Call center software greatly exceeds anticipated ROI

"Wayferry helped Profil Institute find the best product match for a critical business need, and the results wildly exceeded expectations. If you are evaluating any system, put the power of Wayferry’s analysis behind the process. Actual productivity increased over 100% on Day One of product launch, and 300% by the end of the first month.

Wayferry’s responsiveness to each pain point of the status quo combined with an understanding of customer vision were added value that helped our product launch soar."

Denon Alderson, MBA, CCRPScreening & Subject Recruitment Manager at Profil Institute for Clinical Research, INC.

Profil had an urgent need to improve their call center processes for recruiting clinical trial subjects. Because this is not a service like sales or tech support, Profil's call center requirements were not typical. Although not regulated by the FDA, Profil sought to follow FDA protocols because their customers were FDA regulated.

Denon Alderson, head of Recruitment at Profil, told us at the start of the project that call center performance was all about metrics. She wanted a minimum 20% improvement in her metrics and hoped for a 50% improvement, although she felt that might be a bit optimistic.

Defining requirements & creating user buy-in

After the initial meetings to define project scope and get an overview of the needs, Wayferry identified multiple call center products. Looking at these products, we used the technique of reverse engineering software features back into requirements to create a comprehensive requirements list, including those Profil didn't know they needed. 

Wayferry then met with the business process owners and users who weighted (prioritized) the requirements. For each requirement, we captured who wanted it, why they wanted it, and how important it was to them. User buy-in was created when users saw their names written on requirements, and they became personally invested in the success of the project.

Software Selection

The evaluation started with due diligence to eliminate unsuitable, too risky, or too small vendors. Next, those products that didn't meet core showstopper requirements were excluded, which quickly reduced the product list to a manageable number. Those remaining were evaluated, the gap analysis performed, and the products were ranked by fit score. (The fit score is a single number that measures how well that product meets the weighted requirements.) The software product that most closely matched Profil's particular requirements was inContact, a VoIP based call center. Defining and weighting requirements, running the RFP, and selecting the software took two months.

Implementation & outcome

Teams from Profil and inContact spent another two months implementing the call center software. About a month after going live, we reached out to Denon to ask her how the new software was performing. With a huge smile on her face, she said that her metrics showed a 300% improvement, six times better than what she was hoping. The increased efficiency meant that Profil could expand its clinical trial volunteer recruitment operations considerably without needing to hire extra employees.

Conclusion

Profil Institute hit the "ROI jackpot" – Where the match between the product and client requirements is so good that the ROI exceeded expectations. The success of this project is a testimony to how well the Wayferry selection process works. (Note: Since this case study was published, Profil has changed its name to ProSciento.)