OpenSpan, Inc., a provider of innovative worker optimization, desktop activity management and automation solutions, today announced that Group O, a leading business process outsourcing provider, has realized significant contact center operational improvements leveraging the OpenSpan desktop automation solution.

Group O provides robust customer care services to support the millions of reward cards that it fulfills annually on behalf of its blue-chip client roster. The center handles more than three million calls annually, with two million handled by a live agent. As part of its continuous improvement process, Group O sought a solution to consolidate contact center applications to streamline work processes for a more efficient customer service experience.

“We realized we needed a way to bridge the disparate systems and enhance the customer experience,” commented Paul Flemr, director of customer care for Group O. “In order to keep our leadership position and better serve our clients and customers, a change was in order.”

Group O researched a variety of automation solutions. Key factors that were considered included improved workforce management methods, improved efficiencies, and improved agent and client satisfaction. Following a comprehensive demonstration and proof of concept of the OpenSpan solutions, Group O selected OpenSpan to move forward with its contact center project, and deployed the solution within a ten-week timeframe.

“The OpenSpan solution provided great options for the front end dashboard display to agents and allowed other applications to run in the background,” said Flemr. “This allowed agents even more focus on the tasks at hand and the customer on the phone, which has improved the overall customer experience.”

The company rolled the solution out one team at a time, paralleling with untrained agents on the use of both the new and old ways of doing business. “The differences in average handle time (AHT) and call presentation accuracy between the trained and untrained agents were striking and the results helped us affirm our choice of OpenSpan,” said Flemr.

Using OpenSpan desktop automation, Group O has realized performance improvements related to AHT, quality and customer satisfaction scores. AHT on calls supported by OpenSpan automations improved by as much as 40%; quality and customer satisfaction scores have increased by close to ten percent in target categories.

“Business process outsourcers like Group O are always seeking ways to differentiate their service and performance,” said Eric Musser, chief executive officer at OpenSpan. “Group O’s approach to improving the agent experience using desktop automation technology has had an almost immediate impact to their contact center operations. Like many of our customers, Group O has the ability to implement desktop automations to specific agent groups in an agile, iterative process, and subsequently deploy best practice automations to across its contact center agent population. The result is a highly refined, higher value customer interaction that positively impacts the customer experience.”

About Group O

Group O is a business process outsourcing provider that helps world-class organizations optimize their operations through strategic marketing, business intelligence, packaging and supply chain solutions.

• The Marketing Solutions group offers a full range of relevant customer and employee rewards, loyalty and incentive program management, full-capacity call center solutions, efficient consumer and trade fulfillment, and direct mail and print optimization services.
• The Business Intelligence group provides IT recruiting and staffing solutions, with an emphasis on big data analytics that help our clients improve their business results.
• The Packaging Solutions group provides an extensive, smart, nationwide network of packaging materials, equipment and service value, in addition to packaging process auditing and consulting services.
• The Supply Chain Solutions group serves industrial, retail and high-tech sectors with serialized, high-velocity and scalable forward and reverse logistics services; as well as strategic sourcing and procurement solutions.

About OpenSpan

OpenSpan provides technology that improves, accelerates and measures software- and data-driven work on the desktop, driving performance in front-office, retail and back-office environments. A Better Way to Manage™ solutions including OpenSpan Desktop Analytics, captures all desktop activity to measure worker performance and work outcomes. Organizations then use OpenSpan’s Better Way to Work™ solutions including OpenSpan Desktop Automation to build and implement user process improvement or process automation solutions across enterprise applications. The OpenSpan solutions require no changes to IT architecture or mission-critical applications, providing rapid development and deployment, agile response to changing business needs, and continuous, iterative improvement. OpenSpan customers include Global 2000 organizations in financial services, insurance and telecom, among other industries. Customers report exponential ROI through increased productivity, improved efficiency and enhanced customer experience. The privately held company is based in Atlanta, GA. For information, visit www.openspan.com.

OpenSpan is a registered trademark, and Better Way to Work, Better Way to Manage, Desktop Automation and Desktop Analytics are trademarks of OpenSpan, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective holders.