Customer Success
CheckFree | Print |

Managing the E-Commerce Revolution One Customer at a Time

ImageHow can a cutting edge financial services company gain a competitive advantage over the competition? How could that same company also improve the morale of its own workforce by rationalizing work schedules. The creative answer for CheckFree – a leader in e-commerce financial services - was provided by the implementation of IEX’s TotalView. Working with CheckFree, IEX is helping CheckFree to achieve both its goals.

Founded in 1981, CheckFree is the leading provider of financial electronic commerce services, software and related products. CheckFree designs, develops and markets services that enable nearly three million consumers to receive and pay bills over the Internet or electronically through a variety of bill aggregation points, including banks, brokerage firms, portals and interactive content sites on the Internet, and personal financial management (PFM) software. CheckFree’s range of services and products are focused on enabling customers to make electronic payments and collections, automate paper-based recurring financial transactions and conduct secure Internet transactions.

Customers who use electronic bill payment systems tend to be technologically astute. They expect efficient service, fast responses and accurate performance. That’s why, when it was time to upgrade their call center workforce management software, CheckFree deployed IEX’s TotalView® Workforce Management. By implementing today’s most advanced and comprehensive workforce management system, the Company has kept itself on the frontier of high-tech customer support.

Up and Running

CheckFree faces a very unique set of customer support challenges. From its three Customer Care Centers in Columbus, OH; Aurora, IL; and Phoenix, AZ, the Company ensures that more than 13 million payments per month are processed accurately and on time. The centers receive an average of 175,000 inbound calls monthly and operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

CheckFree Customer Care primarily supports CheckFree’s electronic billing and payment (EBP) services and CheckFree E-BillSM, the Company’s innovative Web-based billing system. Inbound calls range from customers inquiring about a particular electronic payment, to merchants who use CheckFree’s systems to collect and process payments, and some legacy system support.

To support this complex and very diverse selection of e-commerce services, CheckFree maintains a large, specialized and highly skilled staff of approximately 350 associates. The Company previously used a spreadsheet program to evaluate and manage its Customer Care workforce. As the volume and complexity of its support offerings increased, the Company saw the need for a more specialized, comprehensive workforce management solution.

That’s when CheckFree called IEX.

A Total Solution

According to Jason Hogan, senior manager for resource allocation with CheckFree, the company faces strong competition for talented customer service associates. In order to optimize this valuable resource, CheckFree sought the most productive workforce management system available.

"It really came down to a question of size and efficiency," Hogan explains. "We needed a system we could deploy to manage a complex and growing workforce, and TotalView from IEX fit that bill."

TotalView Workforce Management from IEX provides a proven, flexible call center solution. TotalView gives customer support managers the ability to monitor, forecast, schedule and administer every aspect of a busy, multi-site call center operation, including long-range analysis and intraday adjustments.

TotalView accepts data from all major automatic call distributors and imports and evaluates existing historical information. The system is easy to learn and use, and provides a familiar, Windows-based user interface. Managers can review data sorted by customer representative, by work group category, by call center location, or by other classifications.

CheckFree utilizes virtually the entire suite of TotalView Workforce Management tools, including Real-Time Adherence, Historical Adherence, ScheduleViewer, Personnel Planner and the Vacation and Holiday Planner. TotalView’s powerful Real-Time and Historical Adherence features let management set fair, realistic workday objectives and present those goals in the context of a positive incentive program.

According to Hogan, TotalView has measurably improved CheckFree’s ability to monitor and manage its high-tech workforce. TotalView allows CheckFree to take the guesswork out of its operation and work in a "virtual" call center atmosphere. Workers are scheduled and call volumes directed for all three Customer Care centers, instead of individually.

Now, managers take a more rational, information-driven approach to all aspects of personnel scheduling. In particular Hogan noted, "We have seen substantial improvements in forecasting our peak call volumes and planning our workforce accordingly. That alone has had a positive impact on the level of service we are providing to our customers."

The system was implemented in a phased basis, with IEX providing a sequence of training sessions and ongoing help desk technical support. Hogan credits IEX’s own customer support staff with providing fast, responsive answers to any and all questions about the TotalView system.

The relationship between CheckFree and IEX TotalView has taken a commitment to customer service to the next level. And, implementing forerunning initiatives like these keeps CheckFree in the leadership position in a rapidly changing electronic billing and payment marketplace.

For more information about CheckFree, please visit their website .