Call
Centers - Transportation
Transportation companies are
constantly struggling to balance their high-volume,
logistics-intensive business with the need for efficient
customer service. Operational re-engineering can provide
economies of scale related to increased customer service
representatives' (CSR) productivity and decreased operational
costs. Consider the example of a freight company, with
multiple call centers, that has 7 systems, (4 mainframe-based
and 3 client/server), tasked with finding improvements
in the order entry and customer service functions.
The re-engineering challenge is to consolidate the call
center while preserving the customer intimacy and increasing
overall service levels. Because of high staff turn-over,
the new business processes need to reduce both the initial
training time and time to average competency for new
CSRs.
The existing mainframe systems are solid and highly
functional, so replacing them does not make sense. Leveraging
the existing legacy systems (mainframe and client/server)
and building a customized graphical user interface is
the better option. Consider how these challenges were
overcome by American President Lines, one of the world's
largest transportation and logistics companies.
Case-in-Point: American President Lines
Summary:
American President Lines, Inc. (APL) provides container
transportation services for both dry and refrigerated
shipments in North America, Asia, Europe, Latin America
and the Middle East through an inter-modal system combining
ocean, rail and truck transportation. With annual revenues
in the billions of dollars, APL operates three dedicated
ocean terminals located in Los Angeles, Oakland and
Seattle with multiple connections to the company’s
vast stack train network, the largest in North America.
An internal
APL re-engineering report concluded that significant
operational advantages could be obtained by consolidating
the order entry process into one or two locations. The
challenge was to consolidate the call centers while
preserving the customer intimacy and increasing overall
service levels. Because of high staff turn-over, the
new process needed to reduce both the initial training
time and time to average competency for new CSRs.
Integration Challenge
APL's challenge
was to consolidate the complex order entry process behind
a new front-end application in order to improve customer
service and simplify the on-going training cycle.
Results
The new customer
service tracing functionality was designed, constructed
and deployed in approximately 6 months. The booking
function required the same design and development time.
All the Bookings from North America are handled by this
MitemView-based system. Today, APL has service centers
in Denver and Atlanta from which 120 CSRs process over
700 Bookings (orders) per day. The primary business
objective of improving system ease-of-use was achieved
with a measured reduction in training time.
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