Southwest Indian Foundation – Call Center Services Case Study: Doing Well by Doing Good
For six years, OnBrand24 has played an important function in digest of the Southwest Indian Foundation ’ s double deputation : provide work opportunities for native peoples and raising funds for native american charities and community organizations .
Located near the Four Corners of Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico, SWIF ’ second deputation is to lessen poverty among 350,000 members of the Navajo, Zuni, Hopi, Laguna, Acoma, and Apache tribes. last class, SWIF raised $ 14 million .
OnBrand24 handles inbound calls from SWIF supporters who wish to make donations ampere well as customers of SWIF ’ mho Indian Craft Catalog, an mercantile establishment for jewelry, blankets, invest and gifts made by 4,000 native peoples who live in the Four Corners sphere .
Catalog sales tax income is used to pay the native american artisans who made the items and to help fund SWIF beneficent projects. These include school grants and individual tutelage aid, homes for clobber women and children, home repair and forest stove installation, Christmas food baskets for needy families, substance pervert rede, and emergency aid in the areas of food, clothing, heating fuel, and impermanent tax shelter.
When SWIF, which employs 70 full-time native american staff people, closes its in-house customer service center for the day and weekend – or when customer call volume peaks during the holiday period – OnBrand24 call center services take after-hours and overflow calls. The outsource visit center handles approximately 250,000 calls and transactions per year .
The way those calls are handled is unusual .
“ We ’ ra not just peddling products, ” said William B. McCarthy, Executive Director, SWIF. “ We regard our customers not as buyers but as donors, as people who want to not entirely purchase catalog items but besides help native peoples. So we worked with OnBrand24 on a custom-made call center services program that treats each caller with respect and patience. For us, time is not of the perfume. We want each caller to realize how a lot SWIF appreciates their hold. ”
To support SWIF ‘s customer kinship scheme, OnBrand24 violates some basic visit center services operation principles. Rather than processing the largest sales order in the fastest time, the goal is making each caller feel like a valued supporter of native peoples .
If the caller wants to peruse a image of catalog items, the OnBrand24 agent has been trained to patiently discuss option items while the caller comes to a decision.
If the customer wants to chat about previous catalog orders, previous SWIF donations or visits he or she has made to native american reservations, that ’ s finely besides .
“ OnBrand24 has been very ace at understanding our stigmatize, our culture and our approach to customer and donor relations, ” said McCarthy. “ They have especial people skills, and they systematically provide a warm and welcoming customer service experience. OnBrand24 is the first line of communication for our supporters, so they are in a critically important function. ”
Customizing an inbound customer service course of study that reflects the customer ’ s brand and market strategy is a key cause OnBrand24 clients stay with the call center services company an average of more than five years .
“ We strive to become a direct extension of our client ’ s home sales team, and we ’ ve done that with SWIF, ” said Mark Fichera, CEO of OnBrand24. “ The alone approach we take for SWIF calls best supports their fund-raise objectives. We are gallant of our contribution to SWIF ’ s confirm of native peoples. ”
Another OnBrand24 advantage : scalability.
SWIF visit book varies greatly depending on the time of class. Roughly half of indian Craft Catalog sales happen between October 15 and Christmas, and OnBrand24 scales up SWIF program staff resources accordingly .
In addition, OnBrand24 maximizes SWIF ’ s ROI with its “ time-on-task ” bill structure, in which SWIF only pays for the time agents are on the telephone with SWIF customers. There is no charge for idle time or fresh resources .
McCarthy explained that “ the lone thing we ask OnBrand24 to do fast is answer call calls within three rings and keep hold times to a minimum. They do this very well. I can ’ metric ton imagine running our donor and catalogue operation without them. ”
