Provident Bank Boosts Customer Experience with Echopass

Echopass Corporation, a provider of hosted contact center services to the enterprise market, has announced that the Provident Bank is continuing to see sustained, dramatic customer service improvements since beginning to use Echopass hosted Contact Center On-Demand solutions three years ago.

The bank is now relying on Echopass to cut the average duration of inbound customer service phones calls by 40 percent and reached a first-call resolution rate of 95 percent. The solution continues to help the bank answer customer calls more quickly while also reducing its number of abandoned calls and decreasing customer wait times.

Echopass’ sophisticated agent routing and a unique computer “screen pop” have been driving the improvements. The screen pop displays key customer data to contact center agents instantly as they answer the call.

In addition, the two companies have been working together to identify, create and quickly implement incremental solutions and services that continue to help increase Provident’s agent effectiveness and customer service.

“Since we’ve deployed the Echopass Call Center Service, my agents are happier with the information and efficiency of the system,” said Marcia Blunt, vice president of Remote Banking for The Provident Bank, in a Tuesday statement.

“We have improved sales results and satisfied customers with the added attention they receive; and in the banking industry, those are improvements that translate directly to the bottom line.”

Vincent Deschamps, chief executive officer of Echopass Corporation, said in the statement, “Even in a challenging business environment three years after initially implementing Echopass, The Provident Bank continues to enjoy dramatic improvements. The bank’s previous on-premise, hardware-based contact center was inflexible and couldn’t support improvements.

Our on-demand hosted services continue to make sense for Provident year after year because we help customers maximize flexibility and eliminate risk. The bank pays monthly only for the Echopass services and number of agents using our technology, which we can easily increase or decrease to fit their changing business needs.”

“Customers appreciate that we also integrate with a wide range of applications and technology partners, and manage the entire service end to end. Our essence is about providing outstanding customer service to enable our own customers to provide a great customer experience,” added Deschamps.

The screen pop function was a priority for the bank as it would help to eliminate the need to ask customers tedious, time-consuming questions. Echopass and the Provident Bank worked together to analyze the bank’s call center data to identify the most common information requests to develop a working solution.

“Since we got started with Echopass, as soon as a call comes in, our agents have 95 percent of the customer’s data at their fingertips,” said Jack Novielli, senior vice president for The Provident Bank in the Tuesday statement. Novielli was also founder and chairman of the Fidelity Charter Users Group.

”The screen pop vastly improved the overall call handling and customer experience, and we’ve been able to maintain a high level of customer satisfaction ever since.”

The bank also desired a sophisticated, skills-based routing protocol that would ensure that customers are connected to an agent with the precise expertise necessary to resolve the customer’s concerns.

Operating on the Echopass solution, 90 percent of the Provident Bank’s inbound customer call volume is answered within the first 20 seconds, which is high by industry standards. Call duration has been reduced by 40 percent and the average customer wait time has been cut in half.

On this system, abandoned calls have been reduced down to 2.84 percent and first call resolution remains at a healthy 95 percent. The bank has been able to improve customer service without hiring any additional personnel.

“Agents are able to greet callers by name,” Novielli said. “Also, because data is right in front of the agent as opposed to toggling through multiple screens and cutting-and-pasting information between systems, service personnel are able to address customer issues almost immediately.”

The Provident Bank has done well to recognize the everyday challenges its call center was facing in trying to field calls while also meeting industry and customer expectations in terms of call resolution, answer time, and more.

 

By working with Echopass, the bank is better equipped to deliver higher than expected customer care, helping to improve efficiency, reduce costs and ensure that the customer base is protected as a result of a satisfying experience.