Call center gets a healthy fix
Call center gets a healthy fix
Life Fitness, a Brunswick company, designs and manufactures a full line of fitness equipment. Its cardiovascular and strength training products, including the Lifecycle exercise bike, are used in health, fitness, and wellness facilities, as well as in homes, worldwide. The company distributes its equipment in more than 120 countries. Life Fitness' worldwide distribution network includes dealers, subsidiaries, distributors, and third-party service companies.
The company's call center was swamped with work, and customers often had to be placed on hold for lengthy periods of time. Said Pete Leonard, operations manager, "We were bringing on new dealers every month. They were buying parts, checking order status, and asking questions, and we didn't have the people to handle the phone calls or the space to add more people."
"We wanted to give our customers the ability to order replacement parts online, check the status of their orders, inquire on inventory availability, obtain partner-specific pricing, and review customer service reports 24 hours a day - without having to make a phone call," said Leonard.
Implementation of Click Commerce from Click Interactive began in November 1998, and the first online order was accepted in March 1999. "The project went smoothly," says Leonard. "Click Interactive implemented some new technology that allows customers to click on a particular part of a product drawing to receive price and availability information about that part. Additionally, customers are guaranteed to get the latest part. This system automatically checks to see whether the part has been superseded by a more recent revision."
Today, any Life Fitness dealer with Internet-connectivity can access the extranet in a secure environment. Online orders are increasing and reached almost $300,000 in August 1999. To further reduce the call center load, the company's goal is to receive 200 online orders daily by March 2000, which will eliminate a total of 600 to 1,000 incoming phone calls.
"Customers have real-time information about part availability, price, and the status of their orders," says Vince Hebein, product manager. "We can route the order to the distribution point closest to the customer to ensure that we meet our customer's expectation through our worldwide distribution network."
Life Fitness has significantly reduced its support costs. Its 800 number now costs 20% less. Revenue driven from online ordering has increased to $300,000 per month via the extranet. Placing product manuals online, where they are easily retrieved, has reduced printing and storage costs by $31,000 per year, and this saving is predicted to increase annually.
Life Fitness has reduced its costs and gained additional benefits in other ways. Support personnel, who now receive fewer routine phone calls, are spending time calling customers about "parts in the field" _ that is, parts that have been shipped to customers and not yet returned or paid for. They can monitor warranty expense claims, which average $100,000 per month, track customer activities on a one-to-one basis, and provide solutions more proactively.
In the future, Life Fitness customers will be able to register their products online, instead of completing warranty cards to order replacement parts covered under the warranty agreement. The company plans to equip field service technicians with wireless extranet connections, which will help to increase productivity and further differentiate Life Fitness from its competition. The technicians will have the capability to open and close work orders at a customer's location and immediately receive a customer's signature -- all electronically.
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