Vangent, Inc.: Ensuring Return on Service Improvement Efforts

Contact centers, where products are intangible and each customer may have their own requirements, can struggle with applying “traditional” quality and continuous improvement tools.   It may seem like a leap of faith for a service business to consider using methods like ISO 9001, Six Sigma, Lean, and Total Quality Management which have roots in manufacturing. But the transition isn’t as difficult as it may appear. 

Vangent, Inc. recently awarded the Gold Medal for Best Outsourced Contact Center at the Contact Center World Top Ranking Performers Best in Americas Conference, has used Six Sigma and ISO 9001 consistently to improve performance across their organization. 

According to John Iverson, Quality Director at Vangent Inc, “to realize improvements using these methods, contact center organizations like Vangent must first understand unique service performance drivers and then apply each method’s principles to support organizational needs. “

Who Are Your Customers and What Do They Want?

Iverson notes that the first challenge to implement a method to improve quality contact center is to identify each set of stakeholders and the experiences or the results of each tent. Sounds easy, but most services organizations are struggling to both come with a complete list of stakeholders and determine what they want. Lean Six Sigma provides tools that simplify the task seems daunting, as SIPOC (suppliers, inputs, processes, outputs and customers) and Quality Function Deployment (QFD - Quality House alias) diagram.