoming calls in the DLA call center in Battlecreek, MI were received by Federal DLA employees who were spending time answering the questions posed by their callers. Due to the nature of some calls, where extensive research and inquiry was required to answer a customer's request, many call center agents were tied up with one phone call for long periods of time. The result was many incoming calls were experiencing long hold times resulting in hang ups. The Abandon call rate was unacceptable causing a high level of customer dissatisfaction. DLA staff members devised a plan to divide the call center operators into 3 experience levels based on the nature of the call. DLA partnered with one of our affiliates to handle the level I service call.

The Project and Results:  Our affiliates' customer service representatives fill the role of onsite level 1 service operators. They trained customer services representatives and were up and running in only 10 days. Their 75 employees have been able to meet and exceed all of the objectives of the DLA. The abandoned call rate has dropped by 80%. Our affiliates' employees have goals to achieve a 0 dropped call rate. The project has been a win-win situation for all parties. The customer is so pleased with the high level performance and customer satisfaction levels that they are in the process of consolidating contact center operations from other DLA locations into the DLA location in Battlecreek, MI and expand the amount of customer service representatives by more than 50%.

The Need: Design and implement a state-of-the-art Call Center operation to manage the PUC’s Customer Choice Hotline. As part of the Call Center operation, our affiliate was asked to develop a literature fulfillment function to provide consumer education material about customer choice. The project required our affiliate’s systems engineers to ensure integration of the PUC’s Customer Account Information (CAI) system.

The Project and Results: Our affiliate was contracted by the Public Utility Commission in 2001 to begin servicing utility customers. A fully functional call center staffed by 75% people with disabilities for direct labor was developed and implemented in 5 months from contract award notice.

CSR’s access and enter customer detail remotely to the State’s server system, capture customer information requests for literature to a local database, and access the web to perform research and provide information to the customer.
Our affiliate partnered with the PUC to develop an intensive training curriculum that was delivered CSR training in two components. The first is a generic component covering the overall topics of computer literacy and customer service. The second phase of training is job specific and presents those policies, procedures, resources, software applications (CSS/CAI), and work responsibilities associated with teaching the “best practices” for a PUC Call Center representative.

Our affiliate reached out through its vast network of referring agencies, including the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation (OVR), to identify potential CSRs from their pool of persons with disabilities. They conducted a battery of tests and comprehensive interviews to select its CSR team members.

This call center, located in Center City Philadelphia, provided service to more than 200,000 customers per year seeking payment arrangements with their utility bills, utility information, or emergency assistance when their power will be or has been turned off. Staffed by more than 30 customer services representatives, this call center received more than 22,000 calls per month, and sent out 2,300 pieces of fulfillment literature, during the busy season.

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