Ventura, Calif.-based Affinity Group is an organization which helps promote the RV market as well as other market segments related to the “outdoor lifestyle.” As per the company website, its mission is “to be a positive, enthusiastic force for growth in the outdoor recreation marketplace.”

“We provide our entire North American audience with the information, insights, and resources necessary to enhance their recreational experiences and follow their dreams,” their website states. “And we help them build the communities that promote and protect their fun and adventurous lifestyles. From RVing to tent camping, from ATV riding to snowmobiling, from boating to motorcycling and anything in between – if there’s a North American enjoying the outdoors there’s an Affinity club, media outlet or event dedicated to that consumer.”

With locations spread throughout the U.S., the growing company consists of four different business units: Affinity Media, Affinity Clubs, Affinity Events and Affinity Ventures.

Recently, Affinity found itself a victim of its own success. As membership began to grow, company management realized that its 80-seat call center in Denver was having a difficult time handling the rising call volume. Call hold times were increasing, abandonment rates were up, and agent performance needed improvement. With their legacy system, the agents had to navigate too many screens per interaction -- they needed a simpler, more “unified” and more intuitive interface. In addition, company management recognized the need for improved scheduling and performance management.

Thus, Affinity turned to Aspect (News - Alert) Software, a leader in call center solutions, to help smooth out its call center operations. Today it is benefiting significantly from the unified desktop capabilities delivered through Aspect Unified IP, as well as the improved workforce management capabilities delivered through Aspect PerformanceEdge. Since adopting Aspect’s solutions, the company’s “80/20” service level goal (80 percent of calls answered in 20 seconds) has increased by 19.25 percent over 2006; call abandonment rates are down by more than 68 percent since 2005; Average handling time is down an average of 30 seconds per call compared with 2006; and, best of all, total revenue is up 6.6 percent over 2006.

According to Aspect, Affinity has been able to boost customer service levels and realize operational efficiencies since upgrading to these advanced new solutions. For example, with Aspect eWorkforce Management, contact center supervisors can now schedule skilled agents for peak periods. This in turn has led to improved call handling, lower call abandonment and higher service levels. As part of the package, Affinity is also using Aspect’s Perform and Empower enhancement packages – Empower giving agents greater control over their schedules, thus improving morale and lowering attrition, and Perform, which gives supervisors greater insight into overall agent performance.

“Before we began to leverage the rich capabilities of Aspect Unified IP, we had extremely high handle times,” said Scott Willey, vice president Affinity Clubs, Customer Relationship Center, in the release. “Agents were receiving calls they were not trained to handle, plus we couldn’t get to all of the calls that were coming in and consequently we had very high abandon rates. Now, we’ve changed the way we train our agents giving them more tools and greater skill sets, and with the skills-based routing available from Aspect Unified IP, we can get the calls to the next available agent with the right skills, resulting in drastically reduced hold times and therefore less abandonment.”

Willey attributed the company’s higher revenue in the past year to the advanced call blending capabilities of Aspect Unified IP. With this flexible and scalable solution, Affinity can  manage incoming calls regarding membership renewals, new member acquisition, change of address information, roadside assistance, and for help in travel planning. In addition it leverages the outbound dialer and voice portal functionality of Aspect Unified IP for member awareness campaigns, sales calls, and to collect credit card information for automatic renewals.

“The blending functionality enables our knowledgeable contact center agents to resolve the call in less time,” Willey said. “As a result, we have cut our call handle time significantly, and we’ve also reduced member call-backs quite a bit because their inquiries are now being routed to agents that have the skills to meet their needs.”

Affinity has also now gained the ability to deliver “just in time” coaching directly to the agent desktop. This can come in the form of screen pops with messages from the manager directing the agent as to how to handle the interaction – or even “whisper coaching”, which enables the supervisor to “whisper” into the agent’s headset and tell them what to do next. This type of personalized, targeted coaching is growing in popularity, because it can be an effective way to get an interaction which has “gone sour” back on track – and to save a customer from defecting. Furthermore, it means you can train your agents on the basics right when they're at their workstations, without having to shuffle them off to a training room.

“Aspect Unified IP is a single source of all-encompassing capabilities, and it is robust enough that I don’t have to add on capabilities constantly," Willey said. “From a technology perspective, one of the best things about Aspect Software is having one vendor for all our contact center needs.”

Aspect Software made news just last week when its PerformanceEdge Group announced that the availability of expanded quality management features through PerformanceEdge. Specifically, Aspect Quality Management 2.8 now includes an add-on module, Customer Measured Quality 2.8, which enables users to email post-interaction web based surveys to customers.

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