Idaho Central Credit Union: A “2019 Best in Class Contact Centre” Runner Up

Anyone working in the contact centre industry knows Customer Contact Week (CCW) to be the end-all, be-all event for customer experience, contact centre and customer care professionals. That’s why we were thrilled to see Calabrio customer Idaho Central Credit Union (ICCU) named runner-up in the “Best in Class Contact Centre, 100-199 seats” category in the 2019 CCW Excellence Awards, recently announced at the event in Las Vegas.

When ICCU—the number-one performing credit union in the U.S. for the last five years according to S&P Global—selected Calabrio in 2018 to power its workforce optimization (WFO) initiative, we were excited. And we’re proud of the work we’ve done together since then to continually improve the interactions Idaho Central’s 340,000 members have with its customer service team. ICCU takes a fresh, unique approach to customer service, and it shows.

Let’s take a look at a few things Idaho Central Credit Union does differently to make it a best-in-class contact centre.

Continuously Improves Contact Centre Agent Engagement and Performance

Unlike typical banking centres, Idaho Central Credit Union places a huge emphasis on empowerment and engagement to inspire better performance from its agents, powering many of their strategies with the help of Calabrio.

For instance:

• ICCU rewards top agents by letting them select their own schedules.
• Agents are empowered to make on-the-spot, real-time decisions—such as giving an overdraft refund without first obtaining manager approval—without being penalized for it on their individual performance scorecards.
• ICCU invites agent representatives from each team to weigh in on important decisions, such as adherence goals, uses of gamification, scheduling policies, new programme rollouts, etc.
• The credit union has constructed a new building to house a state-of-the-art contact centre and IT operations. Designed to be motivational and functional, the new contact centre was intentionally designed around how agents connect with each other—for instance, in addition to break rooms and 1×1 rooms, the space will include a game room and designated “Crock-Pot area.”

These efforts pay off. Idaho Central Credit Union’s 130-agent contact centre team responds to 10,000-12,000 chats and email per month, on top of the 70,000-80,000 calls per month they handle. And more than half of the agents maintain perfect attendance records, to boot!

Always Puts Its Credit Union Members First

Since Idaho Central Credit Union’s main purpose is to help members achieve financial success, it approaches everything it does with an unequivocal, organisational decision-making hierarchy: always put members first.

For instance:

• Contact centre leaders review the credit union’s Net Promoter Score (NPS) on a daily basis; they also review anecdotal feedback—both good and bad—from current and past members. Leaders then take action to make the customer experience better—even if scores are already stellar. That’s one of the main reasons ICCU’s contact centre can maintain a lofty goal of hitting an NPS score of 82 or greater.
• ICCU boasts an Average Speed of Answer (ASA) goal of 15 seconds, but—unlike many other financial institutions—it doesn’t utilise interactive voice response (IVR) systems to make it happen. That’s because ICCU’s CEO wants members to talk to people, not a machine, just as if they had walked into a branch office to speak with someone in person. This stance could put a heavy load on contact centres unprepared for it, but ICCU isn’t one of them: instead, leaders review a Calabrio-powered report every hour to ensure credit union members can reach agents quickly, without needing IVR systems.
• To further ensure a positive customer experience, quality scores represent 50 percent of each agent’s individual performance scorecard. This focus on quality delivers invaluable ROI—leaders frequently hear how members love calling their contact centre because they know their calls will be answered fast, and they’ll speak with a live person.
• ICCU invests in ongoing contact centre team member education, with training topics generated from member feedback and quality observations by contact centre managers. Every team member—including management—is required to complete each training course with a minimum passing score of 100 percent.

As a premier credit union that manages more than $4 billion in assets; maintains a consistent, 20 percent annual growth rate; and has been named the ‘Best Place to Work in Idaho’ for large companies for five years in a row, it’s clear Idaho Central Credit Union knows what it takes to keep its customers and employees happy.

We’re thrilled to be a part of it.

Julianna Thomas

Julianna Thomas, Customer Marketing Specialist, is responsible for creating captivating experiences for Calabrio customers. Julianna works to create engaging content and relationships, and add a little fun to each Calabrio customers’ day. She has been with Calabrio for a little over a year and holds a B.A. in marketing from the University of Minnesota.