High-Performance Team Consolidates Customer Service Center for Sustained Customer Satisfaction and Cost Reductions

The Situation

This Fortune 100 Company needed to gain synergies and economies of scale by consolidating its 15 independent regional service centers. At the same time, they needed to retain their excellent level of service achieved by providing “local” customized service. Industry-wide customer satisfaction surveys had consistently placed the company at number-one or number-two in every sales and service dimension, a position that could not be jeopardized by the change.

The initial plan for consolidating the centers depended on a technology solution. However, midstream in moving toward implementation, all technology spending was frozen. Executives decided they needed to accomplish their objective with a high-performance people solution instead of a technology solution.

The Solution

CLG worked with the executive team at the strategic level, helping them craft the vision, mission, values, and objectives to guide associates in this new environment. CLG’s implementation road mapping process helped the service center leaders develop a systematic, integrated plan for creating a high performance organization. The roadmap also helped formulate the new roles of service center leaders and the initiatives on which they would focus.

CLG also provided leadership development, including 360° assessments, training, and one-on-one coaching. The leadership development focused on leaders as individuals, as well as development of the teams that ran each center. As a result, each center’s leaders were able to effectively share accountability for results.

The Results

CLG’s intervention resulted in:

• Not only sustained but improved high levels of customer satisfaction
• Reduced order-entry cycle time 35%
• Reduced order-entry cost 30%
• Reduced operating cost 30% in year one, an additional 15% in year two, and an additional 5% in year three
• Increased associate satisfaction 34%
• Sustained high performance, which enabled doubling the control span of leaders
• Expanded the scope of work for service center employees. Total company headcount decreased because work previously done outside the center was absorbed into the center