Background
In 2016 DPD (UK) was looking to introduce a new supplier to support its customer services teams. It was looking for a partner focused on quality and who could provide a flexibility of workforce that could adapt to the changing requirements of a fast-growing and successful business.
Sensée was chosen because DPD felt it could provide flexibility and quality using its scalable homeworking model. The first engagement began in November 2016, with a requirement to ‘go live’ in February 2017.
Following the initial discovery, and a clear understanding of DPD’s requirements, a team was recruited. Virtual training was devised, and systems & processes put in place to support customer service delivery.
Day One
The Sensée advisers started an 8 day induction training on the 8th February, and took their first consumer calls on Monday the 20th February 2017. Once the team was up and running effectively, and achieving its quality and productivity KPIs, a recruitment plan was put in place to meet the retail peak in October and November. This entailed recruiting new teams from August and increasing weekly hours by over 400% within a 10 week period (850 hours per week to 4,000 by the end of November). This also involved changing the shape of the hours provided to ensure that service level was maintained and in accordance with DPD’s priorities.
In 2018, Sensée began to manage emails, including Investigations and Make it Right queues, which have a greater complexity and higher priority. Working with the DPD Planning Manager, Sensée has also been focused on call handling at specific times of day to ensure that the flexible resourcing model is optimised.
Measuring Performance
DPD manages its suppliers through a balanced scorecard methodology, with 5 specific KPIs around quality, productivity, service level and cost. Sensée averaged 95% against these criteria from June 2019 to March 2020, with consistently high levels of achievement in the following areas:
Sensée came to be seen as a trusted partner that provided insight to DPD in a transparent and honest way. This has supported DPD in its initiatives to improve customer experience and increase efficiency.
Anne-Marie Cunningham (Head of Customer Services, DPD UK) said ‘We are truly delighted with our relationship with Sensée. They are extremely flexible and adaptable to our changing needs, and also proactive in finding better ways of doing things on our consumers behalf.’
Key Partnership Highlights
- Sensée was able to overcome peak demand challenges in 2018, reducing email queues within 3 weeks of being made responsible for them. High productivity and queue management then maintained this level of service.
- While focussing on quality of service, Sensée has been able to deliver the lowest AHT scores across the estate through a focused approach to optimising call control. It achieved an AHT in Q1 2019 of 280 seconds against a 330 second target.
- Sensée has provided DPD with up to 25% extra resource in the form of just-in-time hours in order to cope with unexpected demand challenges. Sensée’s model allows home advisers to quickly sign up to those work hours deemed ‘more unsociable’ should the need arise, through the use of an annualised flex system. This has allowed DPD to move the Sensée resource quickly to problematic queues.
- The Sensée resource planning team has helped improve consumer call queues by working with DPD to analyse patterns and volumes. This led to the introduction of a peak shaving model which allows sites to work together collaboratively for maximum efficiency and takes advantage of the flexibility Sensée offers. Since the introduction, performance against SLAs has increased by 15% across the estate.
- Sens̩e has achieved an overall KPI performance level of 95% for the period July 2019 РMarch 2020, twice hitting the 100 points level. This composite score includes individual performance scores across KPIs for cost, quality, productivity and customer satisfaction measures.