Time Warner Revamps Call Center

Time Warner Cable Co.'s antiquated call center was more than a nuisance to its customer-service representatives--it made it impossible for them to field calls from customers with detailed questions about new cable-modem and digital TV services. Call-center reps already had to access six systems to get data on various products or to help customers with billing questions. More services would result in even more systems to access.

That's why Cesar Beltran, VP of IT for the New York company, decided last year that it was time to overhaul the call center. The business had been operating on Sun Sparc 4 and Sparc 5 servers and aging billing and call-center applications from CSG Systems Inc. Beltran knew the infrastructure wouldn't allow effective customer service for the company's 50,000 daily phone calls and 1.2 million subscribers.

Time Warner upgraded its CSG call-center software and Sun servers. It also integrated disparate customer-service applications into CSG's Windows-based customer-service applications--enabling the 400 customer-service representatives to click on an icon to access information on Time Warner Cable's products and services or customer billing records.

"We needed new blood in the call center because we have new products that require new information," Beltran says. "The old terminals and applications didn't have the flexibility to let us integrate new applications easily. The performance was also very slow."

The new system has been live for two months, and the productivity of call-center reps has improved by about 35%, Beltran says. Customer service also has improved because reps can access information quickly. And the reps have better help-desk data so they can answer questions, handle complaints, or troubleshoot problems with callers while on the phone.

Time Warner is conducting a customer survey to get feedback on the new center.

Time Warner Cable hasn't performed a formal return-on-investment analysis of the project, despite its multimillion-dollar price tag. The company had to make the changes, regardless of the cost, Beltran says. "If we wanted to add new products, we had to upgrade the systems."