Vytra Call Center Reduces Costs by 12% - A Six Sigma Case Study

Vytra Call Center reduced costs by 12% and improved customer service within 90 days of implementing AIM-Activity Information Modeling. Vytra Inc. is a New York HMO with 250,000 customers and 30 basic product lines. They have used Six Sigma since 1997. "Six sigma is a philosophy of doing business with a focus on eliminating defects through fundamental process knowledge. Six sigma methods integrate principles of business, statistics and engineering to achieve tangible results".

Summary

Vytra implemented AIM in its Call Center, reduced its costs by over $500,000 (16%) and improved numerous dimensions of its service quality. They now know the exact cost of each service, product and customer that they use for accurate pricing, profit forecasting and product design. James Karagiorgis, Chief Transformation Officer for Vytra, is responsible for determining the changes that are needed and leading Vytra's teams to achieve change results. Jim is a Six Sigma Master Black Belt. Kerry Edwards is Director of Member Services and responsible for any interaction with members - including inbound calls, correspondence and maintaining strong customer relationships. She is the Six Sigma Project Leader for member loyalty and a Six Sigma Green Belt. How the Improvement Project Started Jim Karagiorgis: "One of the biggest obstacles to implementing Six Sigma is determining the cost of quality, especially when you're trying to determine the costs resulting from not doing something correctly and then re-doing it."

"This is critical to Vytra, because we are a 'customer- intimate' company, providing value-added services rather than being the lowest-cost provider." According to Jim, "Vytra must provide excellent service to keep our customers. We have to balance adding value to customers' experiences with the Six Sigma philosophy of not increasing costs. Under that system, every cost improvement must generate more than enough savings to justify the initial expense." Jim's focus was the "voice of the customer" call center handling of customer inquiries and problems. "Some of the issues that made cost and quality calculations impossible were the result of multiple variations of plans issued under Vytra's basic lines of business. While Vytra has about 30 basic lines, its hundreds of employer clients have created literally hundreds of variations of health benefit programs. The total number of different combinations and permutations is staggering." "Until we implemented AIM, all we could do was derive an average cost per call- about $3.00 each with information from our ACD (Automated Call Director). But there was no way to determine if there were some calls and some customers that were more costly than others, and why, short of doing a (lengthy, disruptive and very expensive) full-blown activity costing process."