Case Studies: Retail Energy

Case Study

Retail Energy: Contact Centre QA and Compliance Transformation

In a highly regulated industry, a leading energy retailer faced challenges in optimizing contact center operations to improve efficiency and compliance within their Quality Assurance (QA) processes, amid rising contact volumes and process fragmentation.

The Approach

Using Acquire.AI’s proven framework for assessing and diagnosing areas for improvement, it was identified that automating and scaling QA processes, aiming to audit all call and chat interactions and offer real-time agent coaching was going to drive significant benefits for efficiency and adherence to compliance obligations.

Acquire.AI then recommended solutions from a deep panel of expert partners and supporting the design of the implementation process.

The Challenge

• Manual QA processes were overwhelmed by increasing contact volumes, leading to inadequate sales and compliance validations.
• Limited resources were stretched thin, preventing effective coverage and necessitating costly post-sale rework.
• Fragmented processes contributed to a disjointed customer service experience, impacting satisfaction and loyalty.

Our Solution

1. Data Driven Diagnosis

• Performing analysis over customer-agent interactions by sampling and reviewing all communications across channels using our analytics platform to identify insights for inconsistencies, prolonged resolution times, and areas lacking compliance.
• Through further detailed analytics, we also detected specific areas where agents underperform or fail to meet regulatory standards in their conversations.
• Agents’ interactions were then monitored in real-time, providing immediate insights into their approach, processes, system constraints and customer handling skills.

Areas Identified for Improvement

• The inability to thoroughly audit all interactions meant potential compliance risks and missed sales opportunities were not identified and addressed.
• Configure, Price and Quoting system still required agents to perform manual calculations to ensure customers were provided the correct information before proceeding with a sale.
• The heightening focus on post-submission sales QA led to an increase in post-sale customer issues, requiring additional resources to rectify.

2. Bespoke and Agnostic Approach

• Based on the comprehensive diagnosis, Acquire.AI identified a solution targeting the issue areas.
• Leveraging their network of best-in-class AI providers to select the optimal solution for automated QA, providing holistic insights from customer interaction data and real time agent coaching.

3. Collaborative Implementation Roadmap

• Collaboratively developed a comprehensive business case to seek investment to build the solution and the implementation roadmap outlining key milestones, timelines, and responsibilities.
• The solution was to be implemented in stages with a pilot group first to minimize disruption and ensuring a smooth transition.
• A comprehensive change management strategy was developed to address employee concerns and ensure buy-in from all stakeholders.

Identified Benefits

• 100% coverage: All interactions being assessed for compliance obligations and adherence to sales order process automatically by the AI platform. The platform can automatically monitor customer interactions and flag potential compliance risks, so the business can ensure adherence to relevant regulations. This can effectively minimize the risk of regulatory violations and the accompanying penalties.
• 5% sales conversion lift: QA analysts and supervisors will have the ability to spot and coach conversations where key behaviors are not performed with AI generated prompts by providing scripting recommendations to better manage customer objections, leading to sales conversion rates lifting by 5%, translating to an additional 2,500 households annually.
• 4+ hours saved per week: Using AI-driven coaching plans and scorecards, supervisors save at least 4 hours per week after automating manual parts of the QA process, allowing them to spend more time coaching.

Learn how AI can revolutionize your team’s compliance and regulatory adherence.