The AAA organization for Western and Central New York receives an average of 6.5 million calls from its members annually. To better link its contact centers with branch offices and accommodate a greater variety of communications avenues--such as email and instant messaging--the organization is integrating a new member service infrastructure, reports William Atkinson at CIO Insight.

The project was conceived back in 2008, when the auto club chapter discovered it could benefit from establishing more efficient ways to communicate with its 850,000 members. The goal was to improve quality management and workforce management while retaining a call center reputation for excellence and remaining cost-effective.

Part of the project entails situating agents with multiple skills at auto repair shops. The agents will be equipped to deal with not just mundane auto needs, but also requests for insurance, travel services and roadside assistance questions.

When call volume spikes--during storms or holidays, for example--traffic can be redirected among call centers and branch offices. "One thing we realized is that, regardless of the channel a member used to approach us, we wanted to be able to get that member to the best associate, whether in one of our brick and mortar locations, or in one of our call centers," said Bob Leach, CIO for AAA Western and Central New York. "However, we realized that we had a major gap between our vision and what our technology could support. Getting the members to the right agents drove a real need to not only know who is available, but also figure out how to route that member to the right person in the right location."

Leach's team decided to deploy workforce optimization technology that integrates with the organization's contact center system. It allows both contact center agents and employees in branch offices to help members with everything from day-to-day auto needs to travel services and insurance. During a call volume spike, non-emergency calls can be rerouted from the call centers to the branches so that the call centers can deal with emergency requests.

"[If we] have a large snowstorm, we may have a lot of calls to the call centers for road service requests, in addition to the regular non-emergency calls," Leach said. "At the same time, the brick-and-mortar facility in the snowstorm area will have few members visiting, because of the snow."

Among other things, the new system reduces average call time by 18 percent.

For more:
- see William Atkinson's article at CIO Insight

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