Call Center Decreased Wait Time By 54% And Saves $200K With Kure
PROJECT SUMMARY
The organization faced a growing challenge in its bustling call center: long wait times, abandoned calls, and declining customer satisfaction, with some customers waiting as long as 5 minutes to reach an agent.
They turned to Kure, an AI-powered process improvement app, to help guide their team through the project. With Kure's offering helpful suggestions, real-time data analysis, and actionable examples, they reduced call center wait times by 54%.
The Problem
For any customer service operation, the call center is the front line. If something goes wrong there, customers notice it immediately. This particular call center was struggling with long wait times, frequent call abandonments, and low customer satisfaction rates. With an average hold time of 3.3 minutes, frustrated customers were hanging up before they even got the chance to speak with an agent.
It wasn’t just a minor problem; it was impacting both the customer experience and the business’s bottom line. Dropped calls meant missed opportunities to help customers, which could hurt the company’s reputation. The call center set a clear goal: reduce the average wait time to under 2 minutes. Achieving this would not only boost customer satisfaction but also significantly lower the number of dropped calls, which could help the team better manage their workload.
To tackle the issue, a skilled team was formed, led by a project leader with process improvement expertise learned from GLSS Green Belt Training & Certification. The team was also equipped with Kure, an AI-powered process improvement app. Kure’s data-driven insights, built on the DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) methodology, provided the roadmap they needed to identify the root cause of the delays and implement solutions.
The Root Causes
As the team dug deeper into the call center’s operations, they discovered that the real problem was with their call-routing system. The current system didn’t efficiently match callers to the agents who could best assist them. Instead, it sent calls into a queue, causing unnecessary delays. Customers often ended up bouncing between agents, leading to frustration and longer hold times.
With this insight, the team knew they needed a smarter, more efficient way to route calls. Thanks to Kure’s AI guidance, they were able to pinpoint the issue quickly and focus on improving the routing process.
The Solutions
With Kure’s step-by-step AI-driven suggestions, the team set out to implement a new intelligent call-routing system. This system was designed to automatically direct calls to the most appropriate agent based on both the customer’s needs and the agent’s expertise and availability. Kure provided actionable tools that helped the team implement this solution smoothly and efficiently.
By streamlining the call-routing process, the team was able to handle incoming calls much faster, reducing wait times and ensuring that customers were connected to the right agent on the first try. Kure’s real-time analysis kept the team on track and ensured they were making the best decisions throughout the project.
The Results
The results were nothing short of impressive! Thanks to the new system and Kure’s AI-driven guidance, the call center saw wait times drop by 54%, from 3.3 minutes to just 1.5 minutes. In addition, there was a 3% reduction in unresolved queries after the first contact, which led to 36,000 fewer calls annually.
This boost in efficiency not only improved the customer experience but also freed up valuable resources—saving the organization an estimated $200,000 a year. With fewer calls to handle, the call center staff had more time to focus on delivering even better service, setting the stage for long-term success.
Conclusion
By partnering with Kure and using its AI-powered workflow, the call center was able to achieve results faster than they ever thought possible. Kure’s examples, real-time guidance, and intelligent data analysis helped the team focus on what mattered most — solving the problem and improving the customer experience.
This project didn’t just fix the immediate issues; it transformed the call center’s approach to problem-solving and set the organization up for ongoing success. Thanks to Kure, the team completed their project three times faster than expected and achieved results that will continue to benefit the business for years to come.
*We value our clients’ confidentiality. While we’ve changed their names, the results are real.
