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United Airlines
Contact Center Environment
Business Problem
In 1999, United Airlines underwent a major strategic initiative to
update their Customer Service Center technology. United’s Customer Relations Service
Center, managing all customer inquiries not related to reservation activity, standardized
on the Quintus CallCenterQ Case Management Application. Shortly thereafter, faced
with an FAA rule mandating toll-free assistance to all Customers nationwide, the
company experienced a dramatic increase in customer contact volume. As a result of this
increase in traffic, the call center faced major challenges with system performance,
delayed response times, insufficient reporting data and segregated information silos.
Solution
After working closely with the United Information Technology team, Notions
Systems managed a project that encompassed many different areas of technical expertise.
First, Notions helped United diagnose and resolve system response issues, dramatically
reducing response times from minutes to seconds. Second, reporting performance
concerns were identified. Notions Systems created a secondary reporting database to
significantly streamline data access. Reports that once took several hours, while
impacting production performance, could now be accomplished in minutes. In addition,
the operational need was identified within the center to create a customized web reporting
interface to the CallCenterQ system. Notions developed a scalable, web-based reporting
system based on Crystal Reports technology, allowing United to gather real time and
historical information. From this centralized repository United could quickly gather the
customer and agent information necessary to effectively service customers and make
intelligent business decisions. These reporting tools allowed immediate access to
valuable data from anywhere in the world.
After completing these initial modifications and enhancements, United desired an
integration of the desktop application with a proprietary rewards and fulfillment module
developed internally. This system allowed United to identify high value customers who
may have experienced flight related issues, and proactively generate reward letters &
notifications. Notions worked closely with United, developing an automated process
using the CCQ COM API, Microsoft Word API, and Visual Basic to process data feeds
coming from the rewards system into the highly customized CallCenterQ application.
This integration allowed the CallCenterQ application to automatically generate the
necessary letters of apology and travel vouchers, queuing them for final printing and
mailing. With this development, Notions enabled United to seamlessly capture detailed
customer information and rewards activity in one centralized system, saving time and
improving customer service.
After completing the initial design and customization work, Notions assisted United in
training internal resources in the deployment of the system to other Customer Care
Centers across the globe. Following the joint deployment of several localized versions of
the system in Mexico, London and France, Notions seamlessly transitioned the project in
late 2001 to internal United technical resources for ongoing production support and
maintenance.
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